Re: US car dealers turn away Canadian new-car buyers - is that legal?

So far I've contacted two U.S. Honda dealers for price quotes. Neither one would give me a quote. The first one gave me a bullshit line about needing me to provide a Washington address so they could charge the 8.5% state sales tax, which would then take them four weeks to process. When I wrote back telling them I'd done my research and that their Washington sales tax story just didn't wash with me, they replied, "I am sorry Honda is trying to make it so difficult for Canadians to purchase down here." The second dealer just ignored my request for a quote altogether.

Ken

It's what car companies tried in the (then) European Community, and it's been cracked down upon.

When in 1986 I bought a Mercedes in Germany to bring to Britain and save cash the unofficial barrier was a ridiculously long delivery lead time. Outright refusal to sell was illegal, of course. Interestingly, I received a letter announcing the car would be ready three months early and graciously inviting me to come and collect.

This restriction was possible since I couldn't just buy a car off the dealership floor or from the 2nd-hand market because I wanted RHD, and there are no such cars in stock in Germany.

Six years ago, when I did it again, there was no such restriction, fortunately. Saved a few thousand quid. Less than anticipated since in the time to delivery the UK price was lowered (in the face of a rising tide of personal imports) and the German price raised (esp for RHD vehicles).

DAS

For direct replies replace nospam with schmetterling

I saw on the news the other day (Toronto Ontario news) that Honda is one of the companies who won't sell cars in the US to Canadian's. They didn't say anything about law's, only that most people don't have any problems other then with Honda.

There are many reasons why a car maker doesn't want a new car sold in one country to immediately be taken to and registered in a different country. The only way to know for sure is to get through to a 'High Muckety Muck' (VP or higher) at the car maker and ask - and that's if you can get a straight answer from them, they can always say "That's the way it is, Go away and stop bothering me..."

Could be import quotas, or export quotas, or missing required equipment like DRL's used to be before they made them fleet-wide, or that the computers will balk sending a USA spec car's warranty and recall notices to a Canadian address...

Could be as simple as the Canadian car dealers insisting that if they have to service them they should get the commissions from selling them. And that's a valid complaint.

Another valid one it could well be is warranty concerns - since part of the sales price is you've "paid" for your pro-rata share of the warranty costs for that model year into the USA warranty pool. But the Canadian warranty costs pool didn't get contributed to when you bought the car in the USA, so if your car needs any warranty work the Canadian distributor is going to take a loss on it on their books.

A few USA Residents having problems while driving through visiting Canada wouldn't be a big problem - they probably have a way to "hand clear" small quantities of the costs between the different divisions. But if they have a big recall and have 100,000+ "unpaid" repairs to do on "Grey Market" cars, that will hurt bad.

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No, there aren't many reasons. When Canadians are sitting on their hands waiting for prices in Canada to drop because of the increased value of the Canadian dollar, then that is not good for the manufacturers either.

It is widely known by Canadians for the past few months (if not the past year or two) that retailers of MANY items are not cutting retail prices to reflect the price reductions they have been seeing at the wholesale and importer level. We should be seeing DEFLATION in Canada, but we're not.

You are a moron. I have stated MANY times in this thread that US new car DEALERS have nothing to do with importation or exportation or any mythical quotas. When a Canadian walks into a US new car dealership and wants to buy a new car, that car is not deemed to be exported from the USA any more than a bag of frozen food is deemed to be exported from the USA if that Canadian had gone to a grocery store and bought that frozen food and brought it back to Canada.

Truth is that the US gov't doesn't (and really has no way) to measure, track, or record the stuff that Canadians buy at retail and then bring back into Canada. A car is just another retail item.

And when that Canadian brings his hypothetical new car from the US into Canada, again the US dealership is not involved AT ALL in that transaction, and the idea or concept of quotas are also not involved.

It is up to the Canadian who brings the car into Canada to make sure it meets all regulatory requirements - not the US dealer who sold him the car.

Pure speculation - and besides, when you're looking at saving between $5k and $20, do you really care about future recall notices? And also not a reason for the US dealer to deny the sale.

That is an issue that's down the road, and plays no role in the initial decision for the US car dealer to refuse to do business with the Canadian customer. The US dealer doesn't know, and really can't know, and really doesn't care, if a Canadian dealership will perform any service or waranty work on the car.

Where have you ever bought a car where the dealer wants some assurance that you will bring the car back to them for servicing - or they won't sell you the car? What utter bullshit.

