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Importing a vehicle from the US

AudiRS4

Passed Driver's Ed
I wanted to start a thread to inform potential buyers of US VW/Audi vehicles and importing them to Canada. I won't give specific details, however I documented my steps on what was done to bring my 2007 4-door GTI.

NOTE: This is my experience and the information that I gathered. This is not intended to cause everybody to do cross-border shopping since it may not be for everyone.

Key Notes:

WARRANTY: Is fully covered when importing a vehicle from the US to Canada. I have called VW Canada, and they confirmed it with me (June 07), these articles will also back up my findings.

http://www.apa.ca/template.asp?DocID=253
http://www.canadaone.com/ezine/sept07/import.html

And I also have had warranty work done on my car in Canada so I've proved it works.

Where to purchase: From what I understand, VW/Audi is not stopping people by stopping warranty, but stopping the dealership from selling to Canadians, they will require a USA Address. This is the latest from what I heard. When I went, I had no problems, they just filled out my Canadian address and everything was fine. I have heard, that a way around it is, the dealership will register it first, then sell it to you, that way it's classified as a used vehicle. However you will need to find a dealership that will do that for you.

Total Purchase Price: The exchange rate on the vehicle, I usually go by

http://www.rbcroyalbank.com/RBC:RvwWdI71A8UAEICGnDo/cgi-bin/travel/fxconvert.pl

You will need to pay 6.1% Duty, 6.0% GST, PST (depending on the province), $100 AC tax, Green levy (if applicable), $206.70 RIV fee at the border and the you will need to do the Out of Province inspection at Canadian Tire ($150 or so). That's it for the cost of the vehicle, plus your gas and hotel fee, etc.

Key Things to do prior: Get insurance, you will need a Recall Letter Notice, you will need to fill out a worksheet and send it to the Border Crossing, In-Transit plate from the dealership (one per state your travelling through), another In-Transit for Canada.

Benefits:

1.) I saved myself $7,000.00 on my car if I purchased it here (all said and done). This was with 0.92 on the dollar, you do the math.

2.) I got what I wanted that I couldn't get in Canada. Dual Zone Automatic Climate control (now standard on the Canadian version) and headlight washers.


Drawbacks:

1.) Takes some work, faxing paper work, making phone calls, etc. You'll need to find a ride to pick up the car.
2.) You have to know what you want before purchasing, you can't just go down their and take a test drive and say you don't want it. It's pretty much, you buy the car without looking at it.
3.) Finding the dealership that will sell you a new VW/Audi, used is ok from most dealerships I have talked to.
4.) You won't be able to Lease or Finance like you can from a Canadian Dealership. This is probably the biggest drawback for most people since leasing and financing is probably the biggest ways of paying now a days. What I did was I had to use a line of credit to pay for half my car (I know, not very smart, but I believe the $7,000.00 will be more than enough to pay for the interest I accumulate).
5.) Not all cars from VW/Audi are importable from the US, please check http://www.riv.ca/english/US_vehicle_admissibility.pdf
AND YES, it has to state it is admissible, if it is not listed, it is deemed INADMISSABLE.
6.) Getting used to the MPH in big and km/h in small
7.) Your supporting the US economy and not the Canadian economy.

Anyways, I hope this clears up a few questions for people. For more details on how to perform it, check out www.riv.ca and http://www.importcartocanada.info/

KEY IMPORTANT STEPS:

Insure that you have the ORIGINAL TITLE or Certificate of Orgin when you cross the border because they NEED that to stamp for export.
 
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Greg

I drive to fast...
Location
Victoria
Car(s)
07 GTI
Apparently there is a class action lawsuit againt automakers about the price difference between Canadian and American prices

From the little that Ive heard about this VW is not inclueded in this
Anyone have any other info about this?
 

RedRabidRabbit

I want FREE HAM!!
Location
Vancouver
Apparently there is a class action lawsuit againt automakers about the price difference between Canadian and American prices

From the little that Ive heard about this VW is not inclueded in this
Anyone have any other info about this?


The thing that's stupid is that it's not just cars, it EVERYTHING. Look at the difference in prices in electronics, books, you name it. I don't know what the solution is, but I assume they're weary of changing the pricing drastically because if the dollar falls back down to $.75 in a year, they're screwed.
 

Raz

Passed Driver's Ed
I know - I would LOVE an R32 in Canada for the price of a Jetta... it kills me everytime I think of that! Or an A3, A4 or A5 for the price of a Jetta or Passat!! It's enough to keep me up at night... lol!
 

RedRabidRabbit

I want FREE HAM!!
Location
Vancouver
I guess we just need 10 times the population like the US has, so that we have the same buying power, and then therefore the same discount level on merchandise.

It does work this way, but the problem is VW factors the Canadian dollar into play when they price the product to VWoC or the US dollar to VWoA. When the dollar changes (drastically), so should the price of the cars. The Canadian dollar hasn't changed much compared to the Euro, but the US dollar has.
 

Raz

Passed Driver's Ed
I'm aware that the R32 is not admissible to import - it can't meet our bumper regulations. I was just merely stating a fact regarding prices and a car that I would KILL to see up here. Although, the 2008 TT can't meet bumper regulations either, so they had extra "bumpers" added to the front. No reason VWoC couldn't do that to an R32 - in my humble opinion.
 

AudiRS4

Passed Driver's Ed
Totally agree, maybe they'll do Canada a favour and make an R36 only for Canada :) wishful thinking. However, it's interesting to see why they added the 2008 GTI to be INADMISSIBLE now, I wonder what changed between the 2007 and 2008 version..... because don't they come from the same factory in Germany?
 

AudiRS4

Passed Driver's Ed
Oh, nevermind, I think I might know the answer to my own question, I think it's because of the height, I heard the US for 2008 has lowered the GTI making it more inline with the EURO spec version, that would change the bumper height. I guess Canada still gets the 4x4 version of the GTI (tad bit exagerated) until you lower it yourself. So now it bears in mind, if we told VW to jack up the R32 to allow it to meet the bumper restrictions, then we buy it and then we can lower it back ourselves.....
 

Raz

Passed Driver's Ed
Jack up an R32 then we can buy it and lower it ourselves? I'm game on for that! Petition anyone! LOL!!
 

Kubo

Passed Driver's Ed
Location
Richmond, BC
I saw on the news the other day.. Porsche has reduced the prices of their vehicles dramatically in Canada.. eg. Boxster down $9000, Cayman down $6000.
Other brands may follow!!
 

Raz

Passed Driver's Ed
The question people need to ask themselves is not how the Cndn dollar compares with the dropping US dollar, but how our dollar compares to the Euro and the Peso. Our cars are built in Mexico (Golf, Jetta City, Beetle), Brazil (MKV Jetta) and Germany (GTI, Rabbit, Passat). How does the dropping US dollar affect how the Cndn dollar compares to the euro or the peso? It doesn't. We have no cars built in the US so their dropping dollar won't directly affect us. Auto Analyst Dennis DesRosiers said that, "The correst price for a vehicle is what the consumer will pay for it in Canada, not what a consumer will pay in another country." Record sales of new cars in Canada is proof that new cars in Canada are not overpriced. The reason that Porsche has dropped prices is because the have the margin to do so! VW doesn't. There's an average of $1100 markup on a Rabbit or City model. Not a lot when the average markup on a Ford/GM pickup is $15,000!!! Buyers interest in importing a car to Canada needs to pay RIV fees (Registrar of Imported Vehicles) $195 plus tax. Plus the cost of any modifications necessary, such as adding daytime running lights, 8km/h bumpers and a child tether anchor.
 
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