[abc]

Originally I ran a keyword search across ALL the forums, for 'canada'.

came up with only 1 thread, about importing a existing bmw.

http://www.2addicts.com/forums/showt...ghlight=canada

so nothing with regards to importing a NEW BMW. I've wondered about this for about a year.

The USD / CAD is a fine savings for us Americans, as it was for Canadians for a few years, which stopped about 2 years ago, and I vacation in Toronto now and then too.

Anyway, with the savings, and the likelihood of a better dealer experience?... I'm interested in putting an order w/ a Canadian dealer, Toronto etc...

Heck, I'd even consider Euro Delivery through Canada...

Just curious, as I'm not coming across any exisiting info for new car purchase, only people MOVING and taking their existing car, I was even wanting to post this to a more general forum, but since I'm focusing on the 2 series, I'm posting it here.

[BMWZ4]

Originally Posted by abc

Originally I ran a keyword search across ALL the forums, for 'canada'.

came up with only 1 thread, about importing a existing bmw.

http://www.2addicts.com/forums/showt...ghlight=canada

so nothing with regards to importing a NEW BMW. I've wondered about this for about a year.

The USD / CAD is a fine savings for us Americans, as it was for Canadians for a few years, which stopped about 2 years ago, and I vacation in Toronto now and then too.

Anyway, with the savings, and the likelihood of a better dealer experience?... I'm interested in putting an order w/ a Canadian dealer, Toronto etc...

Heck, I'd even consider Euro Delivery through Canada...

Just curious, as I'm not coming across any exisiting info for new car purchase, only people MOVING and taking their existing car, I was even wanting to post this to a more general forum, but since I'm focusing on the 2 series, I'm posting it here.

I can't help with the ins & outs of buying and transferring to the US but if you need a contact for sales in Toronto PM me and I'll shoot you some contact details and my sales person I've purchased my last 6 cars from.

[bimmerfile]

Originally Posted by abc

Originally I ran a keyword search across ALL the forums, for 'canada'.

came up with only 1 thread, about importing a existing bmw.

http://www.2addicts.com/forums/showt...ghlight=canada

so nothing with regards to importing a NEW BMW. I've wondered about this for about a year.

The USD / CAD is a fine savings for us Americans, as it was for Canadians for a few years, which stopped about 2 years ago, and I vacation in Toronto now and then too.

Anyway, with the savings, and the likelihood of a better dealer experience?... I'm interested in putting an order w/ a Canadian dealer, Toronto etc...

Heck, I'd even consider Euro Delivery through Canada...

Just curious, as I'm not coming across any exisiting info for new car purchase, only people MOVING and taking their existing car, I was even wanting to post this to a more general forum, but since I'm focusing on the 2 series, I'm posting it here.

fuggedaboutit.
Most car companies have reciprocal agreements between dealers of new cars (particularly in border States & Provinces) not to sell to residents of the neighboring country. They'll probably not honour the new vehicle warranties or even maintenance agreements. You' have to pay 13% HST sales tax (Fed/Prv); you'll be paying about $5K Cdn for PDI & transportation and admin fees); you'll have to pay for country specific conversion requirements(e.g.my odometer is kilometers only - you'll need something call "miles").. You'll probably pay a sheitload of $$$ & time for transport for U.S. & custom clearance. You may even need to pay NY sales taxes
In all likelihood, you'll end up paying way more than buying from your local friendly dealer stateside not to mention the hassle of the above
Oh, and BTW, good luck with the resale value in a few years when you try selling the Canadian version.

[aerobod]

Originally Posted by bimmerfile

fuggedaboutit.
Most car companies have reciprocal agreements between dealers of new cars (particularly in border States & Provinces) not to sell to residents of the neighboring country. They'll probably not honour the new vehicle warranties or even maintenance agreements. You' have to pay 13% HST sales tax (Fed/Prv); you'll be paying about $5K Cdn for PDI & transportation and admin fees); you'll have to pay for country specific conversion requirements(e.g.my odometer is kilometers only - you'll need something call "miles").. You'll probably pay a sheitload of $$$ & time for transport for U.S. & custom clearance. You may even need to pay NY sales taxes
In all likelihood, you'll end up paying way more than buying from your local friendly dealer stateside not to mention the hassle of the above
Oh, and BTW, good luck with the resale value in a few years when you try selling the Canadian version.

