The things people ask first.

Fourteen to twenty-two weeks from the day we start looking to the day you get the keys. We quote twenty-two and aim for eighteen.

Most of it isn't us. Sourcing takes a few weeks, inspection and purchase a few more, then two to three weeks at sea and the rest clearing customs and registration. Vessels get delayed and sellers reschedule, so we build slack in.

Budget roughly 1.3× to 1.45× the European purchase price before our fee. A €30,000 car is not a $45,000 car in your driveway.

The gap is freight, marine insurance, GST, the $100 air-conditioning excise, the federal green levy on thirstier engines (up to $4,000 on a big V8), clearance, inland transport, and provincial inspection and registration. We quote the whole number from the first conversation, not the sticker.

Canada exempts vehicles fifteen years and older from federal safety compliance. Under that line a European-market car generally can't be federalised at any price — it was never built to North American standards and has no compliance label to certify against.

So the honest answer on a five-year-old European car is no, and we'd rather tell you in the first phone call than three months in. The clock runs from build date, not model year, so a car can become eligible mid-year.

You do, at every stage. Your name goes on the foreign bill of sale, the shipping documents, the customs entry and the registration. We never take title.

Your funds go directly to the seller or through regulated escrow — never through our accounts. We're paid a fee for finding, vetting and negotiating the car and running the process. That's the whole arrangement.

It can be, and often is — but it isn't automatic, and anyone promising it upfront is guessing.

CETA's 0% rate needs an origin declaration from the seller, and above €6,000 the seller has to be registered in the EU's REX system. Established exporting dealers usually are. Private sellers usually aren't. We check REX status before you commit to a car, and we quote every deal at the standard 6.1% rate so a saving arrives as good news rather than the reverse.

Usually yes — but sort it early, not the week the car lands. Some mainstream insurers won't write a vehicle whose VIN doesn't decode in their system, so we point you to brokers who handle imports from the start.

Registration means a provincial out-of-province or safety inspection, then plates. Worth knowing: that's a safety inspection, not a federal compliance one — the car is exempt from the standards it was never built to.

This is the part most imports get wrong. We hold a wholesale account with a European supplier, so parts come from the market the car was built for — correctly specified for a European VIN rather than guessed at.

Savings vary by part, and coverage is deepest on the German platforms we source most often. On rarer marques, expect longer lead times. We'll tell you which side of that line your car sits on before you buy it, not after.

TÜV is Germany's mandatory roadworthiness test. Every car on German roads has to pass one every two years to stay registered, carried out by a state-authorised inspector rather than by whoever is selling the car.

It leaves a paper trail: what was checked, what failed and what was fixed — corrosion, brakes, suspension, emissions. Far better than a seller's word. We ask for it on every car, and a thin or missing history tells us as much as a clean one.

That's what the inspection is for, and it happens before any money moves. Cold start on video, paint depth readings, undercarriage on a lift, diagnostic scan, road test, and a written report within 24 hours with a clear recommendation — including "walk away," which we've given before.

We also read the documents before we read the car: registration papers, TÜV history, service records and a Carfax EU history report. A used car is still a used car, sold as-is by its owner, and we don't warrant it. What we do is make sure you're buying it with your eyes open.