Importing a Vehicle (Subaru) Without TPMS - Success!

[Rushpat 0]

29 minutes ago, jhnmcnamer@yahoo. said:

you will probably have problems registering car without border clearance papers

what kind of clearance papers?

[jhnmcnamer@yahoo. 0]

Proof that it has been legally imported after meeting border requirements on such things as safety standards (e.g.TPMS) and paying any duty that may be levied (import duties were waived on our vehicle because it had been originally manufactured in the US). At the registration office in Vermont we had to provide proof of transfer of title, which for us was ICBC insurance registration -- they kind of choked on that because their system uses title certificates, but they worked through it with higher level supervisors after a couple of visits. 

[apple19 0]

Hi! I'm on a Canadian J-1 student Visa and planning to be in the US for 5 years. I've been here 6 months now and am now looking at importing my vehicle, a 2015 Subaru Crosstrek from Canada to the US.

 

I've emailed today for a compliance letter, I'm sure it will be missing a TPMS and I'll follow the directions here.

 

My questions are:

1. I saw people on a TN visa were advised not to import their car as it's a temporary visa. Has anyone gotten similar advice with a J-1? Who would I contact to get this info?

2. Does the clock 'reset' every time you cross the border, or is it 1 year from my initial entrance to the US?

 

Thanks!

Edited February 20, 2023 by apple19

[EC&IC 32]

On 1/9/2022 at 4:47 PM, agdmills said:

The following details an epic journey through snowy mountains, sunbaked deserts, and dense angular forests in 3 different nations. All with a Toyota Corolla, a compliance letter and a dream of one day saying, "why yes, our car does meet the required specifications to register in the United States."  

 

This story begins on a sad note. In January, 2021 my mother-in-law suddenly passed away. My partner and I are both Canadians living in California, and Canada was still very much in high restriction mode due to the pandemic. This made crossing the border to attend a funeral and settle an estate far more challenging than normal. Eventually, my partner was able to go. After several weeks - over two of which were spent in quarantine - my partner and her sibling settled the estate. This included a well-maintained 2015 Toyota Corolla. My partner decided to keep the car. A reliable vehicle with low mileage is something we would definitely make good use of. She does all the paperwork to change ownership, takes the car to a trusted mechanic for an oil change and inspection, and she's all set to return to California and carry on with life.

 

At this point, neither of us are aware that importing the vehicle at the border is something we need to do. I fly to Chicago to meet her because flying to Toronto would require a lengthy quarantine. She drives across the border as one normally would; present your passport and green card, answer a couple of questions, and on you go. We meet at O'Hare Airport, delighted to see one another after several difficult weeks apart, and settle into our hotel for some much needed rest before our cross-continental journey back to California. The trip was melancholy for obvious reasons, but also meditative and beautiful as we traversed through the ornate landscapes of Wyoming and Utah. 

 

This brings us to the first great hero in our story. At first glance, Yvonne appears to be a DMV employee like any other; a person trying to get through her day as she deals with an endless stream of people who would much rather be somewhere else. However, unbeknownst to her, Yvonne's elevated grace and professionalism allowed this experience to simply be frustrating, as opposed to the downward spiral into madness it otherwise could have been. It is through Yvonne that we learn the vehicle must first be imported before it can be registered in California. She tells us what we need to do - request a letter of compliance, drive to a port of entry, etc - and with much poise and empathy, issues us a temporary registration. 

 

Slightly perturbed at the inconvenience of having to drive all the way to a port of entry, my partner and I are otherwise optimistic that we can successfully complete this task. We decided to take advantage of the long American Thanksgiving weekend. We drive up the forested and mountainous section of I-5 through Oregon and Washington to Seattle, where we have friends with whom we stay with for Thanksgiving dinner. On Black Friday, negative PCR tests and a 60 second wait are all that's required to cross the border into Canada where we make our way to Vancouver and two delightful days with an old friend. 

 

Refreshed and ebullient, we gather our paperwork and prepare to head back to the U.S. Our compliance letter does note that the vehicle has no TPMS; we tell ourselves that it probably doesn't matter. Ignorance is bliss, until the merciless fist of reality pounds itself into your gut rendering your pitiful, helpless body onto the ground with no choice but to face it and move on. This came in the form of Officer Cook. With a stoic confidence, Officer Cook informed us that without a TPMS the car could not be imported. He suggested we drive back to California, request an extension on our temporary registration, have a TPMS installed, and try again. He also recommended going to the Mexican border next time, as it's a shorter drive. We cross back into the States, and after 3 fruitless hours of trying to obtain a TPMS in the small towns of northern Washington, we follow Officer Cook's advice and begin the drive back to California.