New cars are definitely problematic shipping across the border, but low mileage used vehicles are not. My son works with someone who has been shipping vehicles across the border for more than 20 years. They generally deal with Alberta pickup trucks that are mainly sold in Arizona and California, typically 30 vehicles a month. At the moment a loaded three year old vehicle will sell for $5,000 more in the US than Canada after cluster conversion, cosmetic reconditioning, recoding, shipping and cross border paperwork. Some states now require a 30 day hold period at the border to deter poor quality vehicles or dodgy dealers from easily shipping across the border.

[Gabbykat]

there is a km to mile requirement. My friend imported her car for a new job and ended up paying $5000 to switch out the part and rented a car for one month plus while Audi sent over the part.

[amw896]

Not trying to shy you away from the purchase but make sure u do ur due diligence on both sides of the border. A friend of mine bought a e36 m3 from Ohio when the exchange was favourable for us Canadians. However, by the time he was able to put it on the road, it cost him almost an additional 8k. It was an older M so it needed daytime running light conversions, some dash work and something else. In the end, it wasn't worth it but he said it was mostly due to being old and needing a bit of updating. Good luck!

[Elvisfan]

Bottom line is you are not going to save any money. The specs are not the same.

[Realdread1]

I bought my two E82s in the US and drove them back to Canada( one Mississippi and one Maine). An 09 135i in 2010 and a 12 in 2013. Had to be purchased used as it was a pain in the ass trying to talk to the US on new purchase. Lots of speculation. I actually spent more time educating then bring serviced. I only lived an 1.5 hour from buffalo so all services were made in states side. Warranty work was covered in Canada (diff blew).
Luckily the us spec comes with miles and km on the speedo. Idrive turned on/off Drl, emissions was easy, passed with flying colors. Duties, tax paid at the border. Just need to wait 3 days after purchase, submit when i left the dealership. The Canadian bmw Im not sure has km and mph ive been away to long but I dont think it does.
Now living in the US I have left my MY12 with my folks in Canada and have my MY16 235i here in the Us. I have had to import my Fiancé's us built suv. This was a pain in the ass as well and the suv was built statesides. The Canadian government has way more information on importing automobiles then the US. You Need the letter from manufacturers, emmisions test, and we had to replace a $40 part for airbag on and off. Canada air bag indicator has an image vs indicating word off. Her Suv came with km/miles speedo.

Bottom line not worth it unless your collector and its rare or like me at the time. More time than money.

Ps. Have a 2012 fully optioned 135i Us spec for sale in Canada. 28,000 km

[Joaco135]

OP, it is very possible and not to hard, check in the 1addics forum(1M section). Few people bought 1Ms from Canada and droved them down to the states, the specs are identical minus the KM speedometer but that is minor. Just check this thread:
http://www.1addicts.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1353672

[Kolyan2k]

You cant import new, only used. Its 2.5% import fee. Specs are all the same I think

I was thinking about doing that last year for some good savings but its not easy to purchase a car without looking at it (for me at least), and dealers were pain in the ass to deal with......wanted to charge me some sales tax and I tried to explain to them that I pay sales tax in USA at the DMV.
Basically I drove 3 hours to NY to check out one car that looked great on pix and it ended up some reconditioned POS, I didnt want to drive all the way to Canada....5 hours to come to something like that. But if you are already there maybe its worth a look

[abc]

Originally Posted by aerobod

New cars are definitely problematic shipping across the border, but low mileage used vehicles are not. My son works with someone who has been shipping vehicles across the border for more than 20 years. They generally deal with Alberta pickup trucks that are mainly sold in Arizona and California, typically 30 vehicles a month. At the moment a loaded three year old vehicle will sell for $5,000 more in the US than Canada after cluster conversion, cosmetic reconditioning, recoding, shipping and cross border paperwork. Some states now require a 30 day hold period at the border to deter poor quality vehicles or dodgy dealers from easily shipping across the border.

wowow 30 freggin vehicles a month aka 1 per day. say why would it sell 5k more in the usa than canada... canadians dont buy used cars?

thus no 2nd market demand?

fasincating write up btw, very interesting. thankyou.

