Porsche Cars Canada - Import Process Sucks
 

Porsche Cars North America was such a fantastic company to deal with when I imported my first Porsche from the US into Canada. The whole expeience was great. The cutomer service rep ended the phone conversation with me with "Welcome to the Porsche family". All I could think was WOW ...

This past month I have purchased another Porsche from the US and am going through the importation process again ... only this time the experience is completely terrible. Since Porsche Cars Canada has split from Porsche Cars North America, they have decided to intentionally make it difficult to bring a US car into Canada.

There is a certification process that only "can be done by a Porsche dealership" at a MSRP of $500. This has to be done in order to get the Recall clearance Letter from Porsche. They have a booklet of items that a certified Porsche technician must go through including checking to see if the vehicle has "Porsche" approved N rated tires on it, checking the engine revs at load, amongst a number of other things.

Then they tell you that they have to send a copy of the bill of sale (so they can see what you paid for the vehicle) along with this booklet to Porsche Cars Canada Head Office who, in a "week or two" will let them know if they will allow the vehicle to pass certification. When I paid my bill for this "service", I asked for a copy of what was being sent to the Head Office and was told that I couldn't have a copy even though I had just paid $560 to have this work done!

I seems to me that Porsche Cars Canada would want to welcome more Porsche owners into this small and often overlooked market. If nothing more than to have the potential to keep their sevice bays and parts counters a little busier & potentially sell more new cars. Rather, they seem intent on following the lead of Mercedes & BMW attempting to keep the market prices for their Brand high while trying to deter anyone from seeking better selection & likely a lower priced unit from the US.

I guess it will be interesting to see what the head office does ... will I get my certification? I did all of my due dilligence with repect to this vehicle in advance of my purchase. It meets or exceeds al CMVSS regulations and should have no reason to be denied. It has never been in an accident, has a clear title, and no recalls outstanding. It has daytime running lights and a metric instrument cluster.

Porsche makes a fantastic product and I really enjoy owning and driving one ... but I really am not happy with Porsche Cars Canada going the direction they have. It is really a shame too because when it comes time for me to purchase my next one .... I was planning to buy a new one .... now I am not so sure. I am feeling like I just got screwed and wasn't kissed first!

If you are going to import a Porsche into Canada ... understand the game has changed and Porsche is making it difficult now instead of being helpful & reasonable.

Porsche Canada import vehicle
 

Just want to make a comment on your experience here.. i'm not sure when the last time you had brought a car in from the U.S. it sure sounds like they really want to discourage people from bringing them in.
If i remember right when i brought my 04S from the States in 2007, all i needed was a phone call to Porsche North America and they really was so accomodating and nice enough to send me the so called certification "NO RECALL" note with their Letter Head. That was all i needed to fax over the border in Fort Erie, together with the bill of sale from the dealer in the States 72 hrs prior to me crossing the border.
Paid my duties with Canada Customs and off i went , made my appointment with Canadian Tire shop for the daytime running light activation, etc.. done in no time.. paid another $200 to the RIV(Registrar of Imported Vehicle) got the sticker and that was it.....My car runs like a charm never had to bring it to a Stealership and all maintenance done by me and my nephew technician.... my box i can say drives and looks better than new ! detailed to the "T"..
i wish you luck!
thx
t2

I don't know why you needed to deal with Porsche Canada when importing your new-ish car to Canada.

All you need to do is go to a Porsche Dealer in the US, get them to print out a letter stating that there aren't any outstanding recalls on the car, and drop that info and the title off at the Border Crossing office 24 hours ahead of time before bring the vehicle to the border (on a trailer, of course).

Then you bring the car into Canada, take it to Canadian Tire, and get it to pass the inspection process.

Unless the car is under warrantee, there's no reason to get Porsche Canada involved in the process at all.

BC.

Reply
 

I am glad I posted this so others would see.

The old days of simply getting the recall letter from a US dealership or Porsche Cars North America are done! They are no longer allowed to provide the letter to people exporting a Porsche vehicle.

My first experience was in May of 2008 and it was as easy as faxing my bill of sale showing I owned the car to PCNA and they immediately sent me the required clearance letter. Simple ... easy ... no frustration. Off to Canuck tire and done.

