Ron,

Obviously, you guys deal with a far greater number of items than I do, but
of the dozens of items that I've checked on, or bought from German VW
dealers, all of them have been less expensive than their US counterparts.  I
agree that once you add shipping to individual parts the price could
definitely exceed the US part, however, my exeriences have been with bulk
purchases or the times when I'm in Germany and am able to bring the parts
back with me.  Customs duty on most auto parts is pretty trivial, usually
averaging 2.5% of value.

Cheers,

Jeff

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM]On Behalf
Of The Bus Depot
Sent: Sunday, December 10, 2006 1:49 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: FS: OEM all RUBBER vanagon/transporter/westy front
floormat..(one piece m...

> One important fact that I've learned over the past few years
> is that the prices at the VW dealers in Germany are much,
> much lower than the US dealers.

That's not consistently true. On "dealer-only" items that I stock in
quantity, I generally compare VW/Germany and VW/America prices. In some
cases it's costs less in Germany, other times more (once shipping/import
cost is factored in).

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

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