I am curious if anyone can point me in the direction i need to look to determine what all mods must be done to make a 996 turbo meet canada specs to allow it to pass inspection? I understand DRL ... but what else?

Any problems bringing in a 996 turbo to canada i should know about? What transporting company did you use? any advice?

 

That's it---just the DRL's is what I had to do....and you can literally do them within $3 from Canadian Tire. 2 metal clips and a 1 inch piece of wire.

 

sweet...

does this 1200 dollar fee for the recall letter still occur?

 

I paid $500 for my letter a few months ago.

 

They're charging for it now? When I imported mine, Porsche Canada just faxed the letter over in 15 mins free of charge.

If you're in Edmonton, I can help u with the DRLs if you end up purchasing one. It's really simple and its a permanent solution.

 

thanks vv23 ... I will definitely keep that in mind. I am currently shopping around. I wont settle on a 996tt untill the perfect one pops up. I will most likely own the car for the next 10+ years... so I am going to wait till I find the perfect car. It seems purchasing in the USA is the only option due to the price.


If you drive the car back to Canada... do you have to get temp reg. /plates for every single state you drive thru?

Can anyone suggest a good shipping company ??? I am curious what it cost to avoid the hassle of flying and driving the car back.

 

> does this 1200 dollar fee for the recall letter still occur?

It is $500 if you get a Canadian dealer to do an "Import Inspection". If you are getting a used car, I would strongly advise you get a PPI (possibly with a DME reading) done at a US Porsche dealership close to the seller. Most serious sellers will agree to take the care there for you once you have made a deposit. When you talk to the service advisor to discuss the PPI results, just kindly ask him to pull a report from his job management system showing that there is no outstanding recalls on this VIN (PCNA calls them "Open Campaigns" on their reports). The seller may already have a relationship with the service manager, that could help too. The Canadian RIV will take this report instead of a recall letter. Check the RIV sites for more details on what should be on the report but the dealer I worked with just printed me that one pager, I scanned it and sent it to the RIV and it worked great.

> every single state you drive thru?

Yes. I know people who have successfully done it using only a temp tag from the origin state but this is somewhat risky; if the car gets impounded, it could be a lot of trouble.

Most states do not allow temporary plates from other states as there is no way for law enforcement to check if they are valid or not. I say "most" but I have only checked a few (~8) that were relevant when I got my car and was thinking about driving it back, but they all seem to have the same story on the east coast. Maybe it could be possible to work some sort of crazy maze if you look into it deeper.

Also, if you do temp tags, some states will charge you state sales taxes - you may/may not get those taxes back when you plate at destination. For example, if a Canadian resident (they will ask for your driver license as proof of residency) buys a car in Florida and you want to drive it in Florida (just to get out of there, for example), the dealer will issue you a FL temp tag but will have to charge you state taxes on it. You will most likely never see that money (~6% in FL) again. Note that in this particular case, the DMV/tax law is different for an out-of-state (but in-country) and out-of-country. I guess another option would be to buy a car in a state that is on the border and where they do not charge state takes for out-of-country buyers.

As you can see, this gets pretty complicated, and possibly expensive, if you have to cross many states. For that reason, I just had mine shipped and had them take care of the export/import paperwork for a little extra. It was worth it to not have to deal with the extra drama.

> Can anyone suggest a good shipping company ?

I used TFX. First class service all the way.

HTH,

T.

 

What did TFX charge ? what state to which province? Do they have depots the car and be dropped off at and picked up from in both the USA and Canada?

 

Never heard of the "temp. plate issues" that tcouture explained in his post!! When I bought my Cayenne S from Connecticut I went to the DMV and purchased a special "travel temp. tag" which was good for 1 month and cost $25.00. I had to provide proof of insurance and my driver's license but that's it!!!
Had the same procedure when I bought my 997 S from Chicago. And again when I bought my motorhome in Florida. You do not have to pay any taxes if the vehicle is not going to be registered in that State.

 

Another point....the more work you do yourself, i.e pick up the vehicle and do your own customs clearance the cheaper the whole purchase will be!! Shipping companies are not cheap, especially when they do the Customs clearance for you.

 

I bought my car in FL two months ago, and did a little research on the Sales Tax issue at the time. Here is what I came up with: looking at the Florida publication titled "Sales and Use Tax on Motor Vehicles", it clearly says "The purchase of a motor vehicle in Florida by a resident of another country is taxable at six percent."

