imcarthur

See Customs

As Jeff said.

Any car over 15 years old can be imported.
It can be a US made car or foreign car made for the US market or a RoW (ZZZ serial #). They don't care as long as it is >15 yrs.
Most cars < 15 years can be imported as well but it must enter & pass the RIV program. Link as per Jeff . . .
You must have clear title to register it in your province.
And you pay & pay & pay.

Jeff

The only scary 'what-if' about you method is, 'what-if' you had an accident on the drive home? Without temp registration, it is still the PO's car technically. Your bill of sale implies a change, but how would lawsuit-happy US lawyers & claim-denying adjusters have seen it? No registration & therefore no insurance maybe? The PO certainly would disavow any responsibility & claim you weren't supposed to use his plates, that he expected you to register etc.

In the end, for this & numerous reasons, I shipped.

Ian

jgrant

Ian-

I had the title transferred into my name at the time I picked it up, as well as the bill of sale. According to my insurance broker (who's also a lawyer and deals with a lot of these types of exotic/classic/import deals), the previous registration requirement is there just to show that it was a road-legal car at the point of origin. According to him, my wife and I (and the car) were completely covered for any type of accident we might have. They also assured me that there were absolutely no reasonable grounds for the previous owner (a friend of mine who is also a lawyer) to be held liable for anything. I say "reasonable grounds" as it _IS_ the US, and they tend to be a little more, ahh, testing? of the legal system.

damn... I know WAY too many lawyers.


At the end of the day, I was very worried about the whole thing, but was assured by both my broker as well as the guy I bought it from that it was all good and proper and legal.

Mind you, I've seen claims from accidents 2km from home not get honoured, but that's a whole other story.

If there's one thing that I seemed to realize from the whole affair, is that hardly anybody seems to really know what the hell is supposed to be done in this kind of case... I called EVERYONE, and had a 3-ring binder with me with all the correspondence I had with the various state licensing agencies, insurance companies, US & CDN Customs, and the US Dept of Transportation, web sites, forms, etc., all printed out, so that if anyone said I wasn't doing something right, then I'd point them to how I'd tried to do the right thing.

All in all, it seemed to work out OK.

At least I'm able to drive my nice new/old Porsche here without issue.

Speaking of which, time to head out for a drive.

imcarthur

That's the whole point isn't it? That & just looking at it . . .

Ian

BTW I here you about going crazy trying to confirm regulations. I called state MV dept, US & CDN customs, RIV & had info from all of them.

jgrant

You are SOOO right! lol As a matter of fact, just came back from Whistler for dinner... *sigh* makes all the work/effort so worth it.

Also, just so you know, my "last ditch" plan was to act like the stupid Canadian tourist and plead for mercy!

...jeff

rt69

Curious to know if anyone has experienced this. As you know the U.S. spec. anologue speedo. gauge on the 996 (as opposed to the 993) only reads in mph. I understand that there is a digital readout below that can be changed to show kilometeres per hour but is this enough to satisfy the Canadian Feds? If not, do you have to replace the entire speedo., or is there some sort of transparent overlay you can place directly on the speedo. to indicate kph. Just wondering.

johnjcoyle

On the subject of Imports,

I am a car dealer, I have just moved to Ottawa and I will be arranging the impotation of porsches from Europe, among other imported vehicles, new and used.

Euro spec and, only cars with full history, un damaged etc....

I have one question regarding older cars,,, in Canada would I be right in saying that a Classic car is a car of 15 years of age ?

If so this could mean some excellent 1990 models are available for import to Canada.

I am of course investgating this issue further, however if anyone has any info, please let me know.

Best regards,

John C.

johnjcoyle

Now I feel stupid,

I only saw the first message on this thread and jumped straight to post a reply, I did that and now see that my question was covered in the thread earlier,,

Stupid me.

Cpt. Beaky

I'm looking at a car in San Diego right now... I'd like to drive it back, but don't want to pay state taxes. It's a private sale. Anyone know any ways I can get by the taxes?

I think someone suggested using a broker and shipping the car would help with that... any other ways?

jgrant

I bought mine in San Diego, and didn't have to pay any State taxes... only CDN taxes (PST, GST, duty).

I'm not sure if the guy I bought it from had to pay taxes or not, but he didn't say anything about having to.

Cpt. Beaky

That sounds cool, I guess they have special registration for cars that are going out-of-state. I'll have to email them directly to ensure that.

jgrant

I wonder if it's like it is here... you pay the taxes when you register the car. Because you're not re-registering it in CA, you won't pay the CA State taxes on it. Instead, I had to pay taxes on it here when I registered it.

STAR57

Greetings to all;

Just made it back to Calgary after driving 575 miles from Manheim PA to Toronto.
If you guys could see the look on the eyes of Customs Oficcer at the Border, he even let me bring some stuff without paying duty (no details).
Got to Manheim at 1PM and started on the road 45 minutes later, had problems starting the S Bullet but got it going, after driving 20 miles pulled into a service station and bought a set of jumper cables thinking I may need them.
Well thats when the stress started the Bullet would not start, not from a new XC90 or an older Blaser.
Called the selling party and he said that I should consider towing it to the Lancaster Porsche Dealer, possible Starter or Alternator ???
Well I called AAA and 1 hour later BABBA from Cabagge Hill Garage showed up and hooked his portable Battery Pack to it, giggling that it had enough juice to jump start an F18 (KMart Model) cranked it up... Nada, Nientte,Ziltch !!!
After a couple minutes I sugested that maybe he should close his mouth, out of disapointment... I sugested lets hooked up to the F350 Ford with the dual Battery, rev it up and try it ! OK Babba said, turned the key and reluctantlly it went.
I started showing a Smile and Babba was shocked and awed!! he sugested I pull into Sears or Pep Boys and buy a Battery, which I promptlly agreed, drove away and found a Sears in Lebanon PA ( not to be confused with the one next to Israel), got the Battery and there I went all the way to Rochester NY 5.5 hours, nice weather.
Im sure you guys know how fast your Porker goes, and its limits, well I dont, all I know is that it does 125MPH on Interstate 81.... quite nicelly, without much effort.
Tomorrow I will download and post some pictures including Babba, and 2" wood earings on heavilly expanded hear lobs.
Friday it gets on train to Calgary and it should be here a week later.
I have chased and travelled longer for a Porsche than I ever chased or travelled for a Woman.
A friend said once, a Porsche can get a guy a chick, but a chick can not get a guy a Porsche..... may be I had the wrong chicks.

Cheers

thedyingiraffe

Jgrant:

The customs officier actually Googled your car to check out the fair market price?? Wow! I thought I was going to get away with the black book and the minimum value...

Did you declare the price you actually bought the car? I don't intend to pay full taxes... 6% import +7% gst +8% pst is high enough already.

imcarthur

You have to pay tax on the 'invoice' price. Now, I'm not telling you this (i must have read it on the net somewhere ) but have 2 bills of sale from the PO. One real, for whatever reasons & one with a reduced amount to use as your declaration for duty & GST. As of Nov 1 (?) Ontario now requires an appraisal to assess the amount of PST you will be charged so no getting away from that one (saw this on the PCA-UCR site).

Ian

suee

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