All of us have, at one time or another, labored through the policies of any given online supplier site to place an order. I’m sharing my recent experience with https://www.britishparts.co.uk/ who had what I wanted but, I learned (after checking all of their boxes and filling a cart) does not ship to the USA! But just about anywhere else, including (with all due respect) even Zambia! Now then, I don’t know how many Jags are in Zambia but whatever the case, after filling in all of their forms… nothing worked… never mind after skimming through all of their advertising about how they ship around the globe, even picturing FedEx planes, I couldn’t find mention for shipping to the USA. I couldn’t use their “contact us” form because it wouldn’t recognize a USA based phone number and so you could hit “send” til the cows came home… but it wasn’t going anywhere. So I ultimately found an email address for “sales” and dropped them a note. Of course I got the usual terse British reply: “Thank you for your lengthy email; we do not ship to the USA.”
Point in all of this… after hunting/pecking for the right parts, getting your basket filled… take a pass because w/ British Parts it’ll be all for naught.
I’m not one to read into things conspiracies and other fanciful stuff, but that makes me wonder, if that isn’t a result of this country, becoming a pariah to the rest of the world?
I’ll stop there, so this thread doesn’t get sent to the Pub.
I think it depends on the vendor. For example, now days you pretty much have to depend on UK suppliers for most Alfa parts (i.e. parts used only on Alfas). Yesterday I received a caliper rebuild kit from RockAuto and plastic grommets used to mount headlight covers from Classic Alfa in England. The calipers were ordered March 18 and the grommets March 19. The grommets (DHL) arrived earlier in the day than the caliper kit (USPS) BTW.
Classic Alfa has always been fairly prompt. I’ve had variable results from UK Jaguar vendors. I’ve never dealt with British Parts.
In situations like this, I have utilized a UK based mail forwarding business. There are several and the one I use is myukmailbox.com. Naturally there is an additional charge but it’s a work around to those companies unwilling to ship directly to the USA.
I dunno about the pariah business… I thought the Donald & Boris were “fast friends” of sorts. I just wish that British Parts was more up-front about not shipping to the USA, the whys/wherefores not so important to me. As it is, I went up the way JaguarLandRoverClassic.com in Coventry and ordered what I wanted and at a lower price… no problemos!
Interesting. Copied the below from their website just now using the link Peter had in this thread beginning…
DAILY SERVICE TO USA CANADA & MEXICO
With our air freight partners we provide low cost tax free delivery to USA, Canada & Mexico. Fast efficient express air service delivered direct to your door normally within 2 or 3 days of despatch. terms & conditions apply
i try to NEVER buy from UK, why?
back when restoring my XJS , i wanted to change the ring and opinion 2.88 rear gear to somthing useful,for my needs!
called a gear company in England , and they quoted me $1200.USD, plus shipping!
totaly shocked , so took my R&P in hand to a 4 wheel drive shop, guy looked at them , went in back room , and came back with a 3.73 R&P gears!
$150. dollars, included seals &gasket!
he asked what year JEEP i was working on , they are from a JEEP!!
well that was 26 years ago still in the Jag, working fine!
So you called one random company in the UK, got a silly price, and because of that you have resolved NEVER to buy from any UK supplier again? Seems a little extreme.
Jim, yeah… I copied that segment in my note to them, pointing out that when filling out the ship to info, the closest they get to America in their drop down menu w/ the litany of choices is “American” Samoa and the closest they get to United is “United” Arab Emirates. And since their “contact us” form requires a phone number, anything but American apparently, created a Catch 22 which is how I emailed “sales@” along with my order, bill/ship to and credit card info. Maybe I caught the wrong employee in the wrong mood. One of the items was the Jag decal that goes on the intake manifold of my XJS V12 (requires 2) and at $30 or so per decal, cheap compared to the sellers back here (USA) asking upwards of $70 to $100 per decal. If anyone has an extra Magneti Marelli rotor laying around, I’m interested… 1992 Jag V12 5.3ltr. I know, it’ll have to come from a hoarder
Wow.
You really went in depth with them …good pricing can influence us to persevere. The myukbox idea is interesting. Or perhaps one our over the pond members could re-ship on your behalf… for a slight fee for his/her trouble.
I am debating whether to go ahead and source a Marelli Dizzy cap and rotor for my 6.0…just to have on the shelf for future use.
Ha-ha-ha… I’ve been in sales all my life and strictly commission at that soooo… an order is an order. I figured someone just might take the initiative and get my order out the door. But the place in Coventry looks to be great so, the myukbox is an interesting idea but we have friends in England if it came to that. I’ve only had my xjs for 2 years and it has only 30k on the odo but just doing some of the preventative things I’ve read about… new belts, hoses and cap/rotor… all done except the rotor… I have an oem cap. Never hurts to have one on the shelf, one fellow said to keep it in the boot!
That may be true, but I didn’t see you guys turning away our firefighters that were helping with the wildfires. Probably be a good time to temper opinions.
