> Have you considered bringing over 
> hard parts such as bellhousings, 
> transmissions, and 5 cylinder conversion 
> parts?

No, and I'll tell you why. Availability and cost notwithstanding (it can get
very expensive by the time importation and a weak dollar are factored in),
buying these sorts of South African products can be a risky business.
Sourcing from South Africa is nothing like sourcing from Germany. Many South
African parts are pretty much sold by their exporters as-is/where-is. No
warranty at all, and often no way to be completely sure of the history of
the part. (Was it dealer overstock? Defective? Factory-second?
Reconditioned? Customer return?)  Even if the source is reliable (relatively
speaking), parts support is far from a sure thing on SA items. If a product
turns out to have a defective component, or if a critical part is needed
later (i.e. servicable parts in a brake kit that does not use U.S. spec
parts), it is entirely possible that the crucial part will be on backorder
for months, or even not available separately at all, even in South Africa.
What then?  The customer is now in proud posession of a very expensive boat
anchor, maybe for a few months, maybe forever.

A few outfits (not speaking just of Overland here; there have been others)
have periodically opted to import such items anyway. Some have done so with
no additional parts support at all, essentially gambling that nothing they
ship will be defective or fail within a reasonable period of time (far from
a safe bet on South African items).  Others have imported a small quantity
of spare parts, but it's hard to know what parts may be needed or in what
quantity. There are any number of seemingly innocuous components that could
render an expensive purchase worthless if they failed (or were defective or
missing, or just wore out). So in the end, the customer is also assuming
some of this risk.  Even if the supplier's intentions are good (and with
some suppliers, that's a big "if"), if something goes bad and the supplier
simply can't get the needed replacement part, what now?  Without naming any
specific vendors, I have heard of cases of the customer being left holding
the bag - even sometimes on purchases that weren't right from day one. 

I don't feel that customers are always well informed (or even informed at
all) of these risks.  True, some Vanagon owners, even if fully informed,
would opt to take the chance anyway, in order to get that elusive upgrade. I
understand that, but at the same time I don't feel comfortable putting my
name behind it. Therefore, I've opted to forego that profit, and pass on
selling those items, rather than distribute a product that (in my opinion)
may involve an unacceptable level of risk to my customers.  That's why I
generally limit my SA offerings to items like grills, mud flaps, etc.. On
those sorts of items, any defects will generally be evident when we receive
them, at which time the product can simply be scrapped without any harm done
to the end user. 

- Ron Salmon
  The Bus Depot, Inc.
  www.busdepot.com
  (215)  234-VWVW

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