Date:         Thu, 15 Jul 2004 21:30:08 -0400
Reply-To:     The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
Subject:      New Info for Canadian Vanagon Owners  (& 02 sensor in Canada)
In-Reply-To:  <6.1.2.0.0.20040715170041.02a89090@mail.gct21.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

> 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