Ref.: http://dor.myflorida.com/dor/forms/2009/gt800030.pdf

Obviously, there are exemptions. You will need to read the whole thing to see what applies to your case but, essentially, as a private party, if you take delivery from a FL dealer (and hence, put a FL temp tag on it), according to this document (and the dealer I worked with), you will have to pay taxes. I HAD to ship it out since 6% was more than what TFX was charging me.

It looks that either motor homes are different, or that thor7000 caught a lucky break on that one... I bought from a dealer (for peace of mind), is it possible that it is different when buying from a private party? maybe yet another layer of complexity...

For the temporary tags, I called in FL, GA, SC, NC, VA, NY and VT. and pretty much got the same answer everywhere: temporary tags are for in-state. Maybe they have "special" inter state ("travel"?) tags but none of the people I explained my case to mentioned anything except one (I can't remember which state) that said I could use a dealer plate. IL and PA are very close to the border so I guess it is possible to make a run for it. Also note that once you are in Canada - at least is was the case in Quebec - you cannot drive the car with a US temp tag (a real tag yes, but not a temp one it seems) so you have to get a temp tag from the SAAQ in Quebec beforehand.

I think the most important thing I learned from all this whas that it was not a trivial thing to drive it up and, just based on the above tax thing in FL, it did not make any sense in my case to go down there and drive it up myself. My best advice to you is to do your own research, and by that I do not mean just asking on these forums but rather calling the DMV's in the states you are thinking about buying/driving.

HTH,

T.

 

>What did TFX charge ?

You should go to their website and fill out the quote form, you should get a quote within 24 hours.

HTH,

T.

 

>the more work you do yourself

I agree with thor7000. The more you do yourself, the cheaper it gets.

It all comes down to how much time you are prepared to spend on this, but it is not so complicated if you are prepared and you follow the rules.

That being said, I helped out a friend of mine bring back a BMW from NY last year and it pretty much took the whole day taking delivery of the car from the transporter and clearing customs. Even though we had all the proper paperwork, we just happened to be there on the wrong day.

Part of the difficulty of the process is that:

(1) It just seems that everyone that have imported a car I talk to have a different story
(2) Whenever you call some government office multiple times about the same thing they may give you a different answer (and they make you feel like you are the first wacko to ever try this)

Not being so sure about the "predictability" of the system was a decision factor for me. I decided to just let the pros handle the uncertainty and the added blood pressure.

HTH,

T.

P.S.: There are numerous threads on importing cars to Canada from the US in the Red Flag Deals forums. They are a good read; even though they do not all necessarily apply to p-cars, they give a relatively good feel for the process.

 

If you are exporting the vehicle out of the country you will not be charged any tax. You will need to provide documentation. I bought my motorhome from a dealer in Florida without any issue.

I bought a Jeep and drove home with a temp. tag, got pulled over Newmarket with the tag being 3 weeks old and had absolutely no issues once I provided all required Customs forms, bill of sale and proof of insurance!!
Also got pulled over by O.P.P on the 407 in my 997S just to check out my temp. tag from Chicago, again absolutely no issues since it was within the 1 month timeline.

Sounds like everyone has different experiences when importing a vehicle, but to date I have brought in 4 vehicles into Canada with all the exact same procedure, and absolutely no problems!!

 

I recently drove a p-car home from San Diego. The statements by thor7000 about everyone having a different experience and tcouture saying he was getting some different answers from different people are bang on. I think the whole procedure can be a little bit "grey" so to speak.
I went with the suggestion and experience of a few people on the pelican parts forum and used the Alberta 2 weeks to transfer a plate to another vehicle law and just flew down with my Alberta plate, threw it on and away I went all the way back to my doorstep. Is this a 100% legit way to do it? Likely not. But once a little road dirt / rain dusted my rear end it looked like the plate had been on there for ages and I was on a long road trip home (one of the best drives of my life actually up the west coast - something I had always dreamt of doing). I was always mindful, careful, prudent and respectful of all laws on the way home so really why would I get pulled over anyway? If I did get pulled over I had ALL my paperwork at the ready and though I really wouldn't have wanted to explain my story, there's always the chance that you get a sympathetic ear etc.
I guess my point is there are many different ways to make it happen and as long as you take the time to get your paperwork all in order and do your due diligence I'd say the whole thing has been super enjoyable, worth-while and rewarding. I love this car.