AirSpeed VW Community Forums
General Forums => Air Speed Lounge => Topic started by: Cameron on January 13, 2009, 10:16:52 AM
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Anybody know what's happening with Bow Wow?
They have a web site. Is it a shop again? Or just internet sales out of somebody's basement?
http://www.bowwow.com/
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Hi Cam,
I think they are starting it up again.
I ran into Brad a few months ago
Thanks,
Shawn
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interesting. after browsing their site, they seem to have relatively competitive prices. i hope it works out for them.
Is it a shop again? Or just internet sales out of somebody's basement?
good questions. anyone know?
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maybe someone that is interested (Cameron) should click the contact link on the site and ask them
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maybe someone that is interested (Cameron) should click the contact link on the site and ask them
i just sent them a nasty message with camerons name & email attached to it so we'll see what happens.
j/k
;)
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Last I knew they were pretty much gone. West Can autoparts is in their old building...
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i sent them an email to bowwow@bowwow.ca (the address on their website) and i got a message saying that my email could not be delivered???
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There may be a prospect business concern remaining and and they may not have an actual store. They may have rights to the name and who knows what may come on down the road. I am sure the have retained a whole database of suppliers and they still have a very well known name. We will see if anything comes out of it but, I would not write them off yet.
On the other hand AVR and CIP have survived some hard time and perhaph we should be looking at them as a source of parts.
Who knows, some day Airspeed could come back. Never Say Never.
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Not sure if it's a basement or what but it is internet sales only. I've ordered some stuff and got it no problem.
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Wow, those "list" prices are kinda funny, some pretty deep discounts there with the "your price" ;) , makes me feel special.
What's the quality like Hans? OEM like, or bottom of the barrell Chinese?
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Just a washer pump for a golf(for the vanagon), not oem but ok I guess , added bosch oil filters etc to make up a $75 order for the free shipping.
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That website came into existence not long before Bowwow closed. When I worked there it was contracted through Worldpac. If you look at the pictures it still is.
Prices didn't look that good to me. Quality will really just depend what is in the bin at the warehouse when they pick your order.
As for bowwow coming back... I doubt it. I'd say that day has passed.
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Amen. Anything you get from them, you could get from any local jobber. It all comes from a Worldpac warehouse back east. Any other parts place can order from Worldpac. And it's all low quality Chinese and off-shore stuff too. (Not that Bow Wow always had top quality OE stuff on hand, but at least taking it back because it was crap was easy) I'm not so sure the Anderson family deserves any support from the VW community after they took such a succesful business and ran it into the fucking ground, screwing over many employees, customers, and suppliers in the process. :'(
My $0.02
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The worldpac warehouse is in town. Infact they have two of them and one just recently opened up for more inventory.
Worldpac is one of the most top notch suppliers I have. They have not dropped their standards like Altrom. I'm sorry but I've been dealing with altrom for almost a decade and they now are one of my "ghetto" suppliers since majority of the parts they sell now are truly substandard offshore low QC products.
Worldpac for the japanese import world sells primarily "made in Japan" higher quality parts. Infact they sell alot of OE parts. They also sell OE vw parts at lower prices than dealerships.
Fact of the matter is $$$ is everything. The tough part is to educate buyers about quality and longevity.
I know i will never use a chinese made master cylinder/water pump etc when it comes to an import car. Many china builds I've used leak well before 100,000km or the bearing siezes. Thing is customers want cheap. A high percentage of aircooled VW people are cheap (fact). Not being negative its just an observation I see in my world. When cheap parts break I never hear the end of it. If a customer owning a honda/toyota/mitsu/nissan requests a cheaper water pump I try to educate them. When they dont listen i tell them to go else where because i'd rather loose a sale then to redoe a job that is due to low QC. Not saying all china offshores are bad becuase some are good. I must pick and choose my parts I use because if I know they are "iffy" I will get bitten in the arse for warranty work that I do not get paid for.
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So, who are these guys then?
http://www.importcarpartscanada.ca/index.wws
Anyone know where they are getting their parts from here in Vancouver? Another Internet shop that used Worldpac as a supplier?
It would be nice to know.
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marks bug barn in ontario, they only charge pst in ontario, there is an appraisal link to marks bug barn, so im going with that.
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Back in the day, Mark's Bug Barn used to put out a paper catalogue. It was the CIP catalogue with Mark's Bug Barn name on it instead of California Import Parts. If I recall, everything you ordered from Mark's was drop-shipped from CIP. They (CIP) even offered to do the same for Bow-Wow, but those dough-heads in Surrey let that oppurtunity slip by.