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Importing From The U.S.
I spent some time with Greg siemens. He is an authority and a fervent supporter on importing from the u.s. this is just to clear up the “Should I import from the
U.S. ?” questions from us power-dollar Canadians.
Greg Siemens is a senior member (Godzilla) on 780 tuners, worked as a mechanic at a local shop for a couple of years out of high school, then moved over to a car importing company. And now he does this as a living. He is the operations manager for NuLine auto, an AMVIC licensed dealer, where they specialize on importing vehicles from
Now, this is right from the mouth of someone who has been doing it, and is importing about a car a week now. You do not get better advice than this.
You do not get better advice than this!
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Greg mentioned that they mostly deal with used cars. Why? The cars are in better shape and have fewer kilometers than our used cars here. And the price is right. All those stories you have heard are true to some extent. You could save thousands of dollars on a 2year lease return from the states even after all the importing and upgrade costs. Almost any car.
 Do you deal with new? I asked him. He said that they do, but very it’s seldom. Usually it is when it’s a rare car and the price does not matter. The manufacturers are really getting sticky about warranty and out of country purchases. “Some of the northern states do not even talk to me when they see my 780 area code. Even after I say we are a dealer who operates out of
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Audis are his favorite to import. there are no warranty issues, good on gas and the cars are a dream to drive. I asked what people are buying. He said it’s specialty or higher priced cars, used more than new. So that STI or NISMO edition vehicle have no borders. I asked about the possible future used market here. After the original people have imported and are now selling that imported auto. Will a dealer take a .U.S. car on trade? “Probably not, we even offered to import cars for the franchised dealers and they basically ignored us. Here we are offering a better product for less money and they literally turned their backs on us and would walk away. The smaller independent lots were more open to the idea and we have brought some in for them.”
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It looks like the market will be left for the Auto Trader and Private sales after this is all said and done.
 Greg and I discussed how difficult importing from the states would be for the average person, because I fielded many questions when working at a local car dealership. “It’s really not that difficult, it mostly takes time. You can’t just take off a couple of days and import a car. We are averaging about a month for each car. You may sometimes have to wait for three weeks or more for the title, and then deal with the border crossing and then the inspections and upgrades to make the car legal here. Some guys do a couple of cars a year and that sort of thing but it depends on you. if you want it now go down the street especially if it’s a new one. You are buying a car sight unseen and the deal is the deal. The car and the deal may not be there tomorrow.” |
NuLine Auto
11824-109street.
Edmonton ,
Alberta . T5G-2TB
Greg Siemens- Operations Manager
Ph- 780-909-4734
Fax- 888-893-6613