eggman51
11-16-07, 02:25 PM
My Experience Bringing a Sony KDS-60A3000 into Canada from the US.
I had a few PMs regarding this, so I thought I’d post it here for broader benefit.
I live in Vancouver. I am 45 minutes from the border. There is a town just over the line in Washington called Blaine. This town is pretty much there to sell Canadians gas, milk and mailbox services. I have a Nexus pass which means I can go through an express lane at the border. I have been using a post office service called Mailboxes International in Blaine for many years for a variety of different hobbies and such. There is a lot of stuff that ordering to a US shipping address is substantially cheaper than shipping it into Canada. My parents live in a retirement community that is right on the Canadian side of the border, so I usually stop in and say hi on my way to pick up whatever gadget awaits me over the line.
I have been evaluating an HDTV purchase for many years. I have a home media network in my house that includes several PCs and Macintoshes, terabytes of audio and video data and an HTPC driven media centre. But my TV was an old Toshiba SD 4:3 CRT. I was going to jump in during the 720p days, but decided to hold off until 1080p sets approached reasonable prices.
LCOS was my preferred choice. I thought about LED DLP, but the reviews were not so favourable. I don’t much like colour wheel DLP sets as I have noticed the rainbow effect when shopping. I also wanted the biggest set I could get for the money and ~$2000 was the budget I could convince my wife to let me spend on a TV :p
I contemplated buying a 60A2020 in Canada. The main features of the 60A3000 that were appealing to me were the 1080p/24 support and the 3 HDMI inputs (Cable Box, Xbox, DVD Player are my HDMI inputs and I didn’t want to have to buy a splitter). My assumption was that the A3000 is a major revision to the A2020, which was a minor revision to the A2000. And my assumption was that this major revision would be for the better.
I contemplated waiting for the A3000 to come into Canada. I have some contacts at Best Buy / Future Shop in Canada (at their head office, not an in store “expert”). He indicated that nowhere on their incoming product list do they see the A3000 line and that means that it is highly unlikely to be in before the holiday season, if ever.
When I saw the 60A3000 available cheaper in the US combined with the Canadian dollar at a premium I decided to order one from the US. I have never ordered anything this expensive or this physically large from the US.
I ordered it from Vanns via Amazon.com. While there are cheaper retailers out there, when I checked resellerratings.com I decided that I would pay a small premium and stick with retailers with solid reputations.
I tried to order one from Amazon for 1839, but they sold out and I didn’t want to wait. I ordered one from Vann’s for 1999, then when they dropped their price to 1889 a few days later I called their Customer Service and they credited me back the difference, no questions asked. Price included shipping and there was no US sales tax, so it ended up 1889 US which came out to about 1750 CDN.
My experience with Vann’s was excellent.
I ordered it when the CDN dollar was 1.09, so I got a 9% savings over and above the incredible price.
It shipped from Montana to a Blaine in about 4 business days.
I had to get a mate with a truck to pick it up because it wouldn't fit in my car hehe. I couldn’t use my Nexus card because the vehicle and everybody in it needs to be registered with the Nexus program. It was the Remembrance Day / Veteran’s Day weekend so we got stuck in a 45 minute border line-up on the way down (about 10 minutes on the way back).
I did a quick look into the box when I was at the post office place to make sure there was no obvious damage. I would have shipped it back from there had there been obvious major damage. It was very light so it was easy to load into the pickup truck. We brought a tarp in case it rained but it turned out to be a beautiful fall day so the tarp was not needed. We brought lots of tie downs and rope and such and made sure it was secured. We transported it upright with the screen side facing the inside of the pickup bed and the back side flush up against the left side of the pickup bed side wall.
At the border on the way back I mentioned that it was assembled in the US and I only had to pay PST and GST. It took about 5 minutes in the customs office and I was in and out.
I dunno what I will do if I need warranty support. Haven’t really thought that one through to be honest. Worst case I pay Sony or use a local repair shop I’ve dealt with. I guess I could drive over the border and ship it back to Vann’s if I really needed to. Bit of a crap shoot there I suppose. It struck me as though anything but a local retail experience is going to come with some hassles regarding Warranty support.
So far I am VERY happy with the TV and would do the same thing all over again EXCEPT I would not pick it up on a long weekend!
