Selling/exporting a CDN vehicle to USA Buyer
 

long story short,

The TL- S is being sold off to an American buyer in Washington State.

There apparently are a few different approaches to this that either involve fees or NO fees.

The fee approach is where the buyer essentially does all the footwork/paperwork within USA.

The NO fee approach is where I, the seller - contact Honda Canada and Honda USA. From Honda Canada, they release a letter to me that the vehicle is completely free of recalls and meets safety guidelines as dictated by the US DOT.
Honda USA would issue a letter of 'conformity' that states that the vehicle meets safety and emissions standards to allow import into USA.

That's it - after the above, the buyer simply takes those documents through the border and he's done.

anyone have any other experience or can add to the above to expedite the process and make it as painless as possible?

My dude, I had no problems getting this letter from Lexus/Toyota within 24 hours of requesting it recently.

However, when I sold an Acura RSX to an American before......... it was an absolute nightmare getting it from Honda. First of all, do NOT TELL THEM you are selling your car to an American because they basically don't allow it. Tell them you are moving to the USA and want to take your car with you. As long as you get the letter, who cares who's name is on it (unlike importing to Canada where the letter has to be in your name, USA doesn't care) but even with me claiming I was moving down there and needed to export the vehicle, they just sat on it and sat on it and sat on it... and finally I got so pissed calling in and giving my case# and getting zero support from them that I started calling multiple times every single day and telling them I wouldn't stop calling until they made my damn letter and then bam it showed up in my inbox within a day suddenly.

Totally miserable experience, I highly advise you start the process yesterday if you have a buyer lined up or already sold it. I can only pray for you that they have improved their service since then (this was about 3 years ago). It took me over 3 weeks to get that stupid letter and I almost lost the sale because of it.

You also need to provide him/her the bottom portion of your registration and a written bill of sale. The buyer also needs to pay taxes at the border btw... it's super low compared to Canada though. It's a sliding scale. They do some weird thing like they get to apply a $400 exemption as part of their day trip, then they pay 10% on the first $1,000 cost of the car and then they pay 2.5% on the amount after that... so on a $10,000USD car it would end up being about $325.00......... way better than the freaking $1,500+ we would pay going the other way!!! They also get dinged a lot higher % taxes when they register the car in Washington State based on the value of the car. Not sure what that calculation is, but that's their problem though so why even mention it.

Also super weird, if you sell your car to an American... ICBC doesn't gaf... I went to go cancel my plates and report the sale to them and they just shrugged their shoulders... didn't want to see the APV9T transfer form or nothing... so in theory under my name there's still an RSX floating around that looks like I own it even though it's long gone from the country.

I just sold an Acura to USA buyer this year.
I don't understand the fee or no fee approach? Acura USA/Canada will only issue the compliance letter to the owner, which is YOU. Without the letter they will not be able to pass the board and/or register under state's DMV. In my case, my buyer only needed the letter from Acura USA stating that the vehicle will meet the states standard. Acura Canada letter is just stating all the recall has been done. Since my Acura was 20+ years old so I guess they are careless about the recall.
68style is spot on how Acura USA horrible customer service. Prepare a week or more for the wait time on a letter that will take me less than 5 min to type.

As far as documents, you will need a bill of sales which you can easily find a template by google ICBC bill of sale. Also hand the signed registration after you receive the full payment, then you are pretty much done on your end. Buyer will need to fill 2 other documents in order to pass boarder, some boarder would want the buyer to fill on the spot, some might accept the pre-filled one.

I might be missing something but the whole process was way easier than I think, other than Acura USA slowwwww service. I called multiple times as well and they are telling me there is only one girl working for the export department so I will have to wait for her every single day.

PM me if you have other question.

I sold an NSX back in 2012. They drove up from Cali with a trailer and towed it back, texted me a couple days later saying they were home. I didn’t send them a copy of the regi before hand, they crossed the border without issue. So easy, maybe the difference is the buyer is importing vs the seller exporting.

I sold my 97 Porsche C4S to a US buyer who flew up and drove home.

I provided him with the compliance letter, bill of sale, the transfer slip signed by me the seller.

Customs called me to confirm the sale price when the buyer crossed the border.

unless it's fetching top collector dollar, is all this worth your time?

sell locally

I’m going to try and put a car on bringatrailer, looks like it’s better than barretjackson money there for particular cars.

Honestly, let the buyer deal with it all. Not the sellers responsibility.

Can you guys tell me where you find potential US buyers? posting in Washington Craigslist?

Looking to offload my manual IS and the US dollar is sweet at the moment.

I would sell locally if locals aren't cheap as fuck and want to only pay a fraction of what the market price is

what's market value for an is300 5spd?

Yes craiglist Seattle is the easiest. Otherwise specific car forums. I had no luck with ebay and bringatrailer deals can also fall apart when a US buyer gets cold feet or doesnt want to to the work to import.

I used Seattle Craigslist... note that it now costs $5.00usd to list a car on there for 30 days. That hasn’t happened to the Canada Craigslist yet but I’m sure it will.

Depends on the mileage and condition, I recently posted one on there and was entertaining offers as high as $12k USD but mine was particularly mint and rare spec/relatively low mileage. Most people were offering $10k USD...

Probably be lucky to sell for $9-10k CDN here. Mine is a really rare spec tho so maybe not the best barometer and I ultimately decided to hang on to it for awhile.

The RSX I sold the highest offer I had locally was $4k CDN but I sold it to someone in Washington for $4K USD so it was a significant difference.

Funny enough my biggest problem selling to Americans has been that so many of them have criminal records / don’t have passports and can’t cross the border Hahahaha!

what i've noticed at least in american craigslist regardless of whether it's in the boonies of WA or in big cities in AZ or TX there's just not many higher calibre imports outside the civic/corolla and beater subaru....you have to be patient or pay $7000+ for a fwd Scion

i can totally believe many of them dont have passports...i think the criminal record thing is just a cop out to get the seller to go to the buyer though

^ Maybe, in my case like legitimately they drove to the border and couldn’t cross and the guy sent his son across instead haha

I mean, you could take it to them if you weren’t ethical as most of them do not understand the process... drive it down and take the cash and leave... but they’d be so fucked. They’d have to export it back to Canada and re-import it and get dinged both ways.

I think what you mean to say is "I would sell locally if the market price in Canada wasn't much lower than the market price in the US."

The market price in Canada isn't what you can get in USD in Seattle, converted to Canadian Dollars.

-Mark

^ I think he actually does have a point, people here are cheap as fuck even with the smallest items compared to USA.... or maybe the politically correct term is “financially prudent”

Buyers in USA be like oil patch levels of YOLO

more like people who can afford to import probably have deeper pockets and/or want a specific model/trim so desperately that they're even looking into another country's supply

One thing I know is that if your car is a 2007 Model Year or later, it has to have an OEM(no aftermarket solution) TPMS system in order to export it. This could be a pain depending on the car. From what I have read on the RX-8 forum before, everything else is pretty much smooth sailing.

I know some US RX-8 owners who buy white R3 RX-8 in Canada and import it to the US because this particular colour and trim config was never sold in the US.

reason why i'm promoting the TL TYPE S for sale down south is the absolute lust they have for a low mileage 6MT.

Its pretty much sold..i've already got both letters from HOnda USA and HOnda Canada... just gotta coordinate now.

and yah, as for not selling local... its cuz of jackasses like this:

From: xxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Mon, Dec 9, 2019 at 11:44 PM
Subject: 2008 Acura TL Type S - 6MT
To: xxxxxxxxx


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