almost 3 years ago

So, I found my perfect spec GT3 and it happened to be in Canada, and I thought no big deal, I can simply buy it and bring it into the USA, WRONG!! I have spent 4 weeks trying to import my GT3 to no avail and I’m awaiting my refund from the porsche dealer. I would have assumed the Porsche dealers in Canada are familiar with this process, so I assumed, and you know what they say about assuming. Most P dealers in Canada are NOT, they are there to sell you the car, its up to you to figure out and take responsibility to get it into the USA.

Let me outline exactly what I learned during my adventure so you are fully aware of what you are getting into. In order to import a car legally into the USA, you need 1 of two things. 1) The car requires to have 2 labels, USA DOT and USA EPA. The Canadian Porsches do have the USA EPA labels, however, they only have the Canadian DOT, not the USA DOT, which is required. This means you are then required to import your car utilizing a “registered importer”. This entity will keep your car for testing/analysis, preparation, and guess what, it takes 30 days, yes, 30. During this time, they make modifications to your car, such as changing the speedometer with a decal, its placed over the analog speedometer thats normally in KMH, it will now show MPH instead. Once the car passes this 30-day inspection, you now have a USA DOT approved car and its now ready for pickup. 2) Simply call PCNA and obtain a "LOC", Letter of Certification. If Porsche provides this, you are clear to import the car. I have been told by multiple people this is easily obtained, but I had no such luck, I called PCNA about 10 times, sent 10 emails, and to make a very long story short, here is what they finally said:

On Tue, Oct 20, 2020 at 8:23 AM Customer Support customersupport@porsche.com wrote: Dear Mr. xxx,

Thank you very much for your patience in working with this case.

As provided to you, we are unfortunately not able to provide a Letter of Compliance and you must work with a registered importer to import the vehicle properly to the United States. Porsche does not provide Letters of Compliance for vehicles that have been expressly purchased with the intent of bringing them to the United States. Registered importers are available to support with those vehicles that are purchased from the Canadian market with the express intent on bringing them into the USA. We are unable to refer you to a registered importer due to liability reasons. Border services may have a list of registered importers that they might be able to provide that would help. We would like to apologize in advance for not being able to provide you with further reasoning as to why the process is setup this way, but we do want to have you pointed in the right direction and not wait for additional documentation from Porsche Cars Canada Ltd. The registered importer should be able to accomplish the transfer without any documentation from Porsche Cars Canada Ltd. Hope that this provides you with clarity on the subject. https://www.nhtsa.gov/importing-vehicle

Ok, there is an option, I found a trucking company that said they can get the car into the USA via “friendly” border locations, so ya, great right? Well, not really, here is the issue you now have, your car has now been illegally imported car for one, second, its not been modified via USA DOT requirement, meaning your car is out of compliance. The question then becomes, who cares, no big deal about it not being compliant, that might be true, but if you ever get into an accident and there’s research done about it, they could discover your car was imported illegally, so yes, I could have done this, but I decided to skip this, its not worth the risk and of being potentially sued. And what happens later when you try to sell your car to say a Porsche dealer, they will discover its also not compliant, so what happens then? You see the dilemma you get into? Is it worth it? Again, there are many people who have imported it just fine, had no issues, but you should be fully aware of what you are getting into before you buy. If the Canadian Porsche dealer can obtain the LOC for you, then you are in luck.

My suggestion is, if you are planning to buy a car in Canada and import it into the USA, call PCNA first and ask about obtaining the LOC. During my first few encounters with PCNA, they told me on the phone, i can obtain the LOC, they even emailed me its coming, but as you can see, I never got it. And please note, PCNA is the same is PCC, Canadian and USA are no longer separated, they were some time ago, not anymore.

I have decided to stay far away from Canadian imported cars, so as my title above says, buyer beware and good luck.