Travels With Charlie - Chapter 5 - How to Export/Import a Car

Today Daddy and I made another trip to Port Huron, Michigan. This one was to set in motion the process of exporting his car from the United States to Canada.

We had done a lot of reading about it on-line and Daddy had talked to the Border Services people as well as Transport Canada several times, so we knew that we had to tell the U. S. Border Patrol 72 hours ahead of time that we were exporting his vehicle. We figured that the best way to do that was to take the car across the border into the U. S. and tell them that this was the car we hoped to export.

The first place we went, the guard looked at me incredulously and said, "You can't take the car into Canada now and then come back in 72 hours, take it across the border into the U. S. and take it back immediately! You aren't exporting it if it is already in Canada!" I talked at length to him about it, trying not to get upset. Finally he said, "I'm not an export agent, so it would probably be best if you go around to the other side of this building and talk to an export agent who will be able to tell you what to do."

So off we went to the other side of the building where a lot of people were also waiting to be interviewed by border agents. The line was almost out the door, so that gives you an idea of how busy it was. Finally one of the agents asked if there were people standing in line who "just" wanted to export a vehicle. Three groups of people raised their hands, Daddy and I among them.

The first man in the new line wasn't importing one vehicle, he was importing SIX vehicles! Rather than risk getting the vehicles mixed up, the agent only worked with that man first. Eventually it was our turn and I explained that my father was in the process of immigrating to Canada and that his car was going back and forth across the U. S. - Canada border at least once a month and that we had not applied for the 72-hour waiting period yet. "That's not a problem," he said. "We'll go over your documents now, copy them, stamp them and in 72-hours you'll be ready." How easy was that?

So, any time after the 72 hours are up, we can go to Sarnia (Ontario) and start the process of importing the car into Canada. (I don't know whether we have to go back into the States with it before we do that or not, but you can be sure I will make a phone call or two to make sure we do it in the proper order!) Once we get the "O. K." from the Canada Border Services, he can take the car to the Ford dealer in Thamesville (Ontario) and have the necessary changes made - like changing the speedometer and odometer to metric, changing the headlights so that they are on during the day (daytime running lights) and have an emissions test run on it. After all of that is completed, he can take it to the licensing bureau and get the license plates for it.

It seems like a convoluted way to do things, so we will be really happy when everything is completed and people won't say to me when I'm driving his Pennsylvania-licensed car, "Wow! You sure are a long way from home!"