Dec 08
Horror Stories
In this section we plan to document the real horror stories. This section will hightlight the “inconveniences” reported by our members. We will try and post one every couple of days from the 6 ” pile of paper I have on the floor behind my desk!
- No Car to visit sick parents! 2007-11-10comment-of-the-day.pdf Posted December 1oth, 2007
- My story, Just the “tip of the iceberg!” mystory-hondausa.pdf Posted Dec 10th
- importability-of-a-nissan-rogue-unhappy-father.pdf Posted Dec 8th.
- comment-on-cmvss-114-regulation-amendment-cwb.pdf Posted Dec 8th, 2007
Posted Dec 8th, 2007
January 13th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
A comedy of errors…
A deceased relative in the US left me a 1994 Buick in their will. I drove the car to the Border and declared the car and some other items left to me in the will. I was directed into the Customs office and presented a list of items and values along with a certified copy of the will. As I was about to leave with clearance, I could see a Customs officer running toward the desk where I made the declarations. He shouted at me, “How did you get that car in the country?” I said I declared it at the checkpoint an proceeded into the office. I then discovered, after almost being allowed through with clearance, I had failed to obtain an export permit to take the car out of the US. I was then escorted back into the US and 6 weeks later with permit in hand I was able to ‘land’ the vehicle on Canadian soil.
Of course, daytime running lights had to be installed before I could register the vehicle in Canada. I chose a (I thought) reputable GM dealership and had the work done. The bill came to around $700 with all inspections and modifications. Finally, almost a year after the modification, I realized that the daytime running light circuit had been connected to the intermittent wiper relay and my lights were going on and off when I had the wipers on intermittent. The dealership didn’t seem to worried about it and offered to fix at my convenenience. Of course, that’s not what happened but I finally did get the problem resolved.
J.L.
March 16th, 2008 at 11:57 am
I wish to make a further comment on the difference of prices between the USA and Canada. Have you investigated the price of gasoline? We pay - on the average - $.20 per liter more for fuel than the Americans.
reference - http://www.montanagasprices.com/retail_price_chart.aspx
We need to get on the bandwagon like you guys at CWB and force these prices to come into line - what happened to the all mighty free trade agreement - is it only in effect for the USA?
Dave.
March 20th, 2008 at 10:35 am
What do we do now? We bought a vehicle stateside with a clean title, it was mistakenly
marked on the Form 1 as salvage now we are trying to get the original status reinstated
but with no luck. We have called RIV and been directed to gov’t office after gov’t office.
They seem very well practiced at passing the buck, but we still have no idea who can rectify
this for us. One gov’t office even told us that if we called again it would never be looked into.
Any ideas what we or who we should contact now?
March 20th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
I would recomend going back to the officer that signed the initial form 1, I am sure he would recognize the error and fix it for you. Good luck.
March 26th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
I have imported numerous right hand drive Nissan vehicles in the past four years for my business. The govt regulations have been so tight as to now put me out of business and to cause my company and subcontracted individual support companies to go under. I have been subjected to remanufacturing the off-shore vehicles with standards far above their original design to comply to the Canadian market. One vehivle I worked with recently was built from parts with the manufactures help, yet I was subjected to numerous tests that if I was to have created a junk yard hot-rod I would have never had to go to. To take the original headlight I had to convert them to North American standards by using DOT approved components. Once this was done I was forced to enter extensive light testing by sending them into a Toronto facility and eating thousands of dollars of testing (the same as if I was a big 3 manufacurer) to prove dust, chemical, vibration and light standards to each light. The components used were already DOT approved and marked as such- so I was paying to retest the manufacturers test. The worst is once the vehicles are on the road they are constantly harrassed by govt and police because they are right hand drive. These cars have advanced engine, steering and suspension systems to their same age North American counterparts. This is why they are popular and also now price effective. These rulings for modifications and re-testing and harassements while being operated are forcing owners to abandon their love of these cars. I have even been granted the honor of having the Head of DOT victoria come out to Vancouver to personally inspect modifications to my last vehicle headlights to resubmit it to road worthiness.This was in m opinion an expensive and meaningless trip as detail photos of the mods were taken of the build of the light- the parts used, the DOT markings and the installation. The testing center I was subjected to soon became a clown ring of cameras and activity and my inspection was posted all over the internet. This was such a waste of tax payers money.
March 28th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
I’m reading alot of bs on here.. For instance JAVA who claims to have a clear title and filled out salvaged by mistake on Form 1… What do you mean riv is giving you the run around. That’s BS because that error is as simple of a fix as checking the US Status of the vehicle - if it’s clear, it’s clear and we can change that by using the drop down menu to select CLEAR… I bet JAVA’s PAPER title says clear, but the US Status, meaning carfax, DMV etc proves otherwise… So they are having a hard time clearing that up. That’s not RIV’s issue… I’m not on here to defend or offend anyboy, but my fanmail stack is 1000X larger than my hate mail.. So hah…