I need to ship my Cusco center diff to TRE to have it inspected, magnafluxed and shot peen. It's only a $45 service, but the diff cost me $2K new. So I wanna make sure it's fully insured.

I'm not sure I trust Canada Post / USPS in the event of it getting lost or damaged, so I plan to stick with international shippers like FedEx or UPS. But I don't want to get dinged taxes & duty on the $2K declared value.

So those of you who have shipped trannys and other parts to the US for servicing, what measures did you take to protect yourself from Customs hassles, both sending and recieving it back?

Thanks.

You'll have to research this but I read a few times that if you go UPS air instead of ground, they don't kill you on brokerage.

Has Jon changed his policies, he never use to ship in/out of the US?

I'm not sure what the proper method is now as we've done it several ways at work. Even though it doesn't make sense, I believe they want to put the full value of the item being sent even if it is only going in for a cheap repair.

I know at one time, if we had to send something back to the US for repair, if the item was 2K & the repair was $400, we'd put a commercial value of $400. Believe we were told this isn't correct. Also, if you do pay for insurnace (which can be a scam anyways as if the package gets lost or damaged they will try their best to get away with not paying) for the full value of $2000 but then put a repair cost of $45 on the commercial invoice, if something does happen, they try to say they only need to pay you $45.

I believe there might be a harmonization code that you can put on the commercial invoice that states the items for repair, which should prevent paying additional tax. If you Google harmonization codes, you should be able to find the list.

This may take care of taxes but if you use a carrier such as UPS or Fedex they will still want to charge you a brokerage/customs/collection fee, if you ship ground. Some of these are fixed rates while others will be based on the items value, so at $2000 be prepared to bend over if you don't have your own broker (Typically you won't unless your a business). The quicker services typically include brokerage fee's etc, like Rob mentioned.

Edit: Should mention calling the shipping companies might help you out but don't be too surprised if they don't. I know our shipper has had to call our normal shipping company UPS, multiple times on an issue & everytime you get a different answer. Like so many places nowadays the customer service/tech support is useless.

Wow, sounds like this could be a bigger nightmare than I imagined.

I wasn't aware Jon had any international shipping policies... I've talked with him a number of times, but perhaps he's not aware I'm in Canada.

I priced shipping with FedEx & UPS... Ground is $80-90 w/insurance one-way, and air is double that. Very pricey!

I did call up FedEx explaining what I wanted to do and asked how I should go about it, and they just told me to talk with Customs Canada (which I've yet to do).

Jon will NOT ship to Canada. At least he would not 3 yrs ago when I had my trans rebuilt by him. Something about getting burnt once by a canadian customer-sucks I know. Anyhow I shipped from Canada but had to go to U.S. to pick it up at a ups store.
If I were you I would have it shipped to a bud in the states then have him send it to you.

Scott,

I would gladly help out if I could, but would mean double shipping each way...
If the problem is just that he won't ship to Canada, maybe you can ship to him, he could ship to my US address, then I could ship to you.
I believe if you ship INTO the US with more than $200. value, UPS charges a brokerage fee. Even if they charge the receiver, he is going to pass that cost on to you.
Probably best to bring it into the US personally and ship from there...

Let me know if I can help.

Thanks guys. I gotta do some more research and weight my options.

Ziggy, thanks for the offer. I'll get back to you on that. Maybe package it with the rest of my parts order.

Scott, I hope you got my email. I didn't get the "screenshot" of your Summit order. I know you are going away for a bit, so wanted to get that stuff in while you are gone...

If you have the original receipt, then you may be in luck.
Have TRE mark it as a service, with maybe a receipt attached to the package. But value it at 2000$ for insurance.
IF you get dinged at the border for the tax on 2000$ there is a form that you get.
Where if the value that they determined the package to be at the border is incorrect, you can send away with proof that it is not infact that much, so you would send the original bill of sale dated a long time ago. And the bill that you got from TRE and hopefully you get your money back and only be taxed on the 45$ service.