Now the game has changed and the US dealers won't touch this for fear of losing their franchise. PCNA tells you that you have to go to a Canadian dealership and go through the process ... at a significant cost I might add ... before they will consider a providng the clearance letter. Any and all modifications identified must be carried out by a Canadian Porsche dealership ... again at a significant cost.

Don't be fooled folks ... the old days are gone. Since Parche Cars Canada has split from Porsche Cars North America, they are hell bent on protecting their "market" and deterring anyone from importing a Porsche car.

Before you buy a US vehicle .. be sure you unserstand the new process fully. When you call a Canadian dealership and ask what modifications are required they generally only tell you about the DRL and the change to KM's (4 Dealerships told me the same thing). I thought no big deal right. When I got the car here, they pull out a 1/4 inch thick inspection booklet and it became a whole lot more involved. Like I said .. even checking to see if my servicing was up to date, if the tires were Porsche "N' spec approved ... an on and on. :eek: Not sure what either have to do with meeting or exceeding the CMVSS regulations.

Let's just say that Porsche used to be great to deal with ... they aren't anymore!

You have to understand sales quotas and how they drive what people on quota to do
 

The Canada guys want to protect their market because they know you can import for less. They don't get paid a cent on that and, now that they are a separate corporate entity, they have to pay for that corporate overhead on a much smaller base of sales than when Atlanta could spread the costs over the total US and Canadian sales numbers.

Sales driven compensation guarantees an internal fight over who gets credit for the sale. And drives people to act selfishly and not for the benefit of the long term corporate interest. A sales guy doesn't care if his actions will drive business into the repair side, that is a different profit center and so benefits him little and long term...and if he doesn't sell he won't be around to collect anything anyway.

And in a tough market, the fight over who gets credit gets only worse because every side has to justify their positions with numbers every month.

Don't feel so bad, Ferrari dealer here charges $5000 for that same paperwork.

What if you're the US owner? Surely you can request the letter from the dealer? On what grounds would they refuse?

I've imported a few cars myself, no Porsches though. I did some research and there are ways to avoid the fees etc. A company like BMW has an agreement with RIV, as stated in the admissible vehicle list, that all inspections etc have to be performed at a BMW dealer. Porsche, as far as I know, does not have that setup with the government.

Hence, you could have the original owner of the vehicle in the states request a recall clearance letter directly from the manufacturer. Besides day time running lights and a metric speedo (quick change with the knob) no other modifications should need to be done. If these are done before entering the country your import should be as simple as your old one with Canadian Tire doing the out of country inspection and you being good to go!

I agree with Tawheed, why cant you ask the US owner to get a letter from the US dealer stating there are no recalls. Just get the buy to say the new buy wants to for personal assurance. Then supply that to RIV.

Wish it were that Easy ...
 

Unfortunately, a letter generated from a US dealer or by Porsche Cars North America (US) will no longer satisfy RIV.

Porsche Cars Canada, supposedly through months of consultations with RIV, has set the new terms. RIV will only accept the clearance letter from Porche Cars Canada. It must have Porsche Cars Canada letterhead ... US documents will no longer work.

Unfortunately, if you want to import a Porsche into Canada you will be paying the fees to your local Porsche dealer and waiting for your aaproval letter to come from the Head Office in Ontario. There is no other way to "get around" the fees anymore.

Oh well ...

It gets worse than just N-spec tyres. I know a fella that works for a small local car lot, specializing in "toys". He was telling me that they sourced a US Porsche on behalf of a customer and the local dealership (apparently owned and operated by Ali Baba and associates) charged $1200 for the inspection. Just having N-spec tyres wasn't good enough - it failed because three of the tyres were N0 and one was N1.

After hearing a few stories like this I would never try and import a Porsche. If I couldn't find what I wanted in Canada then I would just buy a different car.

Mark

Something like that should have been fixed before sending it to inspection. I'm not a fan of mixing front to back rubber but mixing just one corner? Hmmm?
Ken

Depends. If they were all put on new at the same time, same make and model, but one had a different N-spec, I wouldn't like being made to change it unless it required a change due to wear anyway.

Move to America...problem solved !! :D

The recall clearance letter doesn't have to be a letter. With my VW R32 they just punched the VIN into the vw.com site and that satisfied RIV. With Porsche, all you need is a dealer in the states to print out the screen of their online tool that shows the car has no open recalls.