 

Re-enter Yvonne at the DMV, who my partner now has a personal relationship with. She issues an extension with no hassle and our next mission is finding a TPMS and someone to install it. I purchased a cigarette lighter unit on Amazon for around $40. It would be incredibly easy to put this on ourselves, but of course, we need a receipt saying it's been installed; this Temporary Part Mandated by States. After being turned away by two mechanics, we find one who will install it. He charges us $20 - the minimum his system will allow - and issues us a detailed receipt. 

 

The following weekend, we drove to San Diego with plans to cross the Mexican border, turn around, and import the vehicle upon re-entering the United States. Simple enough. Upon crossing the border, we are immediately thrust into a country where the line between pedestrian and car traffic is blurred into a singularity and the copious signage does not make it abundantly clear how exactly one returns to the border. After almost two hours of ineffectual trial and error, and unsuccessfully interpreting the body language directions of local police officers and citizens alike, we began to ask ourselves, "do we live in Tijuana now?" Then, it happened. Random chance; a miracle. Call it what you will, but when we made what seemed like just another U-turn in a long line of U-turns that day, there it was, bathed in a golden halo of angelic sunlight; "To I-5."

 

Never before had we been so delighted at the opportunity to wait in a lineup. It was slow moving and hot, but with each passing hour, we were inching closer to the border - TPMS receipt and other paperwork in hand - and finally completing this import process. After a 5 hour wait spent observing the many vendors for whom this was a typical day, and thinking to myself, "I wonder how that 6 foot golden portrait of the Virgin Mary would look in my living room", we finally reached the border. We present our passports and green cards, and my partner confidently says, "I'd like to import this vehicle please." 

 

"Oh, we don't do that here", the officer replied. Deflated does not even begin to describe how we felt. If the U.S. Customs and Border Protection had a derisive sense of humour, each officer would be issued an official turntable so as to inflict a record scratch sound effect for such moments. It now felt like we were never going to get this done. We began considering what we would do should the car not be importable, but resolved to try again at the same Canadian border port of entry we were at weeks previously.

 

At the beginning of January, 2022 we'd planned a trip back to Toronto to visit our families. We decided to postpone that trip because of the recent restrictions imposed in Ontario. This decision had a silver lining though. It was our opportunity to use the time off we'd booked to drive to the border and finally import this vehicle. We booked a few nights at a nice hotel in Portland, Oregon. This being the 1-year anniversary of my mother-in-law's passing, we resolved to spend our time off celebrating life, and hopefully, the successful import of her car and finally closing out the last piece of her estate.

 

We took one day out of our Portland trip to make the 4 and half hour drive to the border in Blaine, Washington. With little fanfare, we crossed into Canada and immediately turned around to cross back. If there were a humourous adventure for me to outline here, I would. But, to be honest, it all went quite smoothly with no issues whatsoever. The only outlier in this part of the story is its second great hero; Officer Holt. We only spent about 20 minutes with him, but Officer Holt's kindness, professionalism, and sincerity were a massive breath of fresh air and appreciated to a level he will never know. We left Blaine, due south for Portland in our legally imported Toyota Corolla.

 

As I sit here in our California home having a restful Sunday and writing this story with my partner beside me, I can see she's quite relieved and eagerly looking forward to walking into the DMV this week and saying, "Yvonne, I'd like to register my vehicle please."  

I'm sorry to comment on a year-old post, but I think this is the most entertaining writing I've seen on any forum! 😂 We just learned today that we also have this TPMS issue, and we were starting to get anxious reading the thread... I really appreciate everyone's helpful posts and suggestions, but I didn't expect to have that much fun suddenly! Thank you, @agdmills! 

[roshakky 13]

What Michigan border office or field office has had successful in importing a car with an aftermarket TPMS instilled by a professional with an invocie?

 

Any tips?

[CAN US 0]

On 7/19/2022 at 5:24 PM, smurf344 said:

OMG just had to create an account here to say THANK YOU so much to the suggestions on this thread and it worked for me!!!  I recently moved from BC to the US and ran into the same problem with my 2019 Subaru Crosstrek and was legit panicking.  I bought the Vesafe kit from Amazon and was able to find an OK Tire to install it for me (Victoria, BC for reference) after I had called other auto-shops and been shut down.  The kit is so simple to install that I think in total with labor costs it was only around $80.  I was in disbelief that so many shops told me they couldn't help.

