Importing from Canada

What recent GRM had an article on this? I swear it was in the last year, but I could not find it last night. I know I'm looking right past it.....

Just go to the NHSTA website and get all the info from the source. I don't think there was a GRM article but there's been some discussion in the forum.

The rules are different for cars produced for the Canadian market and for the rest of the world. Bringing a weirdo car into Canada does not make it a Canadian market car

Is it just Alberta that doesn't do titles? I bought a Datsun roadster from Calgary and the paperwork was a nightmare. Alberta DMV and Oregon DMV would not play nice with each other. I had to finally get an Alabama title.

Canadian registration documents double as a title. There's no separate paper.

Depends on the province. Nova Scotia had both the registration and a separate title.

In reply to Skobie:

Depending on the year, depends on the rules.

Pre 1975 you can import the car as a classic so classic rules aply. after 1975 the car has to meet emmisions standards for that car and the car has to be stock. no mods unless they are factory mods. The car also Has to be inspected within a set time or you will face possible fines from the EPA. And there is a hole list of other regs to go with that.

IWELDIT wrote: In reply to Skobie: Depending on the year, depends on the rules. Pre 1975 you can import the car as a classic so classic rules aply. after 1975 the car has to meet emmisions standards for that car and the car has to be stock. no mods unless they are factory mods. The car also Has to be inspected within a set time or you will face possible fines from the EPA. And there is a hole list of other regs to go with that.

BTW it took me almost a month of searching the net and a ton of phone calls all over the U.S.A to find out what I needed.

OK guys - sounds like its not worth it...or, better said, there's a lot of cool things to own that are already IN the US.

Thanks for the reality check!

Not guarenteeing this will work, or even that it's "proper procedure", but I once sold a 14-year-old (at the time) Eagle Summit to a guy from Michigan. He had a letter from a DEALERSHIP (on letterhead) stating that "this Canadian-spec 1993 Eagle Summit 4-door, VIN blah blah colour blah blah etc." met the US EPA and DOT standards for that year. Apparently that was all he needed to make customs happy. He towed it across the border on a trailer.

I also sold a 1980 Celica to a guy on this forum who later said the import procedure was no problem at all, but that car was over 25. (What happened to Greg aka 20over anyway? I haven't heard from him in ages.)

It shouldn't be hard. A friend did it with a Subaru, I've been partway through the process with a Miata.

If the car is over 25 years old, no worries.

If it's under 25 years old, contact the manufacturer (info listed on the NHSTA website). They will send you a letter that will say either the car meets US regs, meets US regs with some changes in labeling (ie, no VIN tags on the body panels and metric instrumentation) or does not meet the US regs. As long as it doesn't say the latter, you're good. If it does say the latter, just give up because the car doesn't have airbags. Theoretically you can get the airbags retrofitted but it'll basically never happen. This is what stopped me with my old Canadian Miata.

Jay's story about the note on dealership letterhead simply says that someone at the DMV didn't look closely enough :) Right idea, but wrong source for the letter. Still, it shouldn't be hard. Mazda is very responsive and Subaru was helpful as well.

Ontario doesn't do separate titles, I didn't realize that NS did. It's not a problem, I've brought two cars into the US from Canada with Ontario registration and nobody blinked. Drove both across the border.

I brought my 1958 A35 back from Canada to NJ with no real problems, but I was very well-prepared anyway. The car did come with an old Ontario title, but it had been off the road for 20+ years, so the title thing may have changed. I used that title to get my NJ title.

Not sure if any of this appies to you, but ~Here's The Story of Bringing It In~