Need to send a crate by air-freight, anyone done this before?

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Soldato
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I should probably start by stating that I am not DVDBunny :)

I need to order a new windscreen for my car from Japan since Nissan UK are too incompetent to actually supply one. They've given me a price for the part, crating it up and sending it by air to London, so far so good.

I understand that it will basically end up in a warehouse near Heathrow and I'll need to sort out clearing it through customs and then getting it to Wales in one piece.

Are there any courier companies that can do this for me and can be trusted not to **** it up. We're talking about a hideously expensive bit of glass here so obviously it can't be City Link.

The create is going to measure 170cm x 140cm x 45cm and have a volumetric weight of 178kgs.

The insurance company are paying, so I can probably spend up to about 200 quid on this.
 
Cheers, just spoke to them and they sound like they know what they're on about :)

Think I'll get them to arrange collection from Japan and delivery to my garage, that way if it gets smashed I only have one company to blame and thus am more likely to see my money back. Looks like I only have one shot at this as the windscreens are in short supply and they aren't going to make any more of them either.
 
Up to £200 ?

I don't think that's enough to be honest .. if you are using a forwarder you'll be looking at import duty/clearance charges etc. on top of the airfreight which will come to at least £100.

The air freight charge alone for 180kg volumetric will be around £200.
 
it was £200 to clear customs and forward. The limit currently set by the insurance is £1500 and the current prices I've been quoted are Y87,200 for the windscreen and Y110,000 to ship to London, which works out at around £1300. If you reckon that the air freight should only be around £200 then the Y110,000 the Japanese company is quoting me is a complete rip off and I'll be able to save some money there.

It it goes above £1500 I'll need to get further approval from the insurance.
 
Jolly good! I use them at work and I've nothing but good things to say about them. Fast and they know what they are doing.
 
should have told them it was a replacement part and you don't to pay the duty. Might be wrong but I am sure there is a loop hole or something.
 
Yes, this is the problem with driving an obscure grey import, but the insurance are ultimately paying out so I don't care.

I just want my good car back on the road as my Volvo is falling to bits.
 
UPS would charge 100,000JPY door to door, including pickup, delivery, Customs clearance and insurance. So Y110,000 is a rip off just to London.
 
Well I don't know about UPS, but FedEx wanted 3 grand for door to door. I ended up contacting the UK branch of the Japanese shipping company (nnruk.com), and they wanted an extra £200 for the UK leg of the shipping, which is within the limits of the price my insurance said was ok.

The final issue I have now is that of VAT. If I were to arrange and fund the whole thing myself and then be reimbursed by the garage then effectively I would be selling the windscreen to my garage, however as prior to that it is a private purchase then apparently Customs will charge me the VAT and it wont be possible to claim it back.

Since my garage doesn't want to deal with Japan, I am assuming that the best option would be to pay for the Japanese side of the deal (Y87,000 + Y110,000) and have the garage reimburse me for that money, and then have the garage deal directly with the UK arm of NNR to pay for the customs clearance, VAT, duty and final leg of the delivery as a purely business to business transaction, that way VAT numbers can be given out and the bill paid just as if they'd bought from a UK company to begin with.

Anyone got any advice on this side of things?
 
Personally I'd contact a local car importer an ask them if they can help you out, i'm sure if you can get the part delivered to their "man in Japan" they will be able to put it inside one of the cars they are bringing over and save you a packet.
 
Doesn't work like that. If you put other goods in a car that you're having shipped, the shipping company tend to just throw them away to stop people doing exactly this to save money.

In any case I'm almost sorted now, apart from the VAT issue.
 
Try Eagle Global Logistics but I don't know if they do one off stuff. Door to door or door to airport should both be possible.
 
178kgs is the volumetric weight, which is a measurement based entirely on the size of the crate and nothing at all to do with how heavy it is. The actual weight is 35-45 kg (estimated) but as the volumetric weight is the larger figure the actual weight is not used for calculating shipping costs.

If you think about it for a minute it makes sense, huge light objects can take up a lot of space on a plane or van so weight-based shipping charges mean you could lose money (say I wanted to courier 500 helium balloons across the country, if it were weight based than that would be free of charge, but they'd still have to put petrol in the van, right?)
 
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