Buying a US spec car from Canada
 

My Canadian friends;

I'm interested in an FD that began it's life here in the states but was sold to a consumer in Canada. In order to register it in Canada, it had to be brought to Canada spec. This means a different re-bar and daytime running lights.

I think (speculating at this moment) that the car was shipped to Canada w/out a front bumper assembly (re-bar, bumper and lights) to a Mazda dealer in Canada. They then fitted a 93' front bumper, re-bar and DRL to the car so that it could be titled and registered.

During this process, they noted two things on the car, that the odometer wasn't in compliance (maybe because it reports in Miles not Kilometers) and that the car has a "rebuilt" title because of the front end work.

Have any of you gone through this before? What I thought would be a simple thing has turned into a hassle... It's a good deal on the car, too.

If I bring it back to the US, it will have to be re-inspected and it HAS to still have the US Federal emmissions sticker on the vehicle in order for it to pass. They said that it's then up to the tech inspecting the car if it will get a salvage title or not (they wont issue it as rebuilt.)

If I get this nice car and it ends up with a Salvage title, it will be hard to re-sell and insurance will be higher on it. The gal here at the DMV mentioned that if I get a letter from the Mazda dealership stating that the work done on the car was only to bring it to US spec then they "might" issue a clean California title.

I've done some searching online and have found numerous people bring US cars into Canada to have to go through this process but noone mentioned that they got a rebuilt title.

Thanks guys..

thats bizarre...have you really checked into it and made sure that salvage title isnt from anything else. I'm pretty sure you don't get a salvage title for the necessary modifications. I've imported a few cars from the US to Canada and have never heard of that