Ever since the beginning of ITP, special orders have been a problem. A special order meant a bare minimum wait of 6 weeks, often 8, and up to 10. It was unavoidable. Nobody likes having their tractor down for that long, but when parts aren't available sooner, there just isn't any choice. We dread having to tell someone it's going to be x number of weeks until we can get their part in.

Well, hopefully those days are over--we've set up a new way to take the sting out of special order waiting times--we are now implementing monthly air freight of special orders from overseas! This is big. It'll drop your special order time down from a maximum of 10 weeks, to a maximum of 4 weeks, and down from a minimum of 6 weeks, to a minimum of a week. It will just depend on when you put your special order in.

Ok, that was the good news, now the bad news--you have to pay for the service. Sorry. It isn't cheap to have parts flown in from the other side of the world, so we can't absorb it ourselves, especially since the special orders are for YOU, and we wouldn't be getting them otherwise. We wouldn't be doing this except to expedite orders for you. The prices will be variable. For instance, small packet air freight over here is a minimum of about $95.00. That's just for an 11x15 inch cellophane pouch with 2 or 3 pounds of parts in it. It can get a lot worse, up to hundreds of dollars. A few hundred dollars maybe wouldn't seem so bad in the middle of haying when a tractor's down, though, given the other much less desirable option of waiting it out for 6-10 weeks.

The best part about this is that the more people put in a special order, the cheaper it gets per person, as we will devide the cost up among you. Now, if only two people put in an order, and one guy just orders a special washer, and the other orders a rear axle housing, it's not going to be split 50/50, because that wouldn't be fair. A fair split will be made at all times, the final decision being up to us. If duty or brokerage charges are levied, the charges will be passed on to the customer(s) as well, but this isn't so likely, unless the orders are fairly large.

If this service really takes off, and lots of special orders keep coming in every month, then maybe we will be able to begin to absorb the cost ourselves, or at least reduce the cost for you, the customer. This is only an experiment at this time. It may become regular practice, and it may not, depending on it's reception. It's all up to you.

We expect this service will be used most by bigger or newer Fiat or Hesston owners, as we have most everything shown on ITP in stock for the smaller, older tractors. Of course, we can run out of stock on practically anything, given the way we find sales of slower moving inventory seems to go in spurts. Predominantly, though, it will be parts for newer or larger tractors that will be special order items.

Well, we just thought we'd let you know, and see what you think. We hope you like the idea, but for your sake you don't have to use it!