I haven’t, but I know of a BMW specialist that has. Even though the tax code stated 15%-25% on specific parts, he has has to pay insane sums.

Example: a set of NOS pistons ended up being 110% more than the selling price.

 

I’ve held off on buying stuff on eBay that is outside of North America because of this. How do we pay customs so our stuff is delivered? It’s insanely stupid that the tariff threshold is $100 now. Taxing your citizens for buying stuff produced elsewhere only winds up hurting your own economy. Or have we completely forgotten the consequences of Smoot-Hawley?

 

You're assuming our Supreme Leader has an understanding of history and cause-and-effect, which in my opinion I think is an optimistic assessment of his faculties.

 

I had to pay the Tarrif on the piston rods I recently bought. I almost didn't get them because the Tarrif wasn't mentioned as part of the price, it was a little note at the top of the page as Gary showed. At the time, Trump was charging the 147% rate on Chinese goods, but they found a way around it by shipping out of South Korea, which only had a 10% rate. No mention was made about Tarrifs or any of this at the time of purchase, I didn't find out until they were made and shipped. I got only one confirmation of shipping email and I'm glad I saved it. After getting shipped to Alaska-New Mexico-Kansas-Tennessee-PA it never showed up at my place in NJ. I double checked the email and that's when I noticed mention of a "broker fee". The package ended up in a "dead mail" location in NY. It's really hard to get a package that ends up in a dead mail center. But, I paid the $56 Tarrif on the $560 purchase and the package arrived in about a week.

I don't think Trump ever plans to totally eliminate the Tarrifs entirely for any country. I'm not aware of any country that has made a deal to totally eliminate the Tarrifs. I think the plan is to end up with a minimum 10% Tarrif on every foreign purchase in perpetuity. And he said that, even if the Supreme Court does throw out his self-claimed right to impose Tarrifs without Congressional approval, he will only refund 50%.

Our little American world is headed for deep schiite.

 

I attempted to purchase items at Edelschmeide. (approximately 3 weeks ago). Recieved an email from them stating that their shipper, DHL, will not ship my items to the USA. No other options for alternative shippers. So, I was promptly and courteously refunded the payment I made to them upon my order.

More and more, these closed doors from German suppliers & shippers such as Edelschmeide or Splendid to us American Opel hobby car owners makes me wish I'd have gone with an American classic such as a late 60's, early 70's Corvette instead of my GT....... despite the stellar parts and services provided by Gil or Keith or Todd here in the US.

 

My concern is that with tariffs, the drop in demand may encourage overseas vendors to drop product lines which may not get restarted after the tariffs go away.

 

A few points to be made.

First of all, the foreign country pays nothing, unless you want to call lost sales a cost. The importer pays, and eventully the end user (we the people) pay the bill. Effectively, tariffs are little more than a national sales tax.

Second, the overseas seller has a number of options with respect to actually transferring the cash to the U.S. government. The seller can elect to pay the cost himself or he can designate the importer be responsible. The shipping label has a check-box on it that indicates if the seller is paying; if the check-box is blank, the default is that the importer pays.

Third, the shipping companies have agreed to act as the intermediary in the transaction. That is, they deliver the product to the importer and then bill the importer for the tariff due. They do this for a fee, of course, that experience is showing to be passed on to the importer as additional shipping charges. This, in turn, raises the shipping charges considerably, and experience is showing that there is little reconciliation between the product cost, the tariff and the shipping fees. There have been many instances where it appears that the tariffs charged are considerably more than expected (example: there may be a tariff on aluminum but not glass. However, tariffs are being charged based on the cost of the entire window).

Fourth, and this is where we become more affected: until recently there has been an $800 exemption from tariffs. That exemption is gone, meaning any little thing we buy from overseas gets tariffed. I have not seen this yet because it is too soon, but I suspect that when the US Postal Service is involved in the delivery, we can expect to find a card in our mailbox telling us that there is an item awaiting us at the local PO, postage due. UPS, DHL and FedEx will inundate us with oversized invoices.

Finally, I think there may be something else going on with Edelschmeide and DHL, similar to the issues that caused SplendidParts to abandon the North American market a few years ago. Udo had told me that he was required by the U.S. to certify that, not only the entire part but also all of the compnents of said part were sourced in "approved" countries, and that DHL was constantly firing stuff back at him for further certifiction, in turn causing ill feelings toward him from the end user customers. He finally came to the conclusion that it was not worth the candle.


I will add that we want to be careful with this one. Another forum I participate in has had a number of discussions on the topic spin totally out of control, devolving into rank political arguments with associate insults, name calling, etc. Let's all be careful.

 

Yep, we don’t need to go down the political rabbit hole here. We should pause and think however about what is going on around the world right now. Everything could get a lot uglier, real soon.

 

Take it to faceplant. No politics here.

 

In another forum I peruse there's a lot of talk about getting a certain line of products from Korea. It seems to be working as the average price for what they are buying is considerably north of $1000. That's when those 100%+ tariffs make a huge impact.
I, personally, bought an item for almost $700 (cheap) but the seller stated they'd take care of the tariffs. It was a lot of fun watching it move around the planet and came in, eventually, via Canada.

 

Quick question. How do you have a thread about Tarrifs and not talk about the Politics that brought them in?

 

Takes a little bit of effort, but it's not really that hard. Opening question was "Has anyone purhased parts from Europe lately?" with the implication from the thread title being a question regarding if there has been any impact. Yet. This question can be easily answered without getting into the morality or economic value of tariffs in general or the personality traits and intelligence of those either ordering, supporting or opposing them. It really is not that hard. Try it.

 

He's in England....I mean, really, have you listened to the debates in their Houses? It's more like a Dean Martin Comedy Roast!

 

I've bought a bunch of stuff from England, Italy, and Germany. Nothing from EBay. I assume the tariff is built into the price because I've never been asked to add anything to the price. I always price total cost to my door when making decisions about part sourcing. (and sometimes just simple availability) Everything has been reasonable as usual (when I decide to import). England is still my go-to place for Alfa Romeo parts (far cheaper than domestic sources - to my door, including any shipping, customs, etc...). I have to get my BMW touring unique parts from Germany and they have been fine.

We also try to find USA sourced parts if possible but not usually available. I try to avoid Chinese parts but that is very difficult.

Old car collecting is a luxury and not cheap. If it gets too pricey, I'll take up something cheaper as a hobby. (as I tell my neighbor, the golfer, my car collection and cost to own is cheaper than his golfing hobby. If I want to exit, I can sell my cars at nearly what I paid or more while if he gives up golf, all his custom golf clubs will be sold at a garage sale for $25 and his golf membership fees/greens fees never gets refunded)

 

Haven't ordered anything from OGTS for a while. Coming this spring will be different story.

Curious ( and concerned) how will already expensive opel parts from California to Canada be further impacted....

 

Vincent, you may have missed it, but PM Carney and Company have largely cancelled the inbound retaliatory tariffs this past month. Any products and materials coming into Canada that are covered by the USMCA (aka CUSMA) free trade agreement are again tariff-free. That "should" include automobile parts such as what OGTS sells.

That may all change, and certainly not for the better, when USMCA/CUSMA is renegotitiated in 2026.

The same is somewhat true of goods going from Canada into the USA, except for those subject to the "fentanyl" security tariffs. And to prevent a tangent into the politics of all that, enough said on that topic...

While the rules are somewhat back to pre-Trump 2.0 days, there remains a lot of confusion as to what is, and what is not, subject to tariffs.

I haven't tested any of this out as of yet. Let us know what you find when you bring some parts in from OGTS.