Hello, potential new 930 owner, importing a car back into the US

[JMGaston]

Hello,

New member to your BBS. I love your message board. The amount of knowledge on these wonderful cars is impressive. I have a couple of questions that hopefully one of you can help me out with.

I am in the market for a 930. Out of the choices that I have, one of my favorites happens to be in Canada. The car has been in Canada since new, so the speedometer and odometer are metric.

I have two questions:

• 1) the Canadian dealer is willing to import the car into the states, including brokerage fees and duties, shipped to my home. I know i will need some sort of certificate to title the car in my name in the US. Aside the registration taxes, Can anyone give me some info as to what else is needed to legalize the car in the US?
  2) how can I convert the odometer to miles without putting anew one in and resetting to zero? I want to avoid this at all cost.

Cheers!
JM

[philip j]

Do a search, most cars go the other way. It costs Canadians about 20%+ on top of the price of the car to bring into the country. At the buyers expense. Philip

[icemann427]

Hi, you can send your speedo to North Hollywood Speedometer in California and he will convert it over to a US speedo for you and convert the Km's into US miles.

[einsteiger]

This information is courtesy of Mr. Brian Keith, who took the time to document this on another forum:
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The main thing with a grey market car is to make sure that you have the Federalization Papers.

Contact Info for obtaining Vehicle Importation Records - this is the paperwork concerning the conformance of your grey mkt car to US Standards - very important!
U.S. Department of Transportation
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Enforcement
Office of Vehicle Safety Compliance
Contact Name : Richard Merritt
Rm 6115, NEF-30
400 7th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20590

202-493-2266
Kathy Rice is his secretary - 202-366-5291
Main Dept is 202-493-5300 - I think it is a menu system

You simply want to ask for a copy of the vehicle importation certificate for your car based on the serial number. This document will prove that your car has been brought in line with the safety standards at the time the car was imported.


The other thing you may want to do is check the EPA records on the car because an EPA certificate should have been issued on the car once it went thru federalization.

Next thing is to obtain an EPA Compliance document - also called EPA Form 3520-1.
You will contact the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Vehicle Compliance Programs Group
U.S. EPA, VPCD (6405J)
401 M Street, S.W.
Washington, DC 20460
Phone 202-564-9271
Fax 202-565-2057
FaxBack Service for requesting document faxes - 202-564-9660
Contact Person : Ethel Harrison - do not piss this lady off. She works on her own schedule and if you are in a hurry - don't expect her to be in a hurry. I found this out when she blessed me out for asking her where my fax was at 2 hours after I requested it. Work with her. Respect her. She is your friend.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hope this helps. Good luck.

[Roby466]

PM me if you want to sell your speedo, what year is the car? I am in Canada and just imported my car in from the US so my speedo is in MPH...
The process going from the US to Canada was not bad at all... I hope it is as easy going South!

[j930]

my euro 930 was no problem to insure and register out here in Az. no papers required for any of that!

[JMGaston]

Thank you all for the information. The seller is having second thoughts about letting go of the car (I don't blame him, it is a beautiful car), so the deal looks to be off the table for now.
I have another prospect that I have been looking at for a while but will create another thread for that one.

Cheers!
JM

[philip j]

Was the car you wanted to buy the red one on Ebay

[JMGaston]

It wasn't on eBay (that I know of). I was dealing directly dealing with the owner.

[TT Gasman]

In Texas, if the car is over 25 yrs old, only requires s safety inspection.

[alwaysflat6s]

Guys,

Most of you are missing the main point. It is not just significant, it is huge.

There is no indication that this car was ever federalized. If it falls within the 30 year spectrum that the DOT/EPA cares about, it will require an expensive conversion.

You also have to be aware of what your particular state requires. This can also be a big deal. In California it means NO - GO on a lot of interesting cars I have seen.

There are a lot of gray market cars that have been legally imported and federalized [Yes. Many times the federalization was a big cheat, but if the question comes up you better have the documents that says it was done.]

I spent countless hours trying to figure out how to legally own an early Ruf CTR here in Calif and finally gave up and built as close to one as could be smogged here [there is absolutely no way a CT-1 would ever pass Calfi emissions.] BTW, it ended up costing me at least as much as I could have brought a CTR-1 here for at the time. Very frustrating.

Again, be very careful with cars that are not already here and registered. This can be a land mine. The earlier xref by EINSTEIGER [tks] is very important. Honestly, it amazes me that people do not carefully retain the DOT/EPA records on their gray market imported cars. It can save future owners from having a nightmare.

Be careful out there
JR