Orbie

Psyh, Tirerack has a new policy for Canadian customers where all the brokerage/duty fees are taken care of on your total invoice when you buy the tire package. Thus you pay nothing more when the tires arrive at your door. They ship UPS to here, so generally it will be up the driver's discretion on how they want to handle delivery if you are not home. I mean they're not going to just leave a $2000 tire package on your driveway and leave, even though they probably could with everything being paid for. My UPS driver was very clever, he carried each wheel/tire to my backyard and placed them by my basement walkout door to hide them. I found them by luck as I was in the basement doing some cleaning and looked outside. Total for my tires were significantly lower than what I've seen here so far, that was because they were having a clearance on the Sport A7's. Total everything in and shipped for me was $1800 bucks including TPMS sensors

Oh and FYI...in Calgary the Infiniti dealership was offering 19's with Blizzak rubber for $2100! so it's actually not a bad deal here either. I would check with your local stealership in case first, especially with the dollar dropping a bit.

EDIT: Oops just realized you were probably talking about importing on the car. Oh well...useful info anyways.

PSYH

Oops, my bad. I meant for the vehicle shipping.

rrrevin

My shipping was from Elk Grove Infiniti in Sacramento to my driveway. You give them your Visa number for duty, GST, RIV fee and Air cond tax to be paid at the border.

When the car was dropped off, all I did was go over it with a fine tooth comb, sign the delivery papers and it was mine.

Now I'm waiting for an addititional form from RIV to take with me to get the car inspected at an "authorized" inspection facility (Canadian Tire of all places, seriously). Once I bring the car and the form there, they inspect and tell me what I need to do to make everything all legal like.

I think the only thing that I need to do are daytime running lights need to be installed. I've been doing some research into that as well, and, fingers crossed, I think it's only a $25 relay. But I should know more this weekend.

PSYH

Yeah, I think you're right. The relay is cheap, but the labour will be the expensive part... let's hope you don't get some bs mechanic at CT telling you the wiring is complex and will cost more to do it.

Sounds like the shipping is very convenient! I'm at ease now.

My friend told me if you want the form immediate you should take your documentation to the RIV office and they will process it right away, assuming you are close to one. He went to the RIV, got form2 and then went to CT, got the car inspected on the spot, got the form stamped and then went to the licencing office and got plates/registration... all in one afternoon!

Note to self: I should stop hijacking my own thread.

rrrevin

Umm.. yeah... I went to the local "Registries Office" this past weekend and had the car registered and received plates! So much for doing things in the right order :-)

fish43

The DRL fix at CT cost $130 at CT on a Maxima I brought back two years ago. At the CT I used it seemed like they did this very day.

PSYH

Thanks, fish! I've been wondering how much it costs to do at CT because one dealer is offering this mod for a whopping $290USD!

I said no thanks!

Comatose

290usd is a "deal". . compared to the 400usd - 800usd quotes I've seen in the washington infiniti dealers!! :P

You can always try to negotiate it down (which is what I did). Ultimately I feel more comfortable w/ an infiniti dealer modding it rather than CT.. no matter how easy it should be.

Theoretically it should be a very simple mod -- I would think all thats needed is for the foglight relay to be wired to an ignition line..

PSYH

Whoa, noway! That's just robbery.

Actually, all of the dealers I contacted (and I contacted about 12 different ones) said they get 3rd party hardware to do the mod, so there's really no difference (in one instance, no dealer in the state of Georgia knew how to do it!). The variance in price is probably for the time it takes them to figure out how to do it... and an opportunity to gouge!

PSYH

For those of you who purchased in the states...

How did figure out the logistics of paying for your car when you're not physically at the dealership? Did you have them courier the contract to you to sign, then courier back? Just fax? The whole shebang.

rrrevin

Do yourself a favor and fly down to the dealership to actually see the car before you sign.

Yes, some dealers will courier the papers back and forth, mine would not. They got burnt a few times in the past with international deals and insisted on witnessing the signature; even a Notary signature was not good enough for them.

Give them a depoist to hold the car, then fly down. Again, it's buyer beware. Make sure what you want is the car they are selling you. Get the VIN from the car itself and take it for a drive. This is a major purchase!! Rather be safe then sorry. Besides, with the moola you are saving, the costs of flights is worth it.

Just my thoughts.

PSYH

That's good advice, rrrevin, but unfortunately the place is too close for a flight and just a bit too far to drive (5-hour drive).

Anybody else done this remotely?

go4gr8

5-hour-drive too far? I'm driving to Toronto to visit a longtime friend, and that's 11 hours one-way in good weather!

Sorry..

PSYH

But it's winter and I'm driving a car I don't really want to be in for longer than 2 hours!

And I'm only estimating... it's about 650km one way.

Anybody have experience with what I'm facing?

Comatose

I wired my payment; documents were couriered to me overnight, signed, and sent back to them. The documents they send you include the VIN#, odometer reading, etc, so these should be verified upon pickup.
You are of course taking some sort of risk, making assumptions that the car is 'perfect'. Thankfully it worked out well for me (as it did for many others as well..).
If you are overly concerned, I would consider flying down there myself.