Not cracked up to what I expected (Rockauto)

[Wallythacker]

I see the appeal of RockAuto. I do.

However, I had an impending feeling of doom when I assembled my first order with them. I thought it was neat to have my running total converted to CDn$. It was pretty easy to find what I wanted and the prices seemed fair even though I think there's some bait and switch going on.

I put together a $300 order of small things, spark plugs, air filters, oil filters, wiper blades, etc. I figured it would all arrive in one small to medium sized box which would save on shipping.

So, the shipping options presented to me started @$59 and topped out about $114!!! In each case there were 3 sub shipments to make up the whole thing. Thinking that maybe shipping it cross border was the reason it was so high I rejigged to send the shipment to 247parcel, a receiver/forwarder of small freight in Niagara Falls, NY. It didn't make much difference. It got split into 4 equally priced shipments of about $11 each, $44 total. After I add the $3/box fee from 247parcel, a few bucks in tolls to cross the border and gas/time it actually costs more to ship it to the US address.

I've retrenched and am rethinking ordering from RA. There must be other distributors out there, in Canada, that have competitive prices without the need to take a currency exchange hit and awfully high shipping charges.

Any suggestions for other web parts places?