Importing a US Car AND a Towing question

[bol]

Anyone have any experience importing a US car?

I'm not worried about it except for insurance(I can't find anyone who will insure the car temporarily.)

The other question is one about towing. I don't know if I want to drive the car back because of the weather... so I might have to consider towing it. Does anyone have any suggestions, perhaps maybe about u-haul towing(seems very expensive to me.)

[Zero102]

I just brought my 87 porsche 951 across the border a week ago.
Feel free to shoot any questions you have to me. Although, give www.riv.ca a check, as they have most of the info on there, although there are always little things they don't mention.

If you presently have insurance on a vehicle, and are insured under only one company, your insurance company is obligated to insure any vehicle you buy for a period of 14 days. That is law, however some insurance companies will still deny it. Worth giving yours a shot.

If you're not presently insured, it might be best to have somebody else buy it, then buy it from them once it gets back? I don't know if there's another way to do it.

If you have a bill of sale for the car, you can get insurance and registration for it.

[benyl]

The only thing I know about towing is that if you don't use a trailer, you have to use a Tow bar. You can't chain two cars together (with rope or chain).

The other legal way is to push it... haha

Why don't you get it transported? Probably less of a hassle for you.

[Weapon_R]

Originally posted by bol


I'm not worried about it except for insurance(I can't find anyone who will insure the car temporarily.)



Why is that a problem? You have a bill of sale. Insure it, and get it here. It doesn't matter where the car is. No insurance company has ever asked me to confirm if the car is in Calgary.

Also, once it gets here, I assume you'll need to get an Out of Province inspection before you register it.

Shipping companies will probably run you $1000 to get it here, are insured against damages, and will probably save you that $1000 in wear and tear, depreciation from mileage, and towing costs.

[bol]

I don't want insurance for more than a week on it. I'll see what my current company says after I bitch a bit more.

I may just get it shipped up as i don't want to drive it this time of year.

When I said towing I kinda meant shipping as well.

I'd love to rent the u-haul trailer but I don't have a vehicle capable enough to tow(Funny that a Ford F150 can't do it but my mothers Nissan XTerra can.)

[CryoCarnage]

Originally posted by benyl
The other legal way is to push it... haha

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Zero102]

Sorry, it's not legal to push it :(
The car has to be insured and registered to be on the road. You would have to push it across people's yards and fields and such, it would get pretty tiring, lol.

Shipping isn't too expensive if the car runs and drives.
You still have to do the paperwork with most shipping companies, but it's not that bad, just takes a couple minutes.

[E36M3]

I shipped my SL55 from Florida a few months ago, and had a customs brokerage firm take care of the paperwork. Ended up costing about $1000 I think and it was pretty hassle free.

I'm not sure exactly what you are asking specifically, but the process was something like this:

a) I shopped around on the internet for transport companies that had space, charged reasonable rates, owned their own trucks (important because a broker can use both good and bad transporters and it wasn't worth the risk to me) and offered full insurance. I also wanted to make sure that it was the same transporter end to end so that they wouldn't pass the buck off if there was a problem

b) I contacted the brokerage agent that they recommended and had to pay her about $100 or something to handle the paperwork (seemed like a steal at the time)

c) Had to get the brokerage people a transfer for the GST + Duty on the car (7% GST + 6% Duty)

d) Picked up the car from the Budget at the airport (they were supposed to deliver it to my house, but big deal)

If you'd like the names of the people I used, I'd be happy to pass them along, but I wasn't particularly thrilled with them (had a couple minor scratches on the front bumper, which I guess can't really be avoided).

You will have to decide on closed vs. open transport and the cost difference is significant. I went with open figuring that it wouldn't be any worse than taking a long road trip (worked out fine for me, but your results may vary)


Originally posted by bol
Anyone have any experience importing a US car?

I'm not worried about it except for insurance(I can't find anyone who will insure the car temporarily.)

The other question is one about towing. I don't know if I want to drive the car back because of the weather... so I might have to consider towing it. Does anyone have any suggestions, perhaps maybe about u-haul towing(seems very expensive to me.)

[BigC]

If you can, fly down and drive the car back.. cross border shipping is VERY expensive.

Also.. insurance if the car is shipped is usually included with the shipping expense.

Regularly now I'll have the cars shipped to depots (like towing facilities, etc) in Montana, if I don't feel like drive back from Florida or where ever. Cause they its only a few hours drive down and back to pick it up.