 

I took my car into a customs office in CO today and the woman I worked with was extremely nice once she realized I had all of my ducks in a row with paperwork etc.  She initially shut me down when I said the car did not have a TPMS, but once I said I had one installed she lightened up and it was easy from there.  Definitely recommend being super organized and having all of your paperwork ready to make their lives easier and keep them happy!  The woman even asked me "wow, they make these wireless now?" because the OK Tire receipt listed "Vesafe wireless" etc. and I said yep.  Made me nervous but she accepted it and was impressed by it lol.  Anyway, thanks again and hope this thread helps others out as much as it did for me!!!

Thank you for sharing your experience. I attempted to import my car from British Columbia to Washington state via the Peace Arch border with an aftermarket TPMS installed. However, I was informed that it needed to be an original OEM installation by a Toyota dealership. They recommended that I sell my car in Canada instead. Would you mind sharing which border you used to import your car?

[smurf344 1]

7 hours ago, CAN US said:

Thank you for sharing your experience. I attempted to import my car from British Columbia to Washington state via the Peace Arch border with an aftermarket TPMS installed. However, I was informed that it needed to be an original OEM installation by a Toyota dealership. They recommended that I sell my car in Canada instead. Would you mind sharing which border you used to import your car?

Dang, I’m sorry to hear that, that’s what I was afraid would happen to me. 
 

Mine was shipped by my moving company to Colorado and then I took it to a border control office here and they accepted it. Granted… the woman was like, “wow, they make them Bluetooth these days?” I think I got lucky. 

[roshakky 13]

SUCCESSFUL IMPORT

 

I bought a TMPS from Amazon, had it "installed" by my local Hyundai service center and received an invoice. 

 

The officer at the Sarnia border looked at our documents and said we had everything needed, he filled out the 3 forms, we paid the duty, and he gave us the clearance paperwork. The officer did not even go out to look at the vehicle or the TPMS. We were on our way in less than 20 minutes.

 

***I don't think he cared to check the TPMS because the invoice was from Hyundai itself. 

[Jay0409 0]

I was able to import my vehicle as well. I went through Blaine, WA PoE. It took me a total of three attempts at three different PoEs to get it imported. The first two times at Peace Arch and Abbotsford PoE, I attempted with aftermarket TPMS (with Amazon receipt as a proof). Both times, I was denied the request to import because the retrofitted TPMS is not an OEM part. Even after explaining that the vehicle cannot receive OEM TPMS, they simply responded that the vehicle is not importable if it in fact cannot receive OEM parts, and advised me to sell the vehicle in Canada. For my last attempt, I did the following:

- I brought an aftermarket TPMS from Amazon to Canadian dealership to install it prior to entering US (US dealerships wouldn't do this for us). I presented the invoice and the receipt to the CBP officer.

- I brought a copy of email confirmation from my vehicle manufacturer that the OEM TPMS can only be installed at the time of manufacture.

- I spoke to US dealership about what it takes to install OEM TPMS prior to the trip. They quoted me $15K USD to retrofit OEM TPMS system which I brought a copy of. US dealerships also told me that they can't guarantee if they can make it work. 

 

At first, the officer's reaction to aftermarket TPMS was the same as the other officers I had dealt with, but when I explained the reasons why I had to install aftermarket TPMS (costs a lot and no guarantee if it will work which becomes a safety issue), he understood our situation and agreed that aftermarket TPMS is really our only option. At the end, the officer confirmed a few more things like what our plan is with the vehicle (sell in the US or personal use), VIN#/title search, recalls, proof of insurance, checking EPA sticker on the hood and let us import our vehicle! He also did not charge any duty on the vehicle which was a bonus.

 

Before going, I would suggest doing your homework. Generally it depends on which officer you get at the PoE. Speak to your manufacturer as well as both Canada and US dealerships. Use the information they give you to your advantage. Bring printed copies of any correspondences you have with the manufacturer or dealerships. For me on the first two denials, both CBP officers warned us that I should not try other port sor other officers as it would look bad for me. They appeared to have left some internal notes on our information, but it didn't seem to affect us at all on our subsequent visits. Maybe CBP recognizes that the officers may take different approaches to this.

Edited March 23, 2023 by Jay0409

[EC&IC 32]

I would just like to report on our experience. Despite our after-market TPMS and invoice proving its installation by a mechanic, we were unsuccessful in importing our 2019 RAV4 at the Derby Line, VT POE on March 25.

