Bought a furuno 585 and a 1kw transducer from the US several years ago. Saved over $1000.

Marinedeal.com was the place.;)

Check AU prices first though, not forgetting the eastern states if you cant get what you want in WA.

USA and Canada Issued GPS's will only read in feet,fathoms and properly farinheight.

peter 

hi ferret i got a navman 6507 off the net and saved a butt load,but i went to shop and played with them and got a feel for what i was going to buy,know what you are going to buy before you buy it ,look for a power seller and there is less chance of getting ripped off and use paypal so if it does go wrong you can get your money back

jeff

got my sounder and gps from this guy, all was sweet even when i sent one back on a warranty claim. i paid to ship it to him and he paid return.  They were navman and northstar and they both worked fine over here.

http://bonzerimports.com/

Bonzer is the one to use

Have got a sounder and GPS from him and has saved me heaps

He said if there was any issues he would sort it out for me and go halves in

the postage.

I had some local blokes tell me watch out for the tax man and " It will not have warranty" but that was just them trying to justify why it was so much more from them, but it is not there fault.

Aust gets shafted by the wholesalers, there is no reason we should be paying localy the same price for a Furuno 620 as what you can buy a 585 for over the net.

ps: It is cheaper to get the GPS card here though.

bought a lowrance lmc525 gps chartplotter sounder combo from the states for less than one third of the cost here .....works perfectly except it won't tell me where the big fish are??? lol

from the same place as i got mine PJAY

Cheers,

David

Got my Furuno GP7000 from the states on Ebay.  Saved $1500 so I gathered I could get two for the same price they wanted in Australia if one failed although they said I could return it to the states for warranty.  Just be aware you calculate the import duties on anything over $1000.

As much as i would like to buy locally. you just cant beat the american exhange rate at the moment. I got my  new FCV 585 delivered last week from the states. I am now a bit cautious about stuff over ebay. There are alot that are termed 'grey imports'. They are refurbished models sold under the idea of them being 'new'.

Check the genuine marine stores on the web in the states. The cheapest one i found was www.thegpsstore.com  They fedex it to you and its here in a week.

The furuno gear is in both meters and feet

 cheers

got mine from Bonza, very helpful and no dramas in getting it here or warranty.Same unit as PJAY. Has metric and imperial and you juts buy the card for it with pre loaded maps (they are about $300 - $400)

He is an aussie expat.

Be mindful of any cutoms duty on it, suggest out check that point out. 

thanks alot blokes

I bought a Hummingbird top of the line 3D sounder / gps, only to find it only had US imperal units in it and could not do degC, meters etc!!!! Many US products are locked into their system of units, becareful!
These days I buy local, pay a bit more and get the service, warranty and back-up I need here in Perth.
just my view on it

Tony

Always worthwhile trying to buy local Tony. The main reason I bought my unit overseas was that when the 585 first hit the market here the distributors got caught out by the demand. Having to wait a minimum of three months was not an option at the time for me.

With that waiting period plus the dollars to be saved it was a no brainer to buy it from the US. Mine came via USPS and I didn't pay a cent for any import duties. Took about 11 days if I recall.

If you go through Bonzer Imports any import duties and GST is included in their price.  I purchased some electronics from them that would have been subject to import duty and GST without any hassles.

Bought a Hummingbird Sounder/Gps 917 from turtlemarine.com, no probs, when I plugged it in it was in Imperial, went out and after about an hour it realised I was in Aus and automatically changed it to metric....

I personally have no problem with people buying overseas but i would never waste a local agents time or resources with questions or asking for advice. 

Just a question for everyone who bought the unit overseas. How many of you actually went into a local store and used there demo units, asked questions of the local staff before you bought overseas? I'm talking about knowing you are going to buy overseas but still used local agents to help make a decision. Or was it only after you saw the price difference that you shopped else were? Serous question, not having a dig just wanting to get a consensus of people thoughts.

Next question if you did do you think it fair to do so?

I went into a few local shop but I knew what i wanted and allmost fell over when I saw the prices.

They could not even go close with the price so I imported one.

Best decition I made and I would do it again tommorow and will do again when I upgrade to the new Furuno.

I was always going to buy Furuno so I didn't look at other brands.  I had lengthy phone discussions / emails / and exchanges of pics with Dave Mailtland from Taylor Marine and choose the second option Dave recommended.  At that time Dave had a similar sized craft and I valued his comments and recommendations.  Once I had made the decision as to what I wanted it was then time to seek prices.  Taylor Marine tried very very hard to compete but were unable to match the overseas prices.  I guess that is not suprising as many of the overseas suppliers are no more than post boxes.  I was prepared to pay more to deal with Taylor Marine and I made that clear to them however the difference was too great.  Did I use them?  I don't believe so.   

Thanks for the responses. Its so hard for local retailers to compete, there are already at least 10% behind thanks to GST. 

Keen to get a few more responses.

The stuff I'm getting at is like this.

I just recently had a guy ask me about a imported boat that he was looking at. Only to have him turn around and sign up for the same model i had in the yard a short time later. So subject to water test as all my sales are and we went out on a run. He absolutely loved it but then turned around and said thanks but no thanks he was going to import one. He even said he had decided beforehand but just wanted to drive one locally to save him the hassle of flying to the states.

Sadly he didn''t see any harm in wasting 2 hours of my time.

Your statement that local retailers are always at least 10% behind thanks to GST is not strictly correct.  Import duty and GST is payable on imports > $1k.  In my case the importer included their exposure to import duty and GST within their price so your statement doesn't hold up in this instance. 

Granted if the purchase is <$1k it's a different matter.

Your example above would pi$$ me off too.

Bought electronics in from the US a couple of times recently

Always a breeze and saved a bucket load

Experienced the same as Tony Halliday with a Hummingbird Plotter - units Imperial and couldn't be changed without re: programming

Will be looking into the reprogramming at a dealer, but don't look forward to explaining my dilemma

When the Aussie dollar is this strong its silly not to look at your import options 

Thanks for the responses, it makes me feel better to think that people(not all people) are not just out for themselves and there own pockets.

Honestly for $500 bucks i may have done it but thsi bloke had no intention of paying for anything, that scool karma is a prick..

Honesty is the best policy is my moto..

Well all i can say that its unfair that a dealer here will spend hours with people going through the product and then quoting nill margin to get the deal but then shop of the net. And then go back to a dealer and expext help if it isnt working properly or have an issue with it. Some things cant be helped,the dollar for one but it does eventually weigh out over time, depends if you wanted to buy it then and there. I think that we should support our local dealers which keeps them trading and which in turns helps our economy and your jobs too. Obviously check between all of them and get the best price possible, but remember the guy that went that extra little bit further to give you better advice even though his price was that extra little bit more. You will thank yourself later down the track, when you will need there help again!

You might be able to answer a question Lowrance.
Is it true that Navico no longer operate an Australian service centre. I keep hearing people say that once warrenty period is over on any Navico product they are no longer supported.

Do your research well before making a decision. Sometimes the "great" deals are no as good as can be bought locally.

Was looking at buying a new shimano reel, ebay had a buy it now price of $209 +$14.50 postage, Campbell tackle $207 +postage up to Carnarvon of about $10 and Mo tackle over east $189 +$10 postage.

Was looking at an Olympus camera this morning and ebay is $70 dearer than the other place I looked at.

Have bought a lot of gear off ebay, some good but some was complete rubbish so buyer beware.