Hooray Ron!  It is very gratifying to have a US supplier care enough
to go to this effort.  With this setup I think you will gain an even
more loyal Canadian customer base.

- Laurence

----------------------------------------
 Laurence Smith
 Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
 90 Westy / 90 Subie 2.2
 87 GL / 91 Subie 2.2
----------------------------------------

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vanagon Mailing List
> [mailto:vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM]On Behalf
> Of The Bus Depot
> Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2004 9:30 PM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: New Info for Canadian Vanagon Owners (& 02 sensor
> in Canada)
>
>
> > Can anyone recommend a reasonably priced
> > 3-wire O2 sensor available in Canada ?
>
>
> To answer your question, what you need is a Bosch 13913,
> which we sell
> for $39 and which will require splicing your old connector.
> Your local
> Canadian retailer may be able to cross this Bosch number to whetever
> they carry.
>
> On a somewhat related issue, I have somewhat good news for
> the Canadian
> contingent of the Vanagon list. We have reached a distribution
> arrangement with a relatively large Canadian parts supplier
> that will
> allow some Canadian orders placed with The Bus Depot to
> actually ship
> directly to you from within Canada rather than coming from the U.S.
>
> Unfortunately I can't tell you in advance when this will
> happen, as it
> will be determined on an order-by-order basis. Basically, if the
> distributor carries much or all of what you order, in comparable
> quality, I'll have them send it to you rather than us
> sending it. Even
> if we have to ship a portion of the order separately from
> here, it will
> still be worthwhile to have as much as possible sent right
> from Canada.
> The supplier carries a fairly large selection of the most
> common Vanagon
> mechanical parts (but not some of the more specialized items that we
> have to directly import ourselves). So whether we can ship the order
> right from Canada will depend on what's on the order.
>
> What does this mean to you?  First of all, reduced delivery
> time, and no
> duties or brokerage fees on those parts. Secondly, greatly reduced
> shipping cost on many large or heavy items (such as gas
> tanks or brake
> drums) that might previously have been uneconomical to ship from the
> U.S.  Finally, the possibility of overnight or second-day
> delivery of
> some parts (still at additional cost, but not as high as the cost of
> international overnight shipping).
>
> On most average-weight ground orders, while the delivery time may be
> shorter and import fees eliminated, actual shipping fees will not be
> lower. This is for two reasons. First of all, our Canadian
> shipping fees
> (as calculated by the website) are actually quite low to
> begin with, as
> they assume U.S. Mail shipment rather than costlier
> methods. In fact we
> often lose money on them, as we have absorbed the last two
> postal rate
> increases without raising our Canadian shipping rates.
> Secondly, we will
> often pay more for the actual parts in exchange for getting them
> dropshipped right out of Canada. This happens in cases
> where both we and
> the Canadian firm import a particular part directly from Germany. We
> both pay about the same price for the part, but then we
> must pay their
> markup if we have them dropship it. We will absorb that
> difference, but
> to offset some of it will stick to the shipping prices
> calculated by the
> website (which are on average about 12% higher than U.S.
> shipping rates;
> not a huge difference). Also, on small orders where the part can be
> shipped inexpensively from the U.S. we will simply do that. This 02
> sensor is a good example; we can ship it via Global
> Priority Mail for
> well under $10 and it's there in about a week; not worth
> dropshipping
> it.
>
> So, to make a longwinded story short, if you're a Canadian Bus Depot
> customer, don't be surprised if your next order (or part of
> it) arrives
> a bit sooner than expected, and with a Canadian return
> address. And if
> you need a part fast, we may be able to accommodate you at
> a reasonable
> cost if our Canadian supplier has it on hand.
>
> - Ron Salmon
>   The Bus Depot, Inc.
>   www.busdepot.com
>   (215)  234-VWVW
>
> _____________________________________________
> Toll-Free for Orders by PART # :  1-866-BUS-DEPOT
>