Hope some stuff in this post might be of help to Canucks thinking about purchasing a TV over the line and bringing it back into Canada.
egg
I had a few PMs regarding this, so I thought I’d post it here for broader benefit.
I live in Vancouver. I am 45 minutes from the border. There is a town just over the line in Washington called Blaine. This town is pretty much there to sell Canadians gas, milk and mailbox services. I have a Nexus pass which means I can go through an express lane at the border. I have been using a post office service called Mailboxes International in Blaine for many years for a variety of different hobbies and such. There is a lot of stuff that ordering to a US shipping address is substantially cheaper than shipping it into Canada. My parents live in a retirement community that is right on the Canadian side of the border, so I usually stop in and say hi on my way to pick up whatever gadget awaits me over the line.
I have been evaluating an HDTV purchase for many years. I have a home media network in my house that includes several PCs and Macintoshes, terabytes of audio and video data and an HTPC driven media centre. But my TV was an old Toshiba SD 4:3 CRT. I was going to jump in during the 720p days, but decided to hold off until 1080p sets approached reasonable prices.
LCOS was my preferred choice. I thought about LED DLP, but the reviews were not so favourable. I don’t much like colour wheel DLP sets as I have noticed the rainbow effect when shopping. I also wanted the biggest set I could get for the money and ~$2000 was the budget I could convince my wife to let me spend on a TV :p
I contemplated buying a 60A2020 in Canada. The main features of the 60A3000 that were appealing to me were the 1080p/24 support and the 3 HDMI inputs (Cable Box, Xbox, DVD Player are my HDMI inputs and I didn’t want to have to buy a splitter). My assumption was that the A3000 is a major revision to the A2020, which was a minor revision to the A2000. And my assumption was that this major revision would be for the better.
I contemplated waiting for the A3000 to come into Canada. I have some contacts at Best Buy / Future Shop in Canada (at their head office, not an in store “expert”). He indicated that nowhere on their incoming product list do they see the A3000 line and that means that it is highly unlikely to be in before the holiday season, if ever.
When I saw the 60A3000 available cheaper in the US combined with the Canadian dollar at a premium I decided to order one from the US. I have never ordered anything this expensive or this physically large from the US.
I ordered it from Vanns via Amazon.com. While there are cheaper retailers out there, when I checked resellerratings.com I decided that I would pay a small premium and stick with retailers with solid reputations.
I tried to order one from Amazon for 1839, but they sold out and I didn’t want to wait. I ordered one from Vann’s for 1999, then when they dropped their price to 1889 a few days later I called their Customer Service and they credited me back the difference, no questions asked. Price included shipping and there was no US sales tax, so it ended up 1889 US which came out to about 1750 CDN.
My experience with Vann’s was excellent.
I ordered it when the CDN dollar was 1.09, so I got a 9% savings over and above the incredible price.
It shipped from Montana to a Blaine in about 4 business days.
I had to get a mate with a truck to pick it up because it wouldn't fit in my car hehe. I couldn’t use my Nexus card because the vehicle and everybody in it needs to be registered with the Nexus program. It was the Remembrance Day / Veteran’s Day weekend so we got stuck in a 45 minute border line-up on the way down (about 10 minutes on the way back).
I did a quick look into the box when I was at the post office place to make sure there was no obvious damage. I would have shipped it back from there had there been obvious major damage. It was very light so it was easy to load into the pickup truck. We brought a tarp in case it rained but it turned out to be a beautiful fall day so the tarp was not needed. We brought lots of tie downs and rope and such and made sure it was secured. We transported it upright with the screen side facing the inside of the pickup bed and the back side flush up against the left side of the pickup bed side wall.
At the border on the way back I mentioned that it was assembled in the US and I only had to pay PST and GST. It took about 5 minutes in the customs office and I was in and out.
I dunno what I will do if I need warranty support. Haven’t really thought that one through to be honest. Worst case I pay Sony or use a local repair shop I’ve dealt with. I guess I could drive over the border and ship it back to Vann’s if I really needed to. Bit of a crap shoot there I suppose. It struck me as though anything but a local retail experience is going to come with some hassles regarding Warranty support.
So far I am VERY happy with the TV and would do the same thing all over again EXCEPT I would not pick it up on a long weekend!
Hope some stuff in this post might be of help to Canucks thinking about purchasing a TV over the line and bringing it back into Canada.
egg