what an experience...  this is � of the
story ???

A  little more than two years ago, in december, I spent three hours on the
phone talking and
waiting for someone to answer and tell me  exactly " what would happen "  at
the border,  if I drove and arrived  with a westy weekender 85 that I  was
going to buy in florida ??? I did phone first to the ministry of transport,
both provincial and federal: they are the ones that would permit me to drive
the
van on our  roads... then the canada customs and revenue agency,  at their
offices in quebec city,  to know exactly how much it was going to cost me in
taxes etc and mostly, to inquire about   different laws attached to this
kind of transaction...some of these laws change often, and a lot of people
you are talking to,  do not even know these changes  !!!  more,  i did phone
to the
canadian customs office at the border on I-87,  where I was going to go
through...
finally and just in case,  i phoned to the u.s.a. customs office at
champlain  n.y.:   depending on a lot of things, they can " freeze " your
car up to   48 hours  or more to verify all the papers etc etc...  all this
time,  i tried to  " get  " some names to make sure i had the right answers
.But this is government " stuff", nobody wants to be involved ?  anyway, i
was ready to make the move as if i were  going to get married  and saying "
I DO "... So, to make the story  short:
november: after kidnapping my girlfriend to  hollywood, florida, we fell  in
love
with this west 85, but just came back home.
january: took three weeks off , bought the thing, ( my 15th Vw),   found
afterwards it was "" completely dry, dry,dry"", could not use it, rented a
motel, thought that PO was a real Vw person?  we believe in Vw people!
march: i  flew to Fla alone, spending more than 1200.$ to have it fixed, but
it still leaked...
got fed up, drove back home just the same   and  the engine  "passed away"
on I-87, 60 miles from the border.
I got to  the customs in the back of a tow truck...eventhough i knew how to
fill all the papers, they told me that i had to employ and wait for  a
broker, no way of  getting out of it!  i had to pay him   234.$ to fill my
name,address,   plus,  kind of car ...serial number.
these persons are " federals",  you have to be  very careful and stay
polite,  they can be
worst than  the police if they want to. Finally they decided that the price
that the broker had written,  i.e. the same that i had  paid for  was not
enough... they  do not use the , black or red book value,  and at one
time, they were four around a book to decide what they were going to
inscribe
as a price... so they almost added 2000.$ to the  price i paid. and the
worst  about this thing, is that i was  taxed on this amount up and  to
buying my
plates.So, lets say my price war 5000.$us initially...i first  paid 6%  to
the state
of florida; (450.$cdn). At the border,  this amount, because of the 1.5
exchange,  became more than 7500.$cdn. Since these vans are not made in the
states, you still have to pay 6.1% duty( was 9%),
+ 100.$ if you have an a/c, on top of this comes the federal tax  of  7.0%,
on top  7.5% sales tax in the prov. of quebec  and finally  more than 130.$
for several inspections fed. and prov.
 Canada, with all its taxes, is supposed to be the " top"  country in the
world ( can we for once surpass the US for something ?) and  quebec is the
summum, climax  of the 10 provinces, so imagine how much it costs to live
here ???  Zephyr now stands in the driveway with a 16000.$ tag, what we
thought would have been a bargain!
and we still have our seats  to have done; anybody has tan seats for sale ?
Sooo,  if you still want to import, you can always p mail to
palachance@ccapcable.com , since i am sure to have omitted a few things ???
pierre a. lachance
lac beauport, que
zephyr weekender 85
green apple  s.beetle 00
p.s. we call our weekender Zephyr because it had an empty bottle of
Zephyrhills water from florida holding the "for sale" sign...no wonder it
was dry...