Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Cthulhu]

Just wonding if anyone had any experience buying a car in Korea and later transporting it to Canada. Just wondering about shipping costs, inspection costs, emission tests etc. I figure it might be a waste of time with all the added costs and hassles but there's a certain SUV here that is seriously underpriced compared to its Canadian equivalent and I just had to make sure before I leave.

[ulsanchris]

How much cheaper is the suv here. I mean it would have to be alot cheaper to even think of it. I imagine it would cost several thousand dollars to ship it. and then having to pay tax on it when you get to canada.

[Harvard Material]

Yep...Ulsanchris is right. You are opening up a can of worms you may never be able to operate. I would advise you not to do it too. The tax will hit you hard, and that's your first given.
As far as saftey inspections go? We know what it is like in Canada now. I guess there are ways around the emission inspections, depending on what mechanic you take it to, but taking a vehicle from here is not going to be much easier than taking an animal home. The Ministry of Transportation is gonna' want lots of info. If you are lacking any necessary documents you will need someone here to obtain it/them and forward them to you, or your SUV stays in park. Difficult procedure Cthulhu. It would certainly suck if it was held-up at customs for 3 or 4 months!

Have you posted this question on the Pusan web? Try as many sites to get sound advice as possible. Maybe it isn't the nightmare I think it would be, but it stands to reason that there will be a lot of problems (both financial and legal), to solve.

If it is within reason; if you do go ahead with the idea to purchase and ship a vehicle, post again to let us know what/how it worked out.

Lots of luck!!

[Seoultrader]

I have regular shipments of 20ft/40ft containers going to Toronto. I currently pay a freight forwarding rate of $2,700 for the 20ft containers to Vancouver, which is what you would need for a single vehicle. There's no RoRo bulk service. Onward forwarding to Toronto is about $1,000 by train.

I pay an extra $500 or so in extra charges (lots of different products in the containers, so lots of paperwork), but I'm not sure if that is product dependent, so it might be a bit more/less for cars.

A friend of mine used Keukdong Motor Trading Co. for taking his Sorento to Russia and was pretty happy with 'em. They also do export services, apparently (looking at the Times ad).

[email protected] / (02)2243-1745 (English)

[Cthulhu]

Yes, I was looking at the Sorento too. The 4X4 V4 Sorento is only around $24,000 (W22,000,000) and would be a great daily/winter driver for my wife whereas in Canada it only comes in the V6 at around $33,000 (W31,500,000) before taxes which would hike it up to around $36,000. Thus the savings before the red tape headache stands at around $12,000. Hard to get a new 4X4 SUV like that in Canada for the price.

Thus I could take up to a $5,000 hit and still feel good about everything (granting these are two slightly different models). So I figured a