Minn Kota from the US

[bassfan]

Fellow Ausfishers,

I'm looking at purchasing an 80lb i-pilot from the states and wondered whether anyone else on here had done so with the AUD currently so healthy. Freight & insurance is @ $430 but it should still get here for less than $2K which is a lot less than they cost to buy in Oz.
Anybody here done business with "Marine Deal" or recommend another a good supplier?

cheers

bassfan

[Stik-ugly]

Have you had a look at Cabelas and Bass pro they are very reputable companies

[Toddy_again]

Have you had a look at Cabelas and Bass pro they are very reputable companies

They wont ship motors over here.I tried 12 months ago.Actually I reckon you will be hard pressed to find anyone reputable in the US these days to ship a motor over here for a reasonable price.
I would say that these days there is a list of cans and can nots for shipping OS.

Toddy

[jighead]

G'day Bassfan
Also don't forget to add 10% gst for purchases over $1000
Cheers Mal

[Escape with LG]

Tackledirect mate john there is great to deal with!

[coastrunner]

Ebuyersworld.com are good to deal with...

[bassfan]

Thanks for those replies. Yep there are still a few US companies that will ship over here and freight is expensive, but I reckon you would save nearly $1000 by doing so compared to buying one in Australia. Of couse you could forget about warranty as it would cost too much to send back for repairs. Hmmmm what a dilemma....

bassfan

[selous]

You could use a freight forwarder like shipito.com or hopshopgo.com (there are others) which will give you a US address and have it shipped there. They then forward it to your Aust address.

Basspro charge 40% S&H on international orders, so even if they would ship it here, their postage is a killer.

A good site that ships internationally is Westmarine.com A Miin Kota RT70 costs USD$669 and shipping to Australia is $281.19 via Fedex. Didn't see an iPilot on the site but you could always contact them and see if they can get them.

As per an earlier post, ebuyersworld.com is also good.

[MattChew]

Hey mate, shop around a bit more ... I paid $2200 for my 80lb iPilot. One thing is pretty much guaranteed ... you will be making a warranty claim at some point, and also note that Minn Kota's warranty period is now only 2 years.

Ta
Matt

[bassfan]

Hey mate, shop around a bit more ... I paid $2200 for my 80lb iPilot. One thing is pretty much guaranteed ... you will be making a warranty claim at some point, and also note that Minn Kota's warranty period is now only 2 years.

Ta
Matt

Thanks Matt, did you get yours here in Aus for that price & if so may I ask where? Re: warranty claims, yeah I had my last Minn Kota back to BLA twice for repairs, but they were great & even fixed it for free when the 3 year warranty had expired. I was hoping the newer models had less issues but that was probably wishful thinking....

bassfan

[Stressless]

Being a gps, do they suffer from geofencing having been exported from USA??? Just a thought

[scrotty]

I was also wondering about Geofencing issues?

[myusernam]

Geofencing built into lowrance software. Not becissarily a GPS thing

[Stik-ugly]

Try Northland Marine in the US I have bought Minn Kota parts from them with out a problem

[chocolatemoose]

no love for AUS retailers. (thats another argument)
there ARE differences in gps systems to the northern hemisphere..... there was a delay in the release of the AUS JW watersnake GPS systems owing to GPS sattelite tracking for the southern hemisphere.. however i dont think there is much of an issue in the minnkota ipilot range "though some claim that spot lock is no better than 10mt radius"