Sparkle,
You will have problems for several reasons. If you are crossing from Buffalo, good luck to you if you don't own your vehicle! They will make this process of importing your car very, very difficult. Michigan border could be better, but this is what you need and trust me it takes time:
1) According to the website, you need a letter from your lien holder expressing permission to export the vehicle into Canada. The statement on the site was intended to be subjective and the immigration officers are supposed to use discretion. However, when exporting your vehicle from the Buffalo border, US immigration literally wants the word “export” in the letter from you lien holder. They will email you when you begin your exporting process with instructions on exporting, the Buffalo immigration officer in charge of exporting advised us to have “permanently export” in the lien holder letter.
2) Problem: most lien holders will not approve of an "export" of a vehicle, let alone give you permission to “permanently export” your vehicle into a country where your credit starts fresh and you may have little incentive to pay your loan from there.
3) If you are lucky enough to find out that your lien holder approves of such requests, such us in our case (Chase Bank) they will give you a standard letter such us in our case which Immigration may deny, which ours got denied.
Our story: Chase Bank approved the export of a 2009 vehicle, and gave us a standard letter that stated my husband can take the car into Canada. The immigration officer declined him export because the letter did not have “export” written in it. I did research and even spoke with other Buffalo US immigration officers and Michigan US immigration officers who when I read them the letter said that sounded fine and should be good enough for export. My husband tried to export again hoping to get a different officer to use better discretion. He went and saw the same officer and his manager there, because a couple in his situation was escalating the same matter to the manager and they also got turned back for not having “export” in the letter. My husband clarified with the manager about having the term “permanently export” in the letter and the manager said no just “export” is sufficient. The request my husband made for Chase to include “permanently export” in a new letter after he iniatially got sent back at the border, was refused by the legal department. He asked Chase to approve of a new a request for a new letter stating “export” in the letter and was approved the term “import into Canada” implying export from the US. The immigration officer (same guy) said that he would normally decline this kind of letter because, again the word “export” was not in the letter, but that he wanted my husband to have a good weekend, so he allowed him entry into Canada with his vehicle.
Twist: when my husband crossed over to Canada, the Canadian side was looking for the word "import" in the letter, which made us shake our head.
Icing on top of the cake: Canadian customs will tax your vehicle because you don't fully own it yet. Prepare to have hundreds/thousands of extra dollars to pay the import tax.
This was the worst part of the entire immigration process. On a positive note, his fairly new car was worth the import. It took one month for the bank to approve the original standard letter, than it took about another month communicating back and forth for them to get us the final draft. The manager at Chase didn't understand why immigration was being so uptight and they informed us that many people have no problems exporting their vehicle using their standard letter. Which makes me believe that Michigan border is a little less strict about the wording in the lien holder's letter.
Good luck to you and all those that have to go through this process!
sparkle said:
Hello Guys !
It's me again
I had 1 quick question. My husband is planning to import his car to Canada when he hands the first time. The title is on his name, but the car is financed by the BMW Dealer, and he is still paying for it. Now, would that be an issue for importing?
