[QUOTE=chickdr,Apr 3 2008, 08:30 AM] Why would this be an issue?

 

[QUOTE=Hockey,Apr 3 2008, 09:22 AM] I believe these are the "Modulo" pieces which have been available for years.

 

Hi KS320,

Thanks for the info, the mats look ace! Yes I live in the UK, so RHD.

This seems pefect, with black leather interior I should go for the black mats. I have work colleagues in HK & Japan so I will use them to help me.
Perfect!

 

I am a bit confused on the "mark up" of the 26,500 price. 160 of markup and shipping? That seems quite a lot. Why couldn't you buy a set directly from a Honda dealer in Japan and have them shipped for a lot less than $160? As for the difference from the US mat, I for one would be willing to deal with the difference between fabrics if I could buy the red or black crossbrace covers as a separate item.

 

If we could all buy from Honda dealers, then it wouldn't be a problem. The problems with Japanese vendors (no racial discrimination here) are that they:

1. generally have the language barrier -- i.e. they do not speak English
2. often are unwilling to ship the items out of the country

I would imagine that dealers are worse (especially for #2). With that said, one would have to get a shop / someone to order the parts for you on your behalf, pick up the package, and re-ship the package to you. At the end of the day, it's all business. The person / shop doing this relay for you will charge you a small fee / mark up for it, unless he's your friend, which he probably won't be doing this all the time. The 160 USD mark up should be on the conservative side (i.e.its probably lower in reality).

You do have to shop around. I ordered the TypeS wing (which is exactly same as the CR wing) from Japan recently, and must say the prices aren't always consistent. I've gotten quotes that ranged from 900 USD to 1400 USD. Perhaps the wing was a bit different of an example, because the Honda dealers actually require a TypeS VIN (no ... CR ones don't work, I tried). So the "car dudes" there had to do some work on that as well. Either case, I went through my mechanic to find shops in Japan that are willing to order the wing and do the re-shipping. Just look at this, you can see that the person doing the re-shipping and my mechanic could already take a markup on each side before getting to me. But if I don't have them? I have no where else to get my wing, except ask HTG to ship it across the Pacific with 300+ USD shipping charge ...