TRE will not ship to Canada, i bought 3 trannys from him and had to go pick them up. As far as I know he will only ship to the billing address on your credit card. Call Jon and tell him your situation and maybe he can accommodate you somehow.

Scott, if Jon doesn't know your from Canada, don't be alarmed if he stops communicating with you once he finds out He's abit of a character (then again, seems alot of the best DSM guys are) but defently knows his stuff & would recommend him 100%. Just abit of an issue if you don't live close enough to go pick the stuff up from him. I do believe he will only ship to confirmed addresses, so you might be SOL on this one.

Well this sucks, I was just about to send him my rear diff to have the Evo 3 LSD installed in it Anyone know another shop that offers the same service?

http://www.teamrip.com/DSM%20REAR%20DIFFERENTIAL%20SERVICE.html

^ Jack's Trans? I haven't actually checked there site so don't hold me to that.

Greg, I know Troy Bennet is ordering the EVO gear cluster from me, and he is installing it himself. He is in the maritimes, would not be too far to ship. I assume he would be willing/capable of doing the install, and I could probably bring in whatever parts you need from Jacks...assuming that Jacks can get the same parts that TRE is offering.

If the diff is available elsewhere and Troy is able to do it that's certainly a good option! I suppose I could always bring it somewhere local and have it installed too. I just don't know if anyone else actually sells this differential besides TRE. What a Jerk!

Jack's doesn't list one their site.
Maybe a JDM importer but then you might have to rebuild it.

I am located with in driving distance of tre and the border, maybe I can be of help.

Basically I need to ship my diff to someone and have them complete the transaction with TRE and then ship my fancy new and improved diff back to me. Any takers?

I think Scott McIntyre was looking for something similar....
If Dave Barlow is in driving distance and is willing, that would probably be the best bet

Here's an update...

I spoke with Jon @ TRE and he refused to receive / ship from Canada, end of discussion.

So I contacted John @ ShepTrans and he was much more receptive. Shep doesn't do shot peen, but does do REM ISF. So I decided to send my center diff to him for magnaflux and REM ISF.

After talking with Canada Customs, I learn that if I had Shep mark the package as "Canadian Goods Returning", then I should not be charged anything other than taxes on the $50 service Shep is providing. If for some reason I did get charged taxes on the full $2K insured value, then I could appeal it and use my original sales receipt (for the Cusco diff) as proof that I already owned it (and already paid sales taxes on it). Sounded good enough to me.

I chose to send it to Shep via UPS as it a bit cheaper then FedEx. Basically $30 to ship plus $60 for insurance (I put $2K on it). Shep received it, performed the service, and shipped it back to me via FedEx. I had to pay ~$30 upon receipt for taxes on the service & some new bearing I had Shep throw on it, but that's expected. No other fees were applied.

Yay! Ordeal done. Or so I thought...

Shortly after I got a message from Shep saying that they received a $122 bill from UPS for duty & various other fees. WTF?

So I called up UPS to find out what's going on. Apparently, UPS will charge a brokerage fee for any package entering the US valued over $200. That accounted for $44 of the bill. The other $78 is US Customs charges for duty & processing fees.

Note that when I sent the package via UPS, I made certain it specified that the contents were being sent for warranty repair, to be returned, and was not being sold the the recipient. But regardless US Customs felt it necessary to charge Shep duty & fees regardless.

Now we're starting to see why TRE would have nothing to do with this.

I wanted to contest the charges, but UPS will only deal with the recipient (i.e. Shep) so there's nothing I can do. I'm going to ask Shep if they can try to get the charges changed, but really it's my problem and I'm likely just gonna have to pony up and pay the full amount.

So in the end, it's looking like it'll have cost me upwards of $325 to ship my little center diff to the US for $50 worth of service. Ugh!

What can brown do for you?
They must need all that extra money to keep those 1960s trucks running!

I could understand there being a processing fee at the border, but $78?

You should have put the value of it at $50, not $2k.

But then he wouldn't have had enough insurance on the diff..

