Topic: Canadian buying a car in the US

[driver02]

I was just told that you can save alot of money if you go across the border to buy a vehicle. What are catches? is this true for new and used? is it hard to cross the border? where can I go to find this info? Thanks in advance!

[airbalancer]

have you tried a search , there are alot over posts on this already

[driver02]

searching now, I was lazy  . Thanks

[Blue01]

I posted this site a while ago.  This particular one applies to motorcycles, but there's not much difference buying a car, just two more wheels.

http://ronh2005.googlepages.com/howtoimportamotorcycle

[dorin]

I posted this site a while ago.  This particular one applies to motorcycles, but there's not much difference buying a car, just two more wheels.

http://ronh2005.googlepages.com/howtoimportamotorcycle

Good job! 

[Allen]

No big savings in cross-border auto buying, study says
GREG KEENAN

Globe and Mail Update

September 17, 2007 at 5:45 PM EDT

Buying vehicles in the United States with a Canadian dollar that is almost at par will not generate massive savings for most car buyers, says a study of prices in Canada and the United States compiled by industry analyst Dennis DesRosiers.

Vehicle pricing has become a hot issue with the rise in value of the Canadian dollar, the president of DesRosiers Automotive Consultants Inc. said Monday, but “in all of our ‘popular' segments … the price gap between Canada and the U.S. narrowed in 2007.”

Those segments are subcompact and compact cars, compact sport utility vehicles, minivans and full-sized pickup trucks which, combined, represent two-thirds of the vehicles Canadians buy annually.

“This means that for the vast percentage of cars and trucks being purchased by Canadians, the vehicle companies are not ripping consumers off,” he said in a report to clients issued Monday.

In compact cars, the largest market segment in Canada, the difference in price between the average car in the two countries is $221, he said.

There are, Mr. DesRosiers acknowledged, still major gaps in some categories, including luxury sports cars, where a trip to a U.S. dealer will save a Canadian buyer almost $14,000 on average.

Auto makers in Canada have been more aggressive than their counterparts in the United States in offering incentives to consumers this year, he noted.

“We now believe that the use of incentives has been their favourite route for transferring some of this exchange rate advantage to consumers,” he said.

Consumers have reported saving thousands of dollars by purchasing vehicles in the U.S., but the subject is a touchy one among auto makers, in part because of a class-action suit brought by U.S. consumers against the U.S. and Canadian arms of several auto makers in 2003.

That lawsuit came after the Canadian dollar plunged to record lows and Americans imported more than 200,000 vehicles from Canada two years in row – 2001 and 2002. The vast majority of those are believed to have been used cars and trucks.

“We need to keep educating the consumer in what the real costs are of selling a vehicle in Canada,” said one dealer who owns a variety of outlets, most of them selling vehicles imported from outside North America and thus carrying a hidden duty of 6.1 per cent.

Consumers should remember, this dealer said, that when the Canadian dollar was trading in the 65-cent range during the earlier part of this decade, vehicle companies didn't raise their prices in Canada to compensate.

The number of vehicles imported into Canada from the United States exploded last year, according to the North American Automobile Trade Association, hitting a high of 112,826, compared with a little more than 21,000 in 1996.

But that number includes both used and new vehicles and Mr. DesRosiers believes the vast majority of the 2006 figure consists of used vehicles brought across the border, not new vehicles purchased in the U.S. then imported.

[sailor723]

Sounds like Dennis might be working for the car companies

[dave 2]

My thoughts exactly!

[Snowman]

  I find it funny how Canadians forget about the $0.65 dollar days and how the manufactures were not compensating for the low dollar by raising the price of vehicles. No body was complaining like they are now.

[dave 2]

It's because of those .65 dollar days that we are still paying too much.

Consumers not benefiting from strong loonie
Updated Wed. Sep. 19 2007 8:08 PM ET

Parminder Parmar, CTV.ca News

Canadian consumers who should see big savings because of a soaring loonie are instead being gouged.


That's the claim from a consumer advocate, who says the auto industry, big retailers, and importers, are reaping the rewards of a strong Canadian dollar, but aren't passing on any of the savings to shoppers.


"Not one single cent has been passed on to consumers that we can verify," Bruce Cran of the Consumers' Association of Canada told CTV.ca.


Cran says our near-record dollar has created windfall profits for some manufacturers and importers, who are, in effect, paying less for goods they buy from the United States and other countries. But prices for electronics, cars, clothes, and other consumer goods haven't dropped.


Cran says all anyone needs to do is look at the cost of cars in this country. Despite the strong dollar, most cars are still priced $3,000 to $5,000 more in Canada than for the same models in the U.S. When it comes to luxury cars the cost differential is in the tens-of-thousands of dollars, says Cran.


"I don't know why anyone would be stupid enough to buy a car or other consumer goods in Canada when we can have these substantial savings across the border," he argues.


That's why he says Canadian consumers should watch their wallets and head south.


Jayson Myers, president of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters Association, says the car industry and manufacturers aren't taking advantage of a strong currency at the expense of consumers. He says it's not a simple matter of dropping or hiking prices every time the dollar rises or falls. He says the auto industry prices their cars one or two years in advance.


"You don't get an automatic adjustment when the Canadian dollar rises," says Myers.


Economists agree that it could be some time before consumers feel the benefits of a Canadian dollar that's at near parity with the U.S. greenback.


"Consumers don't really lose out so much when the Canadian dollar is really dropping and, conversely, they unfortunately don't benefit as much when the currency is doing much better,'' says Scotia Capital economist Meny Grauman.


"When the Canadian dollar was even around 65 to 70 cents US, prices didn't adjust because of that sharp depreciation of the Canadian dollar. Now we're seeing the other side of that."


Myers adds that for many Canadian manufacturers the recent 30-year-record highs -- the loonie reached 98.51 cents US Wednesday afternoon -- are anything but good news. A higher Canadian dollar means that many manufacturers, who are already facing increased costs because of high energy prices, will face huge drops in export sales.


But Cran says consumers need to take action if they want to benefit from a strong Canadian dollar. He's calling on consumers to contact their members of Parliament to let them know they won't be gouged. He says that once politicians see shoppers going to the U.S., they'll finally act to protect consumers.


With files from The Canadian Press