Olaf

Yep, fair point, Kyu. I failed to include my assumption that one provides all the necessary information, when initiating the shipment. that, and I have pointed out the contrast - NZ Post will not phone the addressees phone number to initiate contact, instead sending a letter. FedEx calls ahead proactively. I regularly praise the delivery efforts of MyUS and FedEx. And sometimes even DHL, though the courierpost connection makes it more haphazard.

I beg to differ, Kyu. Freight forwarding is fairly straightforward, so one should naturally expect a range of service running from ‘good’ to ‘great’. These threads are useful to establish how far outside of that range some of the operators are. Not everyone enjoys my favoured provider, MyUS. I’ve never seen a bad word in print about shipitto. On the other hand, the regularity of people reporting disfavorable - or even plain dreadful - Service from YouShop is impossible to ignore. As you say - know what to expect? In closing, I’d suggest nothing about standard freight forwarding is special, unless there’s exceptional service. ?

Goodness. Fancy a business specializing in freight forwarding forgetting to inform their customers of their address change. You’ve been visiting Baltimore? Here’s your theme tune, then:

yeah, having suffered the bruised pride when cracked the new windscreen on my e46 recently, I decided I should pay the professionals to lower my risk. It's a rational and cold decision. ?

I've used them plenty. they only charge if it's over the limit. when I'm bringing in company stuff, I use my client code... somewhere along the line I pay GST - whether it's with the carrier, or through my cashbook and GST reconciliation.

in a recent development, flying saucers were spotted in Wellington's Eastern Suburbs this morning. The craft appeared to be made of aluminium and a ferrous metal painted to look like aluminium... despite its obvious weight, it flew, hovered, and generally disturbed BMW owners in the vicinity.

Slightly west of that - I recently had the misfortune to have a large shipment (necessitating an NZ Customs Client Code), sent via USPS... which links with NZ Post here. That’s the weakest link. Hours (not joking) spent on the phone with various NZ Post reps. I don’t object to paying for brokerage; though I do expect something approaching *service* for my money! The crowning glory was, having paid my fees for GST, Brokerage, Insoection etc and the parcel was moving again, trying to arrange a redirect. 30 minutes on the phone with numerous reps, claiming nothing could be done until the parcel reached Highbrook. WTF? I challenged that I had no way of knowing, as the only updates were ‘regional processing’, and local Wellington inconsistent at best. Giving up, I turned to their website and found I could initiate the redirect immediately! Their call Centre staff don’t have a scooby, don’t have the right scripts, and their processes are totally broken. It took nearly a month to get my parcel. I wasn’t concerned about time to deliver, what was unreasonable was the amount of my time that NZ Post consumed. I should invoice them. /rant Contrast that with FedEx (who I usually use for shipments from MyUS.com)... Saturday morning phone call “Hi Mr Olaf, FedEx here, advising we’ve emailed you about a package that’s on its way to you out of the USA. Just call back with your credit card number, pay the import fees, and we’ll have that to you on Tuesday”. I paid Monday morning and arranged for it to be held at depot during the same call. It arrived Monday midday. FedEx don’t even charge for the brokerage! NZ Post are completely broken.

we came back (many, many years ago) with USD, opened a USD account here and sat on it till we found a house. Someone we knew had access to the Treasury info, and we knew that if we waited around nine more months we'd leverage a sizeable drop in the rate. But we'd found the right house, and moved forward; life can't wait, and the significance of an extra $15k (which was a lot back then) on deposit is soon eclipsed by mortgage interest rate changes, repairs, and valuation increases as years and decades pass. ?

awesome work, Chris!

The leather's just losing it's pigment from the tanning process, through wear and exposure to sun (UV), and heat. it can be successfully restored, to give it more protection and to last for decades longer.

I'm watching Luke Cage, with my Son. Life is good.

great to see you're underway with this again, Francois!

the Bimmer spent the whole time wearing smugface.

more life from it? you said it won't go into reverse! There is no more life! I was typing out the same thing dirtydoogle said above...

last time I did it, worked out at about $6.50/litre... contrast that with retail 4l packs.

there ya go - the real oil. buy the fluid and filter for the good used unit that you get to replace your old shagged one...

if you're going to do a fluid and filter change in the hope it fixes it (buy a Lotto ticket you might get lucky with one or t'other), assuming it's DEXIII fluid it runs BNT do 20l of Fuchs ATF at very reasonable prices.

calling @kiwi535 time to revisit the 1er, this time with a little more chilli!

hey Jimmy, welcome to Bimmersport. Nice looking e32, sir! Suggest you subscribe to the Wellington Meetings room, then you'll get wind of all the Wellington meetups organised. BMW Car Club Wellington Crew have a monthly pub meetup first thursday of the month at 1812 in Johnsonville (Bimmersporters always welcome), and there's coffee meets, cruises, and other adventures throughout the year.

the way they've cast Bunta is great fun.

Welcome, @JacobQ gotta love a V8 e60! I think on the whole Dynamic Drive is pretty reliable, so hopefully not too difficult to sort. We need pics, man. If only to satisfy the e60 desire! cheers

happy days. I've found there's a movie adaptation of Initial-D on Netflix NZ. Instead of being awful, it's AWESOME! Finished an interesting week in the office, enjoyed a glass of pinot watching this. Recommended. Very funny.

very pleased you avoided, mate.

careful mate, you'll get arrested for the latter. ? on a serious note, I was wondering how you were getting on with that plan. If you buy pork, will your 335i remain?

I'm suitably unimpressed with the drop in the kiwi against the USD. GBP? Be worthless, soon.