# Compliance Letter From Toyota Canada



## ls11j (Jun 18, 2012)

Any Toyota owner from Canada moving to US recently?
I met a problem when asking Toyota Canada to provide a compliance letter. Without this letter one can not import his car into USA. Which means I would be forced to sell my car cheaply in Canada and buy another one in USA at a much higher price.
So any Canadian Toyota owner has met the same problem? Is there a way to work around this issue?

Thanks!


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## Bevdeforges (Nov 16, 2007)

Depends a bit on the problem you ran into. If your Toyota isn't built to US standards, you have the option of replacing whatever item(s) aren't in compliance with the US standards. It's a common problem for US or Canadian car owners who insist on bringing their cars from home when moving to Europe. And many find it simply too expensive to bother with.
Cheers,
Bev


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## ls11j (Jun 18, 2012)

Thanks for your comment.
Cars from US/Canada are way different from the EU ones. I can imagine how much money they need to spend to get the car modified to meed the EU local standards.
But the US and Canada cars follow pretty much the same standards. In the past years car built for Canada comply to most of the US standards. Owners of the Canadian cars just need to get the letter from the manufacturer stating which minor parts of the card don't comply to US standards. The US authorities will request the owner to get the car modified if they think the minor differences are critical. But commonly they are just day time light and KM/Mile related and won't cost the owner too much too fix (it won't make sense if it cost more than the car's value to get the car modified).
But if they owner can not obtain the Compliance Letter (even the car is almost the same between US/Canada models), the owner will need to spend thousands of dollars to get the car certified and modified. This will be a totally different story.


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## ls11j (Jun 18, 2012)

And a bit more detail about the problem I am running into. Toyota Canada is claiming that they no longer provide Compliance Letter due to their recent policy changes. Which mean the Canadian Toyota owners will have issues importing their cars into US unless US changes their policy (which is not likely going to happen in the near future).
If I saw this coming I wouldn't buy a Toyota car. They just refuse to provide their customer some basic simple support (which will only cause them a few seconds of computer time to state the specific car year/model's technical compliance) even the customer is willing to pay for getting that service.
Honda states clearly on their website to let their customer know how to get help from them if they need to import their cars into US.
I am very disappointed.


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## Bevdeforges (Nov 16, 2007)

OK - just an idea for a workaround, though. Have you tried contacting Toyota US about a compliance letter? Not sure it will help, but the worst they can tell you is "no."
Cheers,
Bev


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## twostep (Apr 3, 2008)

http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/import/faq site/pages/page2.html
You might find something. 
Honda changed policy around production of 09/2011. To me it looks like keeping the US market from getting swamped with cheaper border-crossing imports not immigrants bringing a vehicle.


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## bridgelaker (Jul 4, 2012)

Greetings!

Have you had any further luck with importing your Toyota to the US? I am in the same situation. Toyota Canada told me they no longer issue compliance letters and that I had to use a broker, which will cost approximately $1000. Not sure if it's worth it for my 2000 Toyota Sienna, which is worth only $4,500 according to Kelley Blue Book. Please let me know what you decided to do...feel free to PM me. Thanks!!


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## bridgelaker (Jul 4, 2012)

bridgelaker said:


> Greetings!
> 
> Have you had any further luck with importing your Toyota to the US? I am in the same situation. Toyota Canada told me they no longer issue compliance letters and that I had to use a broker, which will cost approximately $1000. Not sure if it's worth it for my 2000 Toyota Sienna, which is worth only $4,500 according to Kelley Blue Book. Please let me know what you decided to do...feel free to PM me. Thanks!!


Still hoping to get a response and some help. Thank you.


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## bridgelaker (Jul 4, 2012)

bridgelaker said:


> Still hoping to get a response and some help. Thank you.


Will call Toyota of CA this afternoon and I will try and get some help. My wife tried previously and had no luck at all. Will report results.


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## bridgelaker (Jul 4, 2012)

bridgelaker said:


> Still hoping to get a response and some help. Thank you.


Well, I am sorry to say that I just got off the phone with Toyota of Canada. I talked to a very nice lady and got exactly the same amount of help as my wife had received a few days ago, NONE.

Upper level management of Toyota of Canada has arbitrarily decided not to issue a letter of compliance for those of us that need to import our Canadian vehicle into the USA. There was no reason given for this. 

It appears that the ONLY choices we have is to sell the van in Canada or hire the services of an importer to do the importation. The cost quoted to me was "up to $1,000 USD". Since Toyota made this policy change, the importers now have a total monopoly on this issue. My car has a sticker that states that it is in compliance with US EPA requirement. The car has a dual speedometer so that is a non issue. The car was made in Kentucky. Basically, nothing needs to be done to the car but pay a broker for some paperwork, grrrrrrr.

I will try my best to influence friends, family, and anybody else that I can to NOT BUY TOYOTA vehicles in the future. As I told the customer represenative Toyota has based much of their success on customer service, this issue is certainly part of "customer service". I do not know if other manufacturers, Honda, Ford, GM, etc have similar policies. I never planned to import a car to the USD, but a job transfer changed all of that. SO, consider your options before you buy another car, the $$$ you save may be your own.


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## bridgelaker (Jul 4, 2012)

bridgelaker said:


> Well, I am sorry to say that I just got off the phone with Toyota of Canada. I talked to a very nice lady and got exactly the same amount of help as my wife had received a few days ago, NONE.
> 
> Upper level management of Toyota of Canada has arbitrarily decided not to issue a letter of compliance for those of us that need to import our Canadian vehicle into the USA. There was no reason given for this.
> 
> ...



Still would like to hear from somebody that has imported to the USA, whether or not you used a broker. Do all brokers charge the same?? Thanks


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## bridgelaker (Jul 4, 2012)

Ok, with complete lockjaw from this forum, we have finally imported our BC bought and registered 2000 Toyota Siena into the US and is now registered in WA. 

