[EBAY] '89 Scirocco In Canada, Eh!

[vwdaun at yahoo.com (Daun Yeagley)]

--- Phil Boeye <rocco_phil@yahoo.com> wrote:

> What's it like getting something like that down to the
> States?  What kind of headaches or is it fairly simple?

Well as Cathy mentioned, I've BTDT fairly recently, like
last fall.  It's not *that* difficult really, but I had
extra headaches as the car I bought needed some work to get
it drivable.  (Yes, the car needs to be operational!)

You have two options for importing the car.  First is a
Letter of Conformity from the manufacturer stating the car
meets U.S. bumper & emissions standards.  VW's standard
answer to this is that they "do not get involved in
aftermarket sales."  Never mind that if you owned the car
and were simply moving from Canada to the U.S, they'd hand
the letter right over to you and then you could just drive
right across.

So instead, you are forced to go to option two, which is a
"Registered Importer."  I can get you the name of the folks
I used - finding one that will deal with a car that old
could be a challenge in itself.  Basically they need some
info off the car to fill out and file a few forms with
various government agencies, and only they can actually
drive it across the border for you.  (Oh BTW, make SURE the
under-hood sticker is on there that states the car meets
U.S. Emissions standards!  That will make it a HELL of a
lot easier.  Otherwise we'll have to get pretty
creative....   but it's not impossible.)  For all this
work, they charge a pretty stiff fee, like $700-ish U.S. 
When they pick up the car, they will take a bunch of
pictures and place stickers with the VIN# in all sorts of
places.  Also, they will want the speedo to read in MPH,
which is no problem if you've got a spare cluster to throw
in the car, you can swap it back once the car is in the
'States.  (At least that's what I did.)

I can't say enough good about how awesome Cathy is.  She
put up with my grease-bucket (Gino) in her shop for a
couple months while I went back & forth with things like
engines & trannys etc.  It sounds like she's already
volunteered to host the '89 at her place temporarily until
you can get it across the border.

If you need a hand / clarification etc, let me know!


Daun Yeagley - Wilmington Ohio
'81 Scirocco S               '86 Scirocco 8v
'88 Scirocco 16v             '88 Scirocco Slegato 
'96 Passat GLX Wagon         '56 Cessna 172
The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts - Ehrlich's Law.

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