And that's a bullshit complaint. I can buy a car at dealer A and get it serviced at dealer B, and dealer B doesn't complain that he didn't get the commission from selling me the car in the first place.

Again, a US dealer can tell the Canadian customer that he might have a problem with warranty work, but that's for the Canadian customer to risk or deal with, not the US dealer. That doesn't prevent the US dealer from selling to the Canadian customer at all.

This isn't a response to you, MoPar Man, but yours was the last post I read so thought I would attach the following link here for the benefit of others who may be interested.

We really had a nice conversation going here until you came along and ruined it with FACTS.

I've always been saying that there are fundamentally no blocks in place by the CDN gov't when it comes to importing cars into Canada, and have said that there are plenty of instructions on the net for doing so.

The one item that's interesting is the requirement on the US side to fill out paperwork informing them of any motorized (self-propelled) vehicles being exported from the country. There doesn't seem to be any fee or cost for that, but there also doesn't seem to be any teeth to it either. The various forms and proceedures that are done for the car in Canada probably don't require any proof that the US export registration was in fact performed - and if the car crosses back into the USA during routine use, US customs probably would never know the car was improperly exported from the USA.

The Canadian import proceedures don't really seem to anticipate that the car being imported from the US into Canada is a NEW car. One example is that a declaration that the car has no outstanding recall issues is part of what's required. A brand new car presumably would not leave a dealer's lot with an unresolved or uncorrected recall issue.

Interesting that Canadian Tire is prominently mentioned as a place that a car can be taken to for the inspection and certification of conformity with Canadian DOT rules.

See also:

------------------- The name of the Case which states that Canadian dealers must do warranty work on U.S. cars is:

Toyota Canada Inc. v. Lipetz, 1998 CanLII 4473 (BC S.C.)

I recommend anyone purchasing a car print off this case to know what Canadian Dealers are OBLIGATED to do under warranty

--------------------

No, you need to keep quiet about the fact that Canadians are not a protected class!

I keep seeing these wild numbers thrown about and I have to admit to a certain confusion. There's a bit gap between 5K and 20K. Surely you have something more specific to relate these numbers to. Obviously, you are talking across a whole range of cars. Care to expound a bit?

Makes sense. An independent cross Canada maintenance facility.

OK for tire and battery changes, go elsewhere for anything else.

Could be but it isn't that.

The Canadian dealers don't want to lose the sales to the US dealers. So they complained to the factory who then told the US dealers to not sell to Canadians. Which is a violation of NAFTA. A couple years back when the exchange rate was the opposite way, US dealers had no problems selling to Canadians. It has nothing to do with the rest of the BS your spouting.

The motorcycle groups have been discussing this same topic, BTW. Both Honda and Harley are making it difficult for Canadians to buy in the US. However, people who have actually done it report that if they get a cashiers check for their opening offer and fill their pockets with Gypsy Travelers Checks ($100 bills) and walk into a US dealer, the sight of the ready cash melts away the objections and they buy their car or bike.

Ted

Where have you been? Instances of where a savings of around $20,000+ can be realized are *hard not to find*. Nonetheless, here's an example to get you started:

Canada: 2008 Lincoln Navigator base MRSP (incl. $1250 dlvry.) ------------------------- * $74,649 CAD

United States: 2008 Lincoln Navigator base MRSP (incl. $900 lvry.) -------------------- * $48,655 USD

You do the math.

Ken

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Wow! A government entity misssing an opportunity to collect some kind of processing fee. Woof! How could that happen!

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

Where have I been? Right here in the US, where I don't see these big price differences - that's why I asked. Did not really have any idea what vehicles sell for in Canada and certainly did not realize that sort of difference existed.

I apologize sincerely for that :). My 1994 Grand Caravan LE was originally sold in Southern California. It was imported into Canada about a year ago by the second owner (a Canadian who wintered in CA). Someone had to add a DRL module.

Okay, fair enough.

Ken

Then Canadian dealers were selling to Americans, but they were under pressure from Canadian HQ not to sell to Americans. Same situation on the other foot.

The vehicles which are made in low cost Mexico, such as the Neon, could easily be priced to the market. When the exchange rate was 1.5 Neons were about US$3000 less in Canada.

Lest any Canadian feels discriminated against, please let me add my 2 cents. I am a U.S. citizen living in Canada on a 3-year work permit; need to replace my old Buick Rendezvous, and I, also, like any person of any nationality who has a (legal) address in Canada, cannot buy a new car in the U.S. It's not just Canadians who are being discriminated against--it's anybody with a Canadian address.