I haven't experienced anything related to car parts (but I'm not buying lots of car parts right now) but I buy a lot of materials from overseas that cannot be found in the USA for my business and I'm getting these responses from vendors:

1.) no shipments to the USA until the tariff mess subsides. Too much lost product, too much hassle, etc...
2.) 50-100% price increases on the vendor end to help absorb the extra hassle, costs, etc...
3.) Prepayment in cash (wire transfer, ACH, etc...) prior to any shipments and I'm on the hook for everything else, including if the shipment is lost or rejected by customs.

I have a lot of feelings and thoughts about this, and I can put most of them aside temporarily, but almost nothing I buy is made in the USA or even sold in the USA and I am forced to import it all. Were there an equivalent analog, even if it were 25% more expensive I'd buy it in a heartbeat, but since there isn't I am now forced to either eat those costs and lower my income (and lower how much tax revenue I send to the Fed ((I guess offset by the tariffs)) and my state and county ((not offset by tariffs))) or I raise prices on my customers and then they pause the work and again I lose income and local taxing bodies are deprived of tax revenue.

It's stupid, short sighted and profoundly destructive to what while imperfect was a global economy that largely worked-ish...

/Rant

You would think the carrier would alert you to the fees before the shipping is in process. Paying a fee that is over 100% of the cost of the item should warrant notification.

I had to pay additional fees to buy some wheel parts. They are made overseas for an American company.

The government is charging the fee. The shipper doesn’t know the fee until the shipment is in customs and CbP hands them a bill. They are just the messenger.

Hi Dave,

Currently the US tariffs on UK parts are 25% on top of the invoice price. Typically, DHL will contact you typically by email for payment prior to release of the goods from US customs. You must respond or they will send the goods back to us ( and they charge us $1000 for the return!).

This has been hard to stomach for a lot of US customers and has impacted our business for sure.

Although this must seem like a huge shock to you guys, I would like to point out that we (the UK) have ALWAYS paid additional UK VAT and duty on goods coming from US which amounts to 25%.

We are seeing an uptick in sales to Mexico at the moment...


^Matt Monson is 100% correct. We, nor the carrier, know the fee because it is set by US Customs when it enters the US. We are also not allowed (by law) to discuss the shipment with US Customs as they will only discuss them with the customer. We can, however, assist customers answering some of US Customs questions, if you get asked.

In Germany, regular DHL service still ships to the U.S., but only for private gift shipments valued under $100. Shipping costs for typical small parcels are around €50.
Everything else must be sent via DHL Express, which costs more than twice as much as regular DHL — roughly €100–€110.
Here in Germany the same applies to FedEx, UPS, and other carriers.
So, it’s not only the tariffs that increase the overall cost, but also the much higher shipping expenses.

Yes, I realize this. But as the agent that is collecting the fees, the carrier should have some remote idea of what the recipient will have to pay.

The item that I bought, I bought from a Pelican for $40. I cannot understand how US Customs can justify charging me $42.37 on a private sale of a $40 used part from an individual and not a dealer.

If my grandma sends me cookies from Montreal, do I have to pay a similar tariff?

This is the government you’re talking about here. Your expectations are too high. They have charged me two different rates for the exact same things.

They recently crow barred the top off a crate that was held closed with 8 screws. They cut open the boxes and things were strewn all over the place. Multiple thrust washers and clutches were lost. They put the lid back on with a single piece of packing tape. This was on car parts declared as made of steel. UPS refused to deliver it door to door because they didn’t want the liability. I had to go to the station and unbox it right there in their facility. Everything had to be inspected, and reboxxed as the packaging was destroyed.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1760483094.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1760483094.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1760483094.jpg

This is f’ng outrageous.

That's a shame....we might as well be living in Russia.

Remember, most of this stuff was put in place virtually overnight. There might never be a rhyme or reason to it. I’ve been told that shipments are piling up at warehouses and shipping facilities and a good portion of it gets trashed because there was no system in place to deal with these changes. I think it’s only going to get worse.

Yep. I can only imagine the impact of suspending the de minimis exception. There have to be tens of thousands of small parcels from Amazon and eBay sellers who direct ship from China and elsewhere. The infrastructure just doesn’t exist to process these things.

Onward, through the fog!

I receive (or maybe used to receive) artworks from all over the world for conservation. Historically there have been no duties or fees outside of traditional customs processing which was never more than $50 or so, as the item is only here for repair and return and there’s no sale happening.

I recently had a client try to send me an artwork with no value outside of emotional, and they were notified that the tariff would be based on a dimensional calculation of the size of the artwork and an arbitrary “market value”. For this painting the fee came to nearly $6,000. On a painting that the owner in Spain paid $350 for (with receipts).

Tell grandma to mail you the recipe and wire you $100 for ingredients.


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All parts from Porsche just went up 12-16% last week - some more than that. There is an expectation that additional increases will follow over the coming months, but that is just what I "heard through the grapevine" talking with my local dealer.

I can only imagine the internal clusterf*** within Porsche, their suppliers, and their respective accounting teams while trying to sort through this whole mess. Such an unnecessary nightmare.

It's confusing and frustrating for certain.
https://www.fedex.com/en-us/home.html
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/ups-delay-customs-tariffs-packages-destroyed-rcna236607

That is crazy. No longer surprising, but crazy.
Good idea on the cookies!

Jonny thank you for chiming in, after reading the CBP link in your email I was completely lost. I started this thread just to see if anyone had ordered a unit from you and what it actually cost landed here, "the impact of the tariffs" and timeline.

A perfect reflection of they have a badge- so now they are all powerful!! but zero common sense.

MM, feel bad for you