 

The officer told us that Toyota *had* to install the system, and that he used to work in the field and “knew” it was possible, despite what Toyota Canada had told us. So we entered without importing the car, and a few days later, my husband brought the car to a Toyota dealership in Idaho. They called Toyota engineers, who told them it was indeed impossible... There was no way they could install it.

 

As we live 12 hours from the closest border and because of our family situation, we decided not to try multiple PoEs, and get rid of the car instead. Fortunately, we successfully sold our car to a Toyota dealership in Idaho yesterday! We were very clear about the importation situation, and it took a while to make it clear that we didn't have a separate piece of paper called “title” as American cars do, but they bought it for 25% more money than my husband had been promised as a “Kelly blue book offer” in Canada, and we traded it in for an American car. Done! I'm mentioning it in case anybody has the same issue and wonders if their car can be sold in the US. 

 

Thanks to everyone who posted in this thread. It is possible that like previous posters, we would have been successful after multiple tries, but in our case, getting rid of the car was the easiest solution, and we're happy that the issue is resolved.

[ACC24 40]

We will be crossing land border from Toronto soon first time to activate our Immigrant Visa. We are not planning to import our cars ( Toyota Highlander 2011 and Honda CRV 2007) right away but will do eventually over couple months. Will this raise any questions by the border officers that we need to be aware of? Thanks!

[rabbitfoot 0]

On 3/23/2023 at 8:35 AM, Jay0409 said:

I was able to import my vehicle as well. I went through Blaine, WA PoE. It took me a total of three attempts at three different PoEs to get it imported. The first two times at Peace Arch and Abbotsford PoE, I attempted with aftermarket TPMS (with Amazon receipt as a proof). Both times, I was denied the request to import because the retrofitted TPMS is not an OEM part. Even after explaining that the vehicle cannot receive OEM TPMS, they simply responded that the vehicle is not importable if it in fact cannot receive OEM parts, and advised me to sell the vehicle in Canada. For my last attempt, I did the following:

- I brought an aftermarket TPMS from Amazon to Canadian dealership to install it prior to entering US (US dealerships wouldn't do this for us). I presented the invoice and the receipt to the CBP officer.

- I brought a copy of email confirmation from my vehicle manufacturer that the OEM TPMS can only be installed at the time of manufacture.

- I spoke to US dealership about what it takes to install OEM TPMS prior to the trip. They quoted me $15K USD to retrofit OEM TPMS system which I brought a copy of. US dealerships also told me that they can't guarantee if they can make it work. 

 

At first, the officer's reaction to aftermarket TPMS was the same as the other officers I had dealt with, but when I explained the reasons why I had to install aftermarket TPMS (costs a lot and no guarantee if it will work which becomes a safety issue), he understood our situation and agreed that aftermarket TPMS is really our only option. At the end, the officer confirmed a few more things like what our plan is with the vehicle (sell in the US or personal use), VIN#/title search, recalls, proof of insurance, checking EPA sticker on the hood and let us import our vehicle! He also did not charge any duty on the vehicle which was a bonus.

 

Before going, I would suggest doing your homework. Generally it depends on which officer you get at the PoE. Speak to your manufacturer as well as both Canada and US dealerships. Use the information they give you to your advantage. Bring printed copies of any correspondences you have with the manufacturer or dealerships. For me on the first two denials, both CBP officers warned us that I should not try other port sor other officers as it would look bad for me. They appeared to have left some internal notes on our information, but it didn't seem to affect us at all on our subsequent visits. Maybe CBP recognizes that the officers may take different approaches to this.

thank you. I will be going to Blaine next week with my Subaru and I have exactly the same problem, OEM cannot retrofit the TPMS sensor. What make was your car?

[mam521 2,062]

Just a head's up that I've now seen on 2 separate occasions.  Apparently Toyota Canada is no longer issuing compliance letters.  I suspect it has to do with liability since an aftermarket TPMS does not technically meet DOT regulation and the TPMS is a requirement to meet DOT standards.  So, I suppose take that whatever way you want. 

 

If someone with a Toyota can confirm, that'd be great.  

[Jay0409 0]

On 4/14/2023 at 11:27 AM, rabbitfoot said:

thank you. I will be going to Blaine next week with my Subaru and I have exactly the same problem, OEM cannot retrofit the TPMS sensor. What make was your car?

2018 Toyota Rav4

[CJPCAUS 0]

Hello 

 

I submit consumer complaint in Ontario. If they receive more complaint then they will make Toyota to issue a letter. i don't know how it works. 

https://www.ontario.ca/page/filing-consumer-complaint