I'm here to ask a simple question to see if anyone here has the answer to my question but instead all I gotten was people criticizing as to why I want to import a 15+ year old vehicle from another country and to go buy a used/new vehicle in Canada especially this cringe response From Gargamon "You are aware that the steering wheel is on the other side in Canada?". I will break this down to you, because I can and don't care what you think, If your worry about people driving a rhd vehicle in a lhd country, there are far more important things to worry about, as someone who has driven right hand drive in Canada for 4 years and currently drives a rhd 05 Toytoa Hilux Surf, rhd 02 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 7 GT-A while my gf drives rhd 05 Honda CR-V all imported from Japan without any issues.
To import a rhd vehicle it has to be 15 years old in order to get through Canadian customs and perfectly legal as well. Getting a rhd vehicle to pass inspection in any province is not hard at all, it doesn't matter if the vehicle met the safety and environmental regulations or not once the vehicle is 15 years old in Canada same goes for the USA 25 years old it is 100% legal for import and can be registered, I know a few people that imported an 05-08 Hilux 3.0L from Thailand to Canada that I'm aware of with one actually living in the same city as me passed inspection without any issues and installed heating system he bought from Australia. I seen a lot more people import vehicles from Japan and driving them in Canada.
There's reasons why I import a vehicles instead of buying locally. The interest rates for used or new vehicle have sky rocketed, especially the price markup on vehicles since covid happen, you think I want to pay 6-12% interest on a $30,000-$100,000 vehicle loan & pay between $400-$1200 dollars a month stuck with huge debt when I can use that money to save up for a house, why do you think people still drives a 15+ year old north American/JDM cars on the roads.
Japan has a strict 2 year inspection on vehicles in order to make sure that vehicles on the road are properly maintained and safe to drive while some provinces in my country don't have one unless your moving to another province to get it registered.
Depends on the vehicle there are a a lot cheaper to buy in Japan then buying one locally, yes you do need to pay for importing the vehicle but your mainly paying less or almost the same price locally for example, a 2004 Honda cr-v ex with 247,000 kms unknown maintenance with rust they want $8,000 CAD in my area. My gf's rhd 2005 Honda CR-V IL-D AWD (RD7) with 94,000 confirmed kms at the time with maintenance up to date and no rust at all was only $2,400 CAD, with vehicle cost, shipping to Canada, importer fee, Canadian customs fee in total was only $7,100 CAD landed to Canada not including shipping the vehicle to my location and inspection. Getting parts for these vehicle can be easy and/or hard it all depends on the vehicle, my rhd 05 Toytoa Hilux Surf parts are easy to find same goes for my girlfriends rhd 05 Honda CR-V, I know parts for the hilux can be a bit hard but I know the truck is available all over the world except for North America and I can buy parts and have it shipped out. Yes there are some vehicle in japan with rust issues and odometer roll back more so on sports cars but as long as you have a trusted importer looking over the vehicle you'll be good to go, never once had issues with my import vehicles.
At the end of the day I can care less what you think about me buying a 15+ year old truck from another country, don't like what I have to say you can go somewhere else to complain about other peoples decisions.
.png.3b3332cc2256ad0edbc2fe9404feeef0.png.8488ab72b8bb2e508209bfe3211b6e08.png)