As previously mentioned Toyota of CA will not issue compliance letters. This alone would make me NEVER to buy a Toyota in Canada again. Customer service my ass, they don't care.

So, without a compliance letter and after several attempts at the border to show CBP agents that our car had an EPA sticker showing all compliance with federal EPA standards, except for California, dual speedometer readings, etc, no luck. Therefore our only choice was to use a broker. 

We used FTW Services of Langley, BC. Robert Enslen 604 533-3116. After providing them with the necessary information and having to endure a day of me making phone calls to the US Social Security Administration over a problem with my SS# which was cleared up in 5 minutes after finding the right person, we only needed to drive back to Langley, BC pay our $600+ dollars and then return to the border. No problems and we are now registered in WA. It is a shame that we had to spend this much time and money for a car that is only worth maybe $4,000 tops! But to replace it would have been double that amount, what is a guy to do.

Good luck for others that follow in our steps. BL


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## Toronto_girl (Jan 12, 2013)

I encountered the same problem while trying to register our Toyota Sienna 2005 in California in November 2012. DMV requested a letter of compliance from the manufacturer but both Toyota Canada and Toyota USA refused to issue this document. I spoke with different customer service representatives and the only document I received was an official letter saying they refused to give me a compliance letter. I decided not to give up and wrote a letter about this situation addressed to Toyota CEO Mr. Toyoda and attached all documents including that refusal letter I had received from Toyota Canada. I asked my colleague who was going to Japan to take it with her and mail it to Toyota Japan. She actually called them and faxed all the documents. On January 9, 2013 I received an email from Toyota Japan saying that they were sorry about my situation and that they had transferred all documents to Toyota USA for review. That same day I received a call from Toyota Canada to my home phone and I returned it on January 10. The Executive Assistant I spoke with was very nice and explained to me that they had reviewed their corporate policy again and they would issue letters of compliance starting 2013. She asked me to send her some information on the car and later that day I received a copy of compliance letter to my email address. She also mentioned in her email that she had mailed me this letter. Today I went to DMV in South Lake Tahoe as we’re skiing there and I received the license plates.


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## NikCO (Feb 27, 2013)

Hello, 

may I ask you with a Contact from Toyota Canada ? I'm in the exact same situation you were a few weeks ago. With my own canadian Toyota in Colorado and having to have a letter of conformity for DOT. Thanks in advance for your help,

Nicolas



Toronto_girl said:


> I encountered the same problem while trying to register our Toyota Sienna 2005 in California in November 2012. DMV requested a letter of compliance from the manufacturer but both Toyota Canada and Toyota USA refused to issue this document. I spoke with different customer service representatives and the only document I received was an official letter saying they refused to give me a compliance letter. I decided not to give up and wrote a letter about this situation addressed to Toyota CEO Mr. Toyoda and attached all documents including that refusal letter I had received from Toyota Canada. I asked my colleague who was going to Japan to take it with her and mail it to Toyota Japan. She actually called them and faxed all the documents. On January 9, 2013 I received an email from Toyota Japan saying that they were sorry about my situation and that they had transferred all documents to Toyota USA for review. That same day I received a call from Toyota Canada to my home phone and I returned it on January 10. The Executive Assistant I spoke with was very nice and explained to me that they had reviewed their corporate policy again and they would issue letters of compliance starting 2013. She asked me to send her some information on the car and later that day I received a copy of compliance letter to my email address. She also mentioned in her email that she had mailed me this letter. Today I went to DMV in South Lake Tahoe as we’re skiing there and I received the license plates.


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## Toronto_girl (Jan 12, 2013)

I was contacted by Carol Bosse, Executive Representative Toyota Canada Inc.
416-438-6320 ext. 3307. The letter was signed by Amy Davis Customer Interaction Centre AD 1972903 CA. I hope it will help.


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## ls11j (Jun 18, 2012)

Hi, you guys did a really good job. Without your complains to the Toyota head quarter they would continue to treat our north american customers in whatever ways they want!
I actually got frustrated and decided not to move to US. This compliance letter incident was one of the reasons. They just don't wanna make things any easier for us  Cars from Canada should be safe, that should be common sense, right? And not being able to obtain minimum support from Toyota just makes things worse. I would not buy another Toyota car in the future, that's for sure.
But still, thanks for the effort spent by people like Toronto_girl, Toyota owners relocating to US in the future can at least don't need to suffer the pain we went through.


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## Mother_in_BC (Oct 17, 2012)

*Moving vehicle to USA*

We are actually at the very beginning of this story and in the position of moving to Alaska and planning to get a new-to-us vehicle for the journey. We are trying to decide if we should buy it in Washington State or BC. In part, this is to avoid spending $10,000 to move our relatively small amount of stuff. (It turns out the amount of stuff being moved doesn't impact the price of the move very much.)

If we buy in Washington, how much hassle/cost would there be in getting temporary registration for our move?

If we buy in BC how much hassle/cost is there to import the vehicle? I spoke with a Toyota dealership today who said he was "certain" they could get a Letter of Compliance.


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## gavrilo_rules (Jul 11, 2013)

This information on this thread is outdated: as of 2013, Toyota Canada is indeed issuing compliance letters. I just got off the phone with them. It was a very simple process, and it can be done mostly electronically. Cheers. J


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## Toronto_girl (Jan 12, 2013)

gavrilo_rules said:


> This information on this thread is outdated: as of 2013, Toyota Canada is indeed issuing compliance letters. I just got off the phone with them. It was a very simple process, and it can be done mostly electronically. Cheers. J


Of course, they do because I contacted their headquarters in Japan in December 2012 and they made Toyota Canada change their corporate policy.


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