Help! Trying to send a dashboard to Indonesia!

Help! Trying to send a dashboard to Indonesia!

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legalknievel

Original Poster:

352 posts

198 months

Friday 12th March 2021
quotequote all
Greetings everyone.

I've agreed to do a friend of a friend a favour and pick up a dashboard for him and send it to Indonesia. It's a dash for an early Beetle and apparently the guy is a renowned VW and early Porsche collector. I thought it would be cool to do someone I'd never met but who is part of the car community a good deed just for the sake of it.

I went to Wakefield in my car, about two months before the first lockdown happened and collected the thing for him, and then of course the world changed. Things are getting back to normal here so I've been trying to figure out how to send it, without a massive amount of success. The post office guy more or less laughed when I said where it was going, and something about old car parts can't be sent out of the UK, which sounded a bit odd.

I've got this thing all parcelled up, bubble wrap, the lot, and for me this is already an epic achievement, given I have the general handiness of Mr Bean.

But I honestly don't know what to do next. Most shippers I've spoken to seem to only deal with trade contracts. The thing measures 20 x 18 x 48" (508 x 457 x 1219mm) and I guess it's no more than 6 or 7 kilos.

Without trying to put too fine a point on it... HELP!

Seriously, any moderately sympathetic and practical comments invited.

Thanks all,

Joseph

shtu

3,456 posts

147 months

Friday 12th March 2021
quotequote all
"Sell" it on eBay (incredibly badly worded listing, no pictures, 99p BIN), and use the Global Shipping Program.

Within the UK I've found Parcelforce to be good for shipping car parts, and they offer a worldwide service.

Pachydermus

974 posts

113 months

Friday 12th March 2021
quotequote all
Try interparcel or parcelmonkey. The prices are a bit scary though.

or: transglobalexpress looks more reasonable.


Edited by Pachydermus on Friday 12th March 23:40

jdw100

4,126 posts

165 months

Saturday 13th March 2021
quotequote all
Watch the import tax.

In order to boost manufacturing and sales within the country last year the govt raised the import tax and lowered the threshold.

Now you pay import tax on anything over USD$ 5.00.

It can be as much as 100%.

There a few exceptions, text books are one. A car dashboard won’t be!

eBay has become very expensive, unless you can get the vendor to mark your purchase down to a value of $5 or less.

On the flip side the local equivalents of Amazon (like shopee) as doing well. Given a real boost to garment industry as well.

I looked at buying my wife a £100 dress off eBay. Vendor using global shipping programme. Total cost to me was £220 in total.

wisbech

2,980 posts

122 months

Saturday 13th March 2021
quotequote all
ISTR that car parts have a fairly high tariff, as there is a considerable local industry. Plus the amusing story of the Garuda president being busted for importing classic motorbike & parts from Amsterdam without declaring it...

If your friend of a friend is a porche/ vw collector in Indonesia though, he almost certainly will have needed to import parts before. Why not just contact him and ask how best to send it?


K50 DEL

9,237 posts

229 months

Saturday 13th March 2021
quotequote all
UPS can do it, but it's going to be £350 - sounds crazy to us, but I remember when I was living in Angola the local accepted such shipping prices as a cost of getting what they wanted - maybe your friend will do the same?

SCEtoAUX

4,119 posts

82 months

Saturday 13th March 2021
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This isn't the Pistonheads I thought it was.

The answer is of course "Road Trip".

ApOrbital

9,966 posts

119 months

Saturday 13th March 2021
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Essential travel only hehe

jdw100

4,126 posts

165 months

Sunday 14th March 2021
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wisbech said:
ISTR that car parts have a fairly high tariff, as there is a considerable local industry. Plus the amusing story of the Garuda president being busted for importing classic motorbike & parts from Amsterdam without declaring it...

If your friend of a friend is a porche/ vw collector in Indonesia though, he almost certainly will have needed to import parts before. Why not just contact him and ask how best to send it?
If his friend is a Porsche collector in Indonesia, he really won’t be worried about the costs.

He will be used to paying 150-200% tax on his cars anyway!

legalknievel

Original Poster:

352 posts

198 months

Monday 15th March 2021
quotequote all
SCEtoAUX said:
This isn't the Pistonheads I thought it was.

The answer is of course "Road Trip".
Haha I have to admit I did check a map! I think the limit for a mad journey with a dashboard to a car dude I've never met just for the kudos of the story is about 2500 miles!

legalknievel

Original Poster:

352 posts

198 months

Monday 15th March 2021
quotequote all
Thanks all for responses. I feel less at a loss after those suggestions. It looks like Transglobal express will do it for not crazy money.

Thanks all for being the PH I remember.

Cheers,

Joseph