I almost bought a Boxster from ebay ( from Florida ) was going to click the 'buy it now' button. And just before I did .. I was surfing through the local classified ads and found my car, a year newer and he was just a few miles away. ( I'm in Montreal ) . I think getting the US car into Canada might have been a horror story.

Tawhhed ... the rules have changed
 

Tawheed ...

The rules have changed ... nothing but a letter from Porsche Cars Canada will be accepted by RIV. I am going through this right now .... nothing from the US will be acceptable.

Porsche has made it as tough as Mercedes and BMW.

If you think that you can do this with a print screen from the US ... I wish you luck.

Wow, that must be a very recent rule.. I was looking into it about a month or so ago.. Luckily, I found the car I wanted locally :)

Looking at the RIV website, I think things are a bit funky, depending on what year car you are buying.

Here's the link I found for Porsche approved cars:

http://www.tc.gc.ca/roadsafety/safevehicles/importation/usa/vafus/list2/PORSCHE.htm

It lists all Boxsters as being admissible, all years.
The date on the bottom of the page says 7-22-2010 as the date modified.

I would pitch a fit, and find a way to force them to take the US printed recall notice.

The big issue that I see is that the process is being controlled by a PRIVATE COMPANY, and not the gov't. This means that if the company made a deal with Porsche, there really isn't any going around it, unless you can force the gov't to get involved.

BC.

Yeah, I looked again today.. Nothing solid on RIV saying they need something from Porsche Canada.. I think this can still be got around if you have the will :)

Things have changed recently. When I imported my Boxster several years ago, all I had to do was call 1(800)PORSCHE and customer service faxed me the "Clearance Letter" required by RIV (Registrar of Imported Vehicles) Canada. When the CDN $ went to parity with the US $ several years ago the Canadian Dealers lost a significant number of sales to the US and started enacting new rules to stop imports from the US.

The first attempt was to refuse to schedule appointments for service on imports, next was an attempt to invalidate the North American new car warrantee on US vehicles, then CDN Dealers started charging a ~$500-1200 fees to inspect imports and "validate" cars to maintain their warrantee.

These measures understandably upset Canadian Porsche buyers and PCNA backed down but then created Porsche Canada with I believe a separate warrantee on US cars Vs CDN cars. The most recent attempt to reduce the number of imports is the RIV requirement that US Porsches be inspected by a Canadian Dealer to make sure they meet Canadian standards.

The problem is that the RIV relies on auto manufactures to let them know if their products meet the Canadian standards. Porsche could have done what most manufacture have done, which is to say their US market vehicles also meet Canadian standards, either “as is” or with some required modification(s) like DRLs and metric speedometers. Porsche has chosen to instead insist that all imported cars be brought into dealers to be inspected for ~$1000 before they will provide the needed “Clearance Letter”.

This is nothing more than a short sighted attempt to create a small profit for CDN dealers who have lost out on sales, but is in my mind has the effect of driving off new parts & service business and alienating potential customers.

The real problem is the drastic price difference between US and Canadian Porsches. Several will say that this is due to the smaller market in Canada that causes the higher prices, but in the case of Canadian Porsche dealers, most if not all are in major cities, with larger markets and closer to major transportation hubs than many US dealers.

Back to the OP’s issue of the clearance letter, I know the RIV website states that US Porsches must be inspected by a CDN dealer & a recall letter from Porsche Canada (at $$$), but here in Toronto the RIV is still accepting documents from US Dealers and the inspections done through Canadian Tire.

Good luck on your new car and sorry you to hear you are getting jerked around by your dealer.

Regards,
Aron

I just checked the RIV website today and it looks as though the requirement for imported Porsches to be inspected at and updates done by a Canadian dealership has been taken off their list, so I would assume they will accept an official recall letter from whatever source you can get one from. The challenge will be to see if you can get one at a reasonable cost from a US dealer.

I've requested and been supplied with several documents at no cost from the US dealer that serviced my car for the original/previous US owner when my local dealer either refused or wanted hefty fees to print it off their system.

Aron

Wow! That really does suck!

What were you importing? As stated by others, my experience importing to Canada in 2007 was painless.

Thanks for the heads up!

