Buying in USA

[pailface]

I'm on the market for several big ticket items for this Spring including tires, jacket, helmet, boots..

Everything is so much cheaper in the US, even with the exchange,  that I'm finding it hard to justify
buying local.. (or even Canadian, for that matter)

With our proximity to the US border,  does anyone know of some good bike shops in the Watertown, NY area ?    or as far south as Syracuse ? 

   

[Hornet]

I have bought products from many dealers in the US and never had any trouble. I usually try to pick the ones that ship via United States Postal Service. That way you avoid the rediculously (high) brokerage fees charged by UPS and Fed Ex. Not all shops ship regular mail but if you make your purchase conditional upon this they often do. Another benefit of having it shipped regular mail is that about 30% of the time Canada Customs will not check your parcel and it arrives without you having to pay applicable (GST and PST) import tax. My last purchase of over $1000.00 US came in without tax for example (2 weeks ago). I also suggest paying credit card only over secure link SSL / key symbol) I personally do not worry about fraud since your credit card company reimburses you if something goes wrong and secondly you can force a vendor to accept a return regardless of their policy or if the product does not arrive by going through your credit card company. I also have done this several times

Here are the links to some of the vendors I purchased from:

http://www.suburban-machinery.com/

http://www.whaccessories.com/Wild%20Hair%20Main.htm

http://www.accessoryinternational.com/index2.htm

http://www.motostrano.com/

http://www.eaglemotorcycle.com/

http://www.kneedraggers.com/

http://www.ridegear.com/

Hope this helps

Cheer...

[wes-ninja250]

I don't buy new stuff in the 'states very often -- usually the price difference after GST and shipping is close enough to Tony's Cycle's PST+GST prices that there is no compelling reason to do so. Better to support a local business than to save 5%, IMHO. That said, there *are* bargains to be had down south, especially in used parts on eBay. And OEM parts through RonAyers.com -- but check locally first!

As for dealers in Watertown -- I bought a bike from Watertown Powersports on Route 11 about 5 years ago. Take the Watertown CTR exit west(?) from I-81 and keep driving until you see FX Caprerra, then drive a little more. The sell Kawasaki and Suzuki; prices are basically MSRP plus $99 US F/A (at least they were back then). Nice people to deal with, I bought my bike from Amy Spry.

I also got a 15T counter sprocket there (through Tucker Rocky).. the next time I need one, but I bought  the very same sprocket at Tony's and paid the same dollar figure.. only in Canadian dollars.

FWIW, there is a post office on Wellesley Island (I just typed Ellesmere Island -- WTF?!) you can rent a PO box at. It's just a few minutes from the border. You can also get UPS/Fedex deliveries sent to a Mailboxes Etc. address, they are at 107 Court St. in Watertown. A dark brick wedged-shaped building, parking is in back -- IIRC.

Wes

[Hornet]

Try more like 20% to 40% savings after shipping, at least thats the deals I have been getting. The low US $ is really killing our Canadian parts market. If it were a mere 5% I agree and would support our local dealers but at those savings I would be foolish (to waste my hard earned money)> Regarding any purchase from Tony's Cycle lets just say "no comment" 

[Shaman]

Lately, my experience has been that Canadian pricing has been changing to keep up with U.S. pricing for most products.  I bought two nice dual xeon 1U 4-drive servers today that were less than $5K apiece fully kitted.

(I know I'm not talking bike parts here, but still... I was floored)

[wes-ninja250]

Tell that to Sun. I cross-border shopped for my last Sunfire V240. MUCH cheaper.

Wes

[Shaman]

Tell that to Sun. I cross-border shopped for my last Sunfire V240. MUCH cheaper.

Screw Sun.  I was a Sun guy for years before they dropped the ball on us and our customers repeatedly.  Don't know if you remember, but we spearheaded the very first educational JavaStation installation in the world back in the day at Nicholson College in Belleville (96? 97? thereabouts).  Sun sent a consultant for one week to iron out major problems with their Novell and SMB connectivity software and firewall, dropped that ball totally.  They spent two weeks working on the JavaStation cluster, which failed every single day, and dropped that ball.  They were supposed to ante up 2GB of memory for the Sun U450 and dropped that ball.  Shortly thereafter, they discontinued the Novell/SMB connectivity software, most of the Netra line, the Cisco/Sun Netra Novell Internet Connector, stopped supporting the Sun Firewall and the JavaStation1 - leaving both us and the client stranded without patches or upgrades.   That didn't stop them from shouting about their successful and forward-looking Javastation install from mountaintop to mountaintop, though.

On top of that, Sun walked in and stole several accounts from us by going direct.  That's the Sun I came to know and "love".   Then there's Solect, the less said, the better.

I threw my Sun 3000 certification and my Sun FCAL cert in the garbage just the other day (found them in a pile of papers).  I'll ever do business with that company again.

But I digress.  Do I seem bitter?