MG Sports Cars

First let me say, it isn't my desire to alienate those of us in, or from, the UK; I've taken great pride in my own British ancestry and I'm pretty sure my ancestor's had nothing to do with this. I have discussed this with Curtis but held off making this post hoping the situation could be resolved. It is important it does not happen someone else. I sent two MGB tachometers to a repair facility in the UK to be wired to work with an electronic ignition and be V8 friendly. When the two inoperative tachs got to the UK a rather excessive import fee was placed on them and held by British Customs. I tried to point out that no one sold them, no one bought them, and they were sent there for repair not import. For the past three months I have not been successful in having the tachs returned to me. I haven't included the name of the facility because it didn't cause this, however he has not refunded the payment for work he didn't do. Just a thought, do what you will, but I for one, will not do business outside the US again.

PS: I wanted to keep the dash looking MG but have decided to move on to the electronic world.

I am sorry you have had problems.

There is a scheme that allows machines to be brought into the UK for maintenance and than re-exported with out a tax loss along the way. Some years ago I was involved with repairing such things with tunnelling machines for customers outside the UK. We looked after the Customs clearance and duty issues for our customers as in the first instance it is the party the goods are on consignment to who have the liability for the duty and VAT. If I remember correctly, the duty liability was deferred and credited out when the machine left the UK again. The liability would only have crystallised if the goods were not re-exported.

These matters are often handled for you by a freight forwarding agent, generally the carrier you used. One of the problems that arises is with low value items when the cost of navigating the system, such as the freight forwarding agent's fees, are high relative to the value of the goods involved.

While you have not placed any blame at the door of the people who were going to do the work for you, I suspect part of the problem is that they are not properly prepared for conducting international trade.

Many of the countries I used to deal with would have thrown up similar problems in this case.

Thanks David. I'm not happy with the repair facility and feel they should refund my payment or at least return my emails, but there is little I can legally do, at least from here. I've not named the person because I respect this site, its members, and the reason we all keep returning to read about and help each other. If someone asks me in a private message who it was I'll share but think it's probably inappropriate to do it on the site and counter productive to our purpose. I've decided to move on and use aftermarket electronic instruments rather than deal with plumbing and a speedometer cable. My T-Bucket Roadster has Dolphin (without the fish) and they work pretty well. Again, thanks!!

Paul,

Honorable and well spoken !

Keep them on the track,

Phillip G

Thanks Phillip.

Paul

You won't believe this, but the local PostPerson just returned my Tach's. I guess UK Customs got tired of them setting around taking up space. I still didn''t get my money back from the insturement shop person, but at least he didn't get them too. I still plan to continue with plan B and use aftermarket.


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