I dare say its been done to death on here but i’m weighing up getting a chinese cx frame and building it up from scratch or getting one of those new racy cx bikes from Planet X, the XLS.

Easy route is PX but i’d rather give the other a bash if i could avoid the potential customs fees and hassles, etc.

So my question is, who on here got stung and if so how much and who got away scott free :D, i’ll collate all the answers and probably toss a coin…….. oh and if anyone has any thoughts/experiences on the XLS please share them too and feel free to post pics of your builds too if you like.

Thanks in advance

JB

My Ti frame arrived without any call to pay VAT or duty on it. Nothing unusual in the posting/packaging/labelling either. I think that sometimes you just get lucky.

Just ordered some bars today and will soon see what I get stopped for.

Never had a frame but have had 2x forks and wheels sent from tawain and HK. some came through no charge others didn’t. Even with the same uk carrier.

I think it’s just luck on the day…

When I looked it up, I think it was about 4% import tax on bike frames, + 20% VAT, so work it out accordingly Vs a Planet-X frame already in the country. If you get away with it then I wouldn’t shout too much about surely, because they’ll clamp down on it eventually surely??

The exchange rate on dollars isn’t that brilliant at the moment either.

But chinese carbon does look ace, so if it were me, I’d press the button with no hesitation 😉

Got stung for about £30 on my Carbonal MTB frame. Worth checking the tracking number regularly if you go the Chinese way. Parcelforce just send you a letter which can delay it a couple of days, but you can short cut it if you keep checking the status.

I have bought frames & forks in the past from China and the USA and always got stung with import tax and VAT.The cherry on the cake is parcelforce put £8 on top for their processing too.I’ll do without from now on if i can’t buy here or from the EU.

OP I emailed you

I didn’t get charged anything.

Got a letter today, from parcelFarce charging me £11.60 VAT ( well customs) and then their £13.50 for clearance fee. So that amounts to £25.10 for a pair of £60 handlebars. May even return to sender and get a refund and get a pair in the UK. Wont be getting wheels , if I have to give parcel farce any money.

Wont be getting wheels , if I have to give parcel farce any money.

So do you not buy from uk online places that use Parcel Force as their carrier?

Hardly any of my personal parcels come from Parcel Farce. I have a mate in the post office who shares his info on the crushed cages of late delivery parcels they deal with and personal wont send anything via them either.

Does your mate expect everyone to boycott them so that he eventually loses his job?