METRO-MIKE wrote:
One of the first things a B@rder Inspector will ask you while driving your car or bringing a car over the border, are you the registered owner?
If you are not the registered owner you better have alot of paperwork and some cash, to fix your new problems.
Now, if a Canadi@n owner of a car was to drive over the border and sell you his car and walk back across the border, or you give him a ride in a different car back home, that's legal.
But, trying to buy a complete car in Canad@ and bringing it across the US b@rder by yourself without some import paperwork, there will be a very good chance you will have the car impounded & confiscated.
and this was my experience maybe 7 or 8 years ago.
a canadian ts member had purchased a swift ga on ebay from a sailor returning from duty in puerto rico. the sailor had sent his car on a cargo ship to baltimore where it was sitting in a no start condition at the docks. my dad and i drove from ohio to maryland, picked up the swift with a trailer and drove to the border crossing bridge at niagra falls. the buyer walked across the bridge and met us on the us side, got into the suburban, and we headed for canada.
the us side was slam packed with semi trucks and we were directed through customs without being stopped. at the canadian side these wonder twin nazi customs officials acted as if we were smuggling drugs, gave the buyer/ owner the third degree even though he had titles, a bill of sale, copies of screen shots of the ebay transaction, etc. the 22 year old female canadian custom nazi was a screaming bitch about the whole deal and sent us back across the bridge to the us side.
the us custom nazi acted like we were trying to pull some sneaky shit and told my dad that he was going to confiscate his suburban, the trailer, and the contraband suzuki and send us all to the pokey. my dad, about 75 at the time, was just short of stroking out when another customs agent came out and tapped the first guy on the shoulder, and whispered "shift change" in his ear. the prick headed back into the building and the new guy looked at my dad and said, "get out of here."
i ended up bringing the swift back home, getting it running, putting good tires on it, and driving it to windsor to deliver it to the canadian guy at the windsor harley davidson shop.
i bought a rusted to shit but complete 89 turbo firefly on ebay from a guy in ottawa and there was just no way the us government was going to let me bring it back. even with the car cut in half and strapped on a trailer the customs dudes wouldn't let it cross the border. the guy that bought the ebay swift, his cousin, and another long gone teamswifter pulled all the turbo3 parts and delivered them to me at a meat packing plant in detroit. that was the only way for me to get parts for my blue turbo3 vert build.
1989 canadian cars will meet the safety requirements in the usa because the 89 us market suzukis had b pillar mounted seat belts. the problem lies in that the turbo3 was never homologated for emissions. to meet the import requirements you must obtain a "suitability of fitness" certificate from the manufacture to legally import a car from canada. the car also gets sent to an impound lot for 72 hours while the paperwork packet is processed, the car is "inspected" which means, depending on the mood of the nazi on the case, that they will pull seats, door panels, interior trim panels, or whatever else they feel like having sex with and leave the car with a pile of parts in the gravel of the impound lot.
i've never gotten a straight answer on what happens if they disallow import. maybe your car disappears.
anyway, good luck to you. there's some 25 year rule that might apply now that the cars are older but i highly doubt that a truly legit importation, one that would allow you use the real vin to register the car in the usa, is going to happen with a turbo3 type suzuki. they were a canadian market only car from 89 to 91, their years of production.
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