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Date:         Thu, 6 Apr 2000 22:15:49 -0500
Reply-To:     Marshall Ruskin <mruskin@PANGEA.CA>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Marshall Ruskin <mruskin@PANGEA.CA>
Subject:      Re: imports from u.s.a.? friday?long,but
Comments: To: "pierre a. lachance" <palachance@CCAPCABLE.COM>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

That doesn't surprise me at all, unfortunately.

It's sad, but Canada has a reputation with US firms as having the most red tape in Customs of any country in the world.

I've never imported a car here yet, and if I did, I'd get an expert to help me with the paperwork.

Regards,

Marshall Ruskin

what an experience... this is ¼ of the story ???

A little more than two years ago, in december, I spent three hours on the phone talking and waiting for someone to answer and tell me exactly " what would happen " at the border, if I drove and arrived with a westy weekender 85 that I was going to buy in florida ??? I did phone first to the ministry of transport, both provincial and federal: they are the ones that would permit me to drive the van on our roads... then the canada customs and revenue agency, at their offices in quebec city, to know exactly how much it was going to cost me in taxes etc and mostly, to inquire about different laws attached to this kind of transaction...some of these laws change often, and a lot of people you are talking to, do not even know these changes !!! more, i did phone to the canadian customs office at the border on I-87, where I was going to go through... finally and just in case, i phoned to the u.s.a. customs office at champlain n.y.: depending on a lot of things, they can " freeze " your car up to 48 hours or more to verify all the papers etc etc... all this time, i tried to " get " some names to make sure i had the right answers .But this is government " stuff", nobody wants to be involved ? anyway, i was ready to make the move as if i were going to get married and saying " I DO "... So, to make the story short: november: after kidnapping my girlfriend to hollywood, florida, we fell in love with this west 85, but just came back home. january: took three weeks off , bought the thing, ( my 15th Vw), found afterwards it was "" completely dry, dry,dry"", could not use it, rented a motel, thought that PO was a real Vw person? we believe in Vw people! march: i flew to Fla alone, spending more than 1200.$ to have it fixed, but it still leaked... got fed up, drove back home just the same and the engine "passed away" on I-87, 60 miles from the border. I got to the customs in the back of a tow truck...eventhough i knew how to fill all the papers, they told me that i had to employ and wait for a broker, no way of getting out of it! i had to pay him 234.$ to fill my name,address, plus, kind of car ...serial number. these persons are " federals", you have to be very careful and stay polite, they can be worst than the police if they want to. Finally they decided that the price that the broker had written, i.e. the same that i had paid for was not enough... they do not use the , black or red book value, and at one time, they were four around a book to decide what they were going to inscribe as a price... so they almost added 2000.$ to the price i paid. and the worst about this thing, is that i was taxed on this amount up and to buying my plates.So, lets say my price war 5000.$us initially...i first paid 6% to the state of florida; (450.$cdn). At the border, this amount, because of the 1.5 exchange, became more than 7500.$cdn. Since these vans are not made in the states, you still have to pay 6.1% duty( was 9%), + 100.$ if you have an a/c, on top of this comes the federal tax of 7.0%, on top 7.5% sales tax in the prov. of quebec and finally more than 130.$ for several inspections fed. and prov. Canada, with all its taxes, is supposed to be the " top" country in the world ( can we for once surpass the US for something ?) and quebec is the summum, climax of the 10 provinces, so imagine how much it costs to live here ??? Zephyr now stands in the driveway with a 16000.$ tag, what we thought would have been a bargain! and we still have our seats to have done; anybody has tan seats for sale ? Sooo, if you still want to import, you can always p mail to palachance@ccapcable.com , since i am sure to have omitted a few things ??? pierre a. lachance lac beauport, que zephyr weekender 85 green apple s.beetle 00 p.s. we call our weekender Zephyr because it had an empty bottle of Zephyrhills water from florida holding the "for sale" sign...no wonder it was dry...


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