Importing a car to Canada from the US can be easy

I have a colleague who just imported a used but recent Toyota RAV4 from the US and saved about 4000$. The whole process went pretty smoothly although he had a moment of stress at the US custom when they couldn't find his file in the computer (they finally found it in some folder!). Because the car was not manufactured in North America, he had to pay an extra 6.5% duty fee (if I remember correctly). I think the trick is that my colleague did his homework properly and made sure the car in question could be imported without any problem. He did leverage the new law that allows importing cars not equipped with anti-theft devices.

You can find a good article here that describes everything that's required to import a car to Canada from the US including some special costs that might surprise some buyers. It seems that the Canadian Border Services Agency offers free seminars on the topic.

If I had to buy a car again, I might consider doing that but I still wonder if the manufacturers will always honor the warranty ...