The body clips I ordered for Laurie's Mazdaspeed 3 from China, and the new "Chile Capital of the World" license plate I ordered for my Mazda RX-8 were delivered today. Laurie caught the rocker panel skirt on a parking bumper that was sticking out in the road and it broke most of the fastening clips that hold the skirt on. I tried to get clips in town, but parts stores don't carry most body parts for Mazda because Mazda is a low production car company compared to Toyota, Honda and American car producers. Mazda produces models in lots of tens of thousands a year as compared to the millions of models produced by most other car manufactures. I located the clips from Mazda and one or two specialty parts companies on-line, but they wanted $4 to $8 per clip, so a dozen clips would have cost me $48 to $96. I found a bag of 50 clips from a seller in China for a grand total of $1.86 with shipping. I ordered the clips on November 11th, so it took twenty six days by China Post to get to me. It's not Amazon Prime, but it was very reasonable. I have bought several items from China and Japan on eBay, and the quality, service and shipping have always been reasonable.

I got on-line last week to renew the registration on my Mazda RX-8, and the MVD website suggested I upgrade to a "Chile Capital of the World" license plate for only $6.50. The MVD must be taking lessons from Amazon. I love the red and green chile license plate design, so of course I had to go for it. By changing license plates, I get a month registration for the $6.50 and then I will renew for two years at the end of the month. Excellent deal.