On Fri, 7 Apr 95 17:22:24 CDT James N Gagliardi said:
>While people are talking about emissions stickers...
>Several months ago, someone mentioned here or on rec.autos.vw that
>certain years of vanagons sold in Canada had both us and canadian
>emissions stickers.  Apparently because they are already EPA approved,
>it is relatively to import a Canadian Vanagon into the us...presumably
>including Vanagon Single Cabs and Double Cabs.  Does anyone remember any
>of the details of this?

when i had some extra money (HA!) and was seriously looking to get a double-
cab vanagon, what i found was that only the canadian vanagons in the
Vancouver, British Columbia, had BOTH the EPA and DOT stickers and could be
imported into the u.s. with a minimum of hassle (but lots of money: 25 percent
tax on the sale price when you cross the border! that's TWO-FIVE percent, as
in one-quarter! plus other much smaller assorted paperwork/registration fees).
the pickups in toronto and ottawa and montreal (no offense, but their dealers
were just plain rude and abusive) did NOT have both u.s. stickers ... so
i would have had to post a $5000 bond with the EPA and DOT. you then have
90 days to certify that the car has been brought up to u.s. safety and
emission standards (by a garage approved by those agencies and NOT necessarily
in your local area!). then and only then, will you get your $5000 returned.
what if you cannot bring the car up to standards? you lose the $5k and the
car is impounded, and will most likely later be crushed. :(

now ... as to why only the ones in b.c. fit the bill, i don't know. and all
this info was based on talking to birmingham, al customs people (who didn't
know what the hell i was asking) and the seattle, wa customs folks (who said
they handled that sort of stuff all the time).

joel