The Official CDN Importing A Car Thread! www.riv.ca

while on this subject Im looking to move to Montreal this spring and my question is if I drove my cars to Canada do I have to have them registered there or can I simply leave Maryland tags on the vehicles and keep em there as if Im on an extended vacation. I dont think I'll be applying for a canadian citizenship and so if i'm a US citizen wouldnt I be ok then?


thanks so much

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I dont have much experience with this. But if you drive around with your plates I do believe you have a certain amount of time before you have to take off those plates.

You should ask Steve Mamman on here.

 

Dave....

You are good for 6 months IIRC.

 

thanks for the response, tell me if i were to bring the cars up to Montreal and garage them there and lets say I eventually get canadian tags is there a conversion process or some form of a state inspection to be allowed to keep the cars in Canada?

thanks again

<removed>

 

http://www.riv.ca/english/html/how_to_import.html


It's all here............each province has it's own inspection you require, in addition to the RIV process.......problem is....if you do this you trigger tax payment. Drive the car back across the border and leave it there for 2-3 weeks then come back again. Beats paying 6&#37; GST plus provincial tax of 7-8% IIRC in Quebec.

 

If you are trying to bring a Lambo or a Lotus to Canada, they are not permitted..

unless you had some creative way of plating them in the US??--I'm not sure how they do it... but I see US plated exotics in Canada a fair amount, and Oregon seems to be the plate seen most often (I wonder if the lack of Sales tax has anything to do with that )

 

Hi David
If you are moving to Montreal then there should be no tax.

Gerrit

 

thanks all for the helpful info truly

 

I've asked the question the other way around ... what if I have a 25 y/o vehicle, plated in Canada and want to bring it to the US?

Possible? Any restrictions?

 

Are you going to register it, sell it to a US buyer, or just drive it in the US. Please be more specific.

 

I just did a quik search and in the past year we had at least 21 import/export threads. So now I merged them all to this one LOL.

It's a good source so lets try and keep it to one thread boys. Makes it easier for all.

Cheers,

V..

 

There is trouble brewing for those people wanting to import a vehicle into Canada once it is 15 years old. Powerful groups are lobbying the Transport Canada to replace the old rule with a new plan increasing the age to a minimum of a 25 year old vehicle import restriction. The Imported Vehicle Owners Association of Canada (www.ivoac.ca) is supporting the current rules with no changes. The clock is ticking; better find that special car soon. It seems the auto manufacturers like the monopoly they enjoy in Canada and feel threatened by the more than 17,000 vehicle to arrive by the 15 year rule in 2005. It seems that right hand drive vehicles are especially a concern.
CH

 

I can see that happening. I've been seeing a lot of skylines recently here in Victoria.

 

Yawn.......

This rumor has been around forever. 17,000 cars is totally irrelevant in the scheme of things when one knows the total numbers......and as these are used cars, new car manufacturers couldn't care less..........the kids buying Skylines and Soarers, etc, are upset because they think their crap cars will no longer qualify, as it is prohibitively expensive to certify one as you have to replace all the glass, the lights, etc.

Well, they don't qualify as it is right now,and I don't want crap cars on the roads out here, or rookie driver 18 year olds running around in RHD cars, as they can barely drive in LHD cars as it is........so this stuff has to be done anyways, regardless if they are past 15 years of age or not. Why ?....because provincial regs say so. Our shop has turned down a lot of these cars, vehicles that have been to 4-5-6 different shops in town where they have been refused.

http://www.riv.ca/english/NOTICE0604.pdf

You can still import cars if this was true.......it just means that they'd have to go thru RIV and be provincially and federally certified......

Yawn. The only ones upset are the guys bringing in the cheap junk from Japan....and your thread is a hoax full of misrepresentations and untruths, and the title is a lie.

 

If this will limit all the retards in RHD Skylines and 300ZXs, I'm all for it.

After writing that, I guess it's not the retards that will be limited, just the cars they drive!

 

The current RIV admissibility list already allows most of the modern cars one would want to import, so I don't see much of a problem unless you're a collector, or trying to import F40s, or one of the aforementioned JDM nuts trying to get some R34 Skylines.

 

I was under the impression that importing a car from the US was still okay. just importing like a skyline etc from Japan was a problem.

 

What the HELL are you saying bro? Not just F40 but a slew of great cars. There are alot of great cars people are dying to bring in. Not just "collectors".

 

This is another example of the government telling us what's best for us and playing big brother. To hell with these stupid laws, they don't even let us import cars from the US without helping companies like Porsche or Ferrari lining their pockets. The fact that we can get cars that only a minority of people will end up putting on the roads is not a national security issue. The gazillion free trade agreements we signed don't mean anything if we can't freely import cars to Canada. We already pay high enough prices for cars as it is. This is just bs imo.

 

Again....more misunderstanding and unjustified comments indicating total and complete ignorance of the reality of the issue.

I imported over 45 Porsches from the US last year......not ONCE....yes....not ONCE did I pay for any parts or for that matter anything else from the Porsche dealer to make my cars pass RIV and the out of province inspection. All I did was have my own shop hook up the DRL's in each circumstance.....$200 in total per car

I imported 2 Ferrari's as well.......and didn't spend a dime at the dealer either.........

The issue with JDM cars is truly one of safety, nothing else, nothing more. 97,000 new cars were sold in Canada last month.......the imported cars less than 15 years old which are used were in the thousands as well...........none of you guys opposed to this issue have even the slightest clue of what you are talking about.......none whatsoever.

http://www.desrosiers.ca/pdfs/sales.pdf

 

Fair enough on the misunderstanding. However, consumers should have more choices for cars in Canada. Can you prove that JDM cars or even 15 year old european cars are any less safe than cars made for Canada/US from 15 years ago? Many other countries have no problems with second hand JDM cars, NZ and Ireland come to mind.

 

So all the cars being imported are cheap junk then? Ever think maybe there are enthusiasts of Japanese cars that dont drive like idiots and stay lowkey? Not all of the stuff being imported is junk, older Japanese cars are in far better condition than equivalent cars here. AFAIK there was only 1 fatality in Canada in 2005 from a JDM car, so this isnt a safety issue. If the car doesnt meet basic safety requirements it shouldnt be allowed. However changing of glass, bumpers etc is just another way of sucking out more cash, just like the implementing of yearly emmisions tests and the cash grab 100kph speed limit. As far as people not being able to drive, id say the vast majority of the population falls into that category, its far too easy to get a license here. There is no evidence that the accident rate is higher for a RHD car. Just another example of our pussified goverment, they will pass bills for more stringent emmisions controls for older cars with small displacement engines, yet they will allow gas guzzling polluting Hummers out on the streets, heck I wouldnt be suprised if they drove them. There is nothing wrong with Japanese cars, not everyone can afford a Porsche. Please do not think every import driver is a big wing, neon lights infested ricer. I hate those people as much as everyone else, they bring "heat" from cops and I pay high insurance because they assclowns cant drive.

 

Yes I agree there is a ton of JDM crap on the road, people who bring in $6,000 Skylines and are able to sell them. But there are people like me who bought their Skyline for top dollar and it's kept in pristine condition, both the body and mechanically as well. The crap is being grouped with everything JDM because yes, 80% is crap, but 20% of us have great running cars and don't drive like *******s, especially because we know we're targeted.

 

It's JDM, yo.
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