Was just at the local dealer talking with parts mgr. owner and an indy owner from Canada and apparently HD is well on its way to shutting down or seriously curtailing the export (privately by dealers) of both motorcycles and parts & accessories except where the customer actually appears in the dealers shop to take delivery of goods. Dealers who ship goods out of the country will be fined $10,000 per occurrence and the dealer license may be at risk if violations continue. The are also putting the screws to domestic dealers to shut down internet sales (eg: Chicago HD) at discounted prices - not sure how they intend to accomplish that but apparently they have a plan. Best make your big ticket purchases sooner rather than later.

 

Excuse me but that sounds very familiar as I have been hearing that one for decades. Harley has an assembly plant in South America and are building one in India. How in the world could Harley know if a dealer sold any thing over seas or for that matter why would such a customer not buy from his own local dealer and save on the custom and import taxes. I think you got suckered into the old anti HD legends of yesterday.

 

I buy all my parts from Zanotti's and they send them to my military post office box in Germany. It saves me a ton of money not having to buy on the German economy. A good rule of thumb is that H-D parts cost double in Germany compared to stateside. For example a $200.00 part would normally be about 400.00 Euro. The kicker though is that 400.00 Euro is about $500.00 bucks. Also I don't pay any import or customs tax due to fact we gave the Germans a good *** whipping a while back.

 

When I was in Germany we got ration tickets for cigarettes. I didn't smoke, so sold my $.25 cigs to the Germans for $1.00. Similar thing with whiskey too. Back then a USD was worth 3.5 Dmark.

 

this is old news, and not entirely accurate. the deal is that the dealer cannot advertise the discount price. whats that thing that corporate always tells you? oh yeah, about dealers being independent and able to set their own prices......

having a cart and putting a part number in it and getting a 'discount' price does not count as advertising. zanotti's has no plans to change anything that they have been doing....

 

Sounds like an oppurtunity to sell some black market Harley parts

 

That's what the owner said - someone's going to set up a (US based) business to do all the buying and distrubute to Canadian customers...............hmmm.

The reason HD knows is the customer address goes on the sale - which makes me wonder why they enter if if that's how HD knows.

 

Good one!

 

The good old days...been to Ramstein multiple times and also Rhein Main....the dollar sure went a lot further then on the local economy that's for sure!

 

...And guess who has the channels to do that? Still have family and friends over there, and my brother wouldn't mind making a few bucks on the side.