[abc]

Originally Posted by Realdread1

I bought my two E82s in the US and drove them back to Canada( one Mississippi and one Maine). An 09 135i in 2010 and a 12 in 2013. Had to be purchased used as it was a pain in the ass trying to talk to the US on new purchase. Lots of speculation. I actually spent more time educating then bring serviced. I only lived an 1.5 hour from buffalo so all services were made in states side. Warranty work was covered in Canada (diff blew).
Luckily the us spec comes with miles and km on the speedo. Idrive turned on/off Drl, emissions was easy, passed with flying colors. Duties, tax paid at the border. Just need to wait 3 days after purchase, submit when i left the dealership. The Canadian bmw Im not sure has km and mph ive been away to long but I dont think it does.
Now living in the US I have left my MY12 with my folks in Canada and have my MY16 235i here in the Us. I have had to import my Fiancé's us built suv. This was a pain in the ass as well and the suv was built statesides. The Canadian government has way more information on importing automobiles then the US. You Need the letter from manufacturers, emmisions test, and we had to replace a $40 part for airbag on and off. Canada air bag indicator has an image vs indicating word off. Her Suv came with km/miles speedo.

Bottom line not worth it unless your collector and its rare or like me at the time. More time than money.

Ps. Have a 2012 fully optioned 135i Us spec for sale in Canada. 28,000 km

LOL.... thank you for taking that time to share your info, you paint a picture that does point to where a car needs to be a collectable or your living circumstance dictates you having to do the import.

[abc]

Originally Posted by Joaco135

OP, it is very possible and not to hard, check in the 1addics forum(1M section). Few people bought 1Ms from Canada and droved them down to the states, the specs are identical minus the KM speedometer but that is minor. Just check this thread:
http://www.1addicts.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1353672

thankyou for citing this thread, it's encouraging and clearly it's doable.

[AbuQutaita]

I was curious about this after reading the thread, so I went thru some of the numbers to see how it pans out.

Base MSRP for a M240i in the US is $45,445 USD (including destination/handling). Base MSRP for a M240i in ON is $51,114 CAD (including freight/PDI), which is roughly $38,868 USD. The duty would be about $971 USD, bringing the cost to $39839 USD. That's a pretty big discount if you're trying to get the car as cheap as possible. Even if you factor in an additional $1k in travel expenses to pick up the car and drive it back yourself, you're going to save over $4k USD.

A couple things I'm curious about:
1. You said you travel a lot to Toronto, but do you have property there? I assume you'd want to import the car "used" instead of "new", so you'd need a permanent address of some sort.
2. How much is your time worth? As mentioned by a few folks here, this is a time consuming process, and not just the travel time. It may help to put things in perspective, if you assign a dollar amount to your time, since you'd be stuck doing this instead of something potentially more interesting.
3. Are you trying to buy the car at the best possible price, or hit a certain price point? You'll probably be happier with the end result of purchasing a car if you set a goal that fits within your budget, especially if you decide to factor in the impact of #2 above. It's pretty easy to get a good deal on a M240i in the US. I'm in the process of custom ordering a 2018 M240i, and several dealerships are willing to go at least 10% off MSRP.

I ran into a situation similar to this when buying my last car, albeit a much less complicated one. I bought from out of state and used courtesy delivery to save $1k compared to another local dealer. In the end, the extra paperwork and dealing with a dealership that reneged on agreeing to courtesy delivery didn't make it worth it. Would I do it again to save $4k? Probably. But I suspect the hassles to import a car don't scale linearly with $/hr

[remolacha]

I don`t see any problem with such a delivery. We live in Toronto and our family changed cars twice. We bought a new car twice in the USA. It was quite easy thanks to http://https://clearit.ca/ For sure you can rely on them

[Mr Carrots]

What kind of msrp discounts do Canadian dealers give? 8-10%?

[bimmerfile]

Originally Posted by Mr Carrots

What kind of msrp discounts do Canadian dealers give? 8-10%?

4 - 6%.

[2manybimmers]

Originally Posted by remolacha

I don`t see any problem with such a delivery. We live in Toronto and our family changed cars twice. We bought a new car twice in the USA. It was quite easy thanks to http://https://clearit.ca/ For sure you can rely on them

Incredible. Thanks for the link!

[Brobeav]

Thanks everyone for the memories. The halcyon days of 2017, when one could freely cross the US/Canada border.