The Canadian dollar is on a tear.
sduford on Nov 07 2007 at 9:39 am | Filed under: Miscellaneous, Photography
The Canadian dollar hit $1.10 US this morning as the USD continues it’s precipitous drop towards becoming an irrelevant world currency.
I wrote this blog entry a little while ago about how Subaru (and other car companies) are raping Canadians. Well now, the new numbers are something like this:
Subaru Outback XT Limited in Canada: $45,900. The same car in the USA: $32,800 or $29,520 in CDN$. That is now over 50% more money for the same car in Canada.
Similarly, I had pre-ordered a new Nikon D300 camera at a price of $2100. Nikon felt some pressure and lowered their list price to $2000. That same camera lists for $1800 in the US, or $1620 CDN. So I just cancelled my order, and will be ordering one from the USA.
Despite the financial reasons that have brought you to your conclusion, be aware that Nikon Canada will not honour the warrantee from a Canadian who has purchased a Nikon abroad. The same is true for the other camera companies.
You are correct, that is the rethoric from Nikon but it is just designed to scare people: if challenged in court Nikon would lose. It is illegal to refuse warranty service on a product that was purchased legally. Compaq tried that with me when I bought a laptop while I lived in the USA and then moved back to Canada shortly thereafter. They wouldn’t fix the laptop, but a letter from my lawyer fixed that in a hurry: they quickly complied when challenged.
But there are several ways around that. First of all, Nikon USA will honour the warranty and will only take a couple extra days to ship the camera back and forth. Second, you can buy a third party warranty for about $70.
I refuse to be taken hostage by companies like Nikon and Subaru. I would rather support the Canadian market, but I won’t do so at a cost of several hundreds or thousands of dollars.