I know, it sucks. I have shipped center diffs to the US via Canada post regular parcel, and put them down as $40. Done.

Receptionist in charge of shipping all of the internal notebooks @ LG for repair used to ship them across the country, to the US, and locally all without insurance.

Nobody knew, until I noticed, and ripped her a new A-hole.

WTF was she thinking???

Demo products, pre-release test units (phones, notebooks, appliances), etc.

BUT, they were all okay.

Most of the time for notebooks she didn't claim an amount.

No, she wasn't a blonde on top, but blonde at heart.

The breakdown was as follows:

• $38.30 Entry Prep Fee (UPS)
• $06.50 Disbursement Fee (UPS)
• $51.93 Duty Amount (US Gov't)
• $25.00 Merchandise Process Fee (US Gov't)

Given the situation, the last two charges normally wouldn't be applied IF I have filled out the proper paperwork. I'm just learning now that I should have filed a Temporary Importation Under Bond (TIB) form. Now it looks like I'll have to file a protest with U.S. Customs and Border Protection if I want a refund. That's presuming a Canadian is allow to file... It's more likely that only Shep could file it, which I won't ask for as it's not their fault to begin with. I'd just eat it.



Normally I'd do that, but I have so much $$$ tied up in this diff I didn't want to risk it. I've had items damaged during shipping before.

You're right though... If I had declared it at < $200, there wouldn't have been any of these extra charges.

Free trade my ass, lol!

It sucks Scott, but this does happen with US to Canada shipping all the time. I think Fedex is abit better then UPS, they seem to figure out how to charge the most "additional" fee's for cross border. We use UPS at work but have an account, so its much better. Though I will say you still have to watch them sometimes.

On the commercial invoice their is a harmonization code for repair only/temporary import believe its something like 9992.X.X, this should prevent the receiver from a big bill from UPS (but sometimes there's still issues).

As far as claiming the full value, I do it on high $ items but I'm not so sure its worth it. If it does get returned safely you can end up with a huge bill if you don't have a UPS account but if it does get da,aged in transit, there about a 95%+ chance they will deny the claim anyways, stateing improper packaging. So I sometimes wonder if its worth it. The only time the insurance might be worth it is if it gets lost but even then they will try to avoid paying on big $ items.

That's true. I've heard of people not getting anything from shipping insurance claims. For that reason, I usually take lots of photos of my packaging (inside & out) before shipping a high-value item. That way I have proof that it was packaged appropriately.

In the end though, we can get screwed regardless of which we route we take. Ugh.

I had to do a ship to US and return once for repairs.

I shipped down Purolator for 30$
The person doing the repairs shipped it back for about the same price through USPS.

the tracking number I got from him said that my item was here.
Then I get a bill from UPS (me thinking it was USPS) for $50.xx
I thought it was the bill and I couldn't get my package from their facility until I pay.

I THEN find out what is really going on, and Purolator used UPS brokers at the boarder going IN to the US. So pissed!

When I say UPS will do anything to get out of paying a claim, I have first hand experience. I had a pair of high $ speakers shipped from the US. They arrived damaged, even though I paid a $650 shipping bill (was partially insured) & even paid for "oversized" handling (which means they hand transport it, not use the conveyor system), they managed to drop it (& not from a 3-4 ft drop). The speakers were double boxed & each box was multi layered. A total of 6 layers of cardboard plus all origional factory molded packaging. They still denied the claim multiple times, saying improper packaging. Even had their so called "box engineer" come in (supposed to be un-biased, but you could tell where his paycheck came from). The only reason I got a partial payment was because we did have an account with them so had more pull. Anyone else wouldn't have seen a dime & it took me 4 months just to get this.

If the box has been used before, they will deny the claim. If the box doesn't have the proper box rating stamp, they will deny the claim. I don't believe they have any instructions posted that are recommended "proper packing", but the first thing they claim when damage happens is, not "proper packaging", lol.

Wow, thanks for sharing that. It appears to be utterly pointless to put any additional insurance on UPS packages then. Lesson learned.