Buying and Sellling a Car in Canada 2007

[Dani4francois]

Hi

Myself and my partner are going to Canada in August for one yr . When we arrive in Toronto we want to buy a car insure it and do a major road trip to evenutually end up on Vancouver . We then want to bring the car to the US for about one month to do some travelling there . What advice can you give me with regard to buying a car and insuring it . We both will have international drivers liecences . Does anyone know of good websites to look at with regard to buying a decent sized used car for roadtripping that isnt going to bleed our savings dry

Many thanks

[AZBuck]

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America forum.

We have, after a lot of questions from forum users and a lot of poking around by the moderators and other contributors, finally gotten at least a loose handle on what it would take for a foreign national to buy and operate a car in the US. That would be, at a minimum, an actual physical address (not a Post Office Box) in the state where he intends to license and register the vehicle. What the requirements would be in Canada, we have no idea, but they are probably fairly similar. Once you have a car duly registered in Canada, it would be not much of a problem to bring it into the US IF you are Canadian. But you are not, so again, we have no idea. My best advice to you would be to check with the nearest Canadian embassy or consulate regarding the purchase, and if that proves possible, then with the American embassy regarding whether a third party national (you) can bring a Canadian car into the US. To be honest I don't hold out a lot of hope for either.

If you can pull this off, you are looking to spend at least $5000-$7000 (€4000-€5500) to buy a car that would hold up to such an extensive trip, Insurance might run you another $500 (€400) for 6 months, more if you're both under 25. Generally, the break even point between the cost of buying a car (and reselling it - another hassle) and renting one is about two months. That is, it usually makes no financial sense to buy a car if you are going to use it for less than two months. Rent it instead. I don't believe that you will not need an international license in either Canada or the US, since all it does is translate your actual license into several common languages including English. Ireland isn't issuing its licenses in Gaelic, is it?

You've got several months to sort all this out, but I'd look long and hard into the logistics, legality and costs before I spent even one minute looking for cars.

AZBuck