I actually imported mine back in April (long easter weekend) and the process was painless.
I had indeed to bring the car to the authorized dealer in Ottawa but the process is simple and not that expensive at all.
All I did was ask the Porsche dealer in California to hook up the computer and set a flag to 'Canadian'. That cost me nothing as I was there for regular service.
Once in Canada, before taking the car to the authorized dealer, I brought it to a mechanic that worked for Porsche for several years (and now the guy that takes care of my car) and he did the DRL modification for me. I do not remember the total cost but was cheap.
Then I brought the car to the dealer. With the flag already set to Canada and the DRL done they had nothing to do at all with it. So I paid the $500 for their blessing and it was all good.
Again, it is a very simple process and considering the deals in the US, it is simply a no-brainer.
As soon as I pull the plug on an Aston Martin, off to the US again. :D

:cheers:

CR

import process sucks
 

Hi guys, am new in this forum so hope this goes out as intended.
First of all, I have just successfully imported an 06 Porsche Boxster from the US. I had read all sorts of horror stories concerning the recall letter and thought I had probably made a mistake in purchasing this vehicle.

First I went on the RIV site and found this info :

RIV will accept any of the following recall clearance information:

A printout from an American or Canadian dealership’s vehicle service database.
This document must be produced by an authorized dealer and not a reseller. You can confirm whether or not a dealership is authorized by visiting the manufacturer’s web site or by calling their head office and providing them with the dealership’s location. The printout must also contain the 17-digit vehicle identification number (VIN), year, make and model, and indicate that there are no outstanding recalls. RIV routinely forwards a copy of these printouts to the manufacturer for authentication.

Hence I went to a US dealer, had the DRLs activated and asked the service rep for the Recall Letter. He told me "no problem", said all I needed was the Job Management Report, signed it and gave me his business card so I could add it to the Report. They charged me $52 for the activation and $0 for the letter. I then brought all the paperwork (including the bill for the DRL) to the border, where they faxed all the info to RIV.
I just called RIV this morning (08/20/2010) and they confirmed that "form 2" was already in the mail.
I then called the local Porsche dealer after confirmation from RIV and sure enough they told me I had to bring the vehicle in for inspection, cost $500. I firmly believe that some info on this thread may be planted specifically to discourage people from purchasing a Porsche in the US.
Hope this clears the air around this subject. I would strongly recommend that anyone wishing to buy in the US please make sure you can get the proper paperwork from a US dealer before buying the vehicle.

Quote:

Originally Posted by richaera Hi guys, am new in this forum so hope this goes out as intended. First of all, I have just successfully imported an 06 Porsche Boxster from the US. I had read all sorts of horror stories concerning the recall letter and thought I had probably made a mistake in purchasing this vehicle. First I went on the RIV site and found this info : RIV will accept any of the following recall clearance information: A printout from an American or Canadian dealership’s vehicle service database. This document must be produced by an authorized dealer and not a reseller. You can confirm whether or not a dealership is authorized by visiting the manufacturer’s web site or by calling their head office and providing them with the dealership’s location. The printout must also contain the 17-digit vehicle identification number (VIN), year, make and model, and indicate that there are no outstanding recalls. RIV routinely forwards a copy of these printouts to the manufacturer for authentication. Hence I went to a US dealer, had the DRLs activated and asked the service rep for the Recall Letter. He told me "no problem", said all I needed was the Job Management Report, signed it and gave me his business card so I could add it to the Report. They charged me $52 for the activation and $0 for the letter. I then brought all the paperwork (including the bill for the DRL) to the border, where they faxed all the info to RIV. I just called RIV this morning (08/20/2010) and they confirmed that "form 2" was already in the mail. I then called the local Porsche dealer after confirmation from RIV and sure enough they told me I had to bring the vehicle in for inspection, cost $500. I firmly believe that some info on this thread may be planted specifically to discourage people from purchasing a Porsche in the US. Hope this clears the air around this subject. I would strongly recommend that anyone wishing to buy in the US please make sure you can get the proper paperwork from a US dealer before buying the vehicle.

Rich,

It’s good to hear some current feedback on your import process.

Just to clarify, are you saying the RIV accepted the US dealer’s documents and you don’t need to go into have a Canadian dealer inspect your car?

Why is the Canadian dealer saying you need to bring your car in for the $500 inspection if the RIV has already approved you US paperwork (I think I know the answer ;) )?

Congrats on the new car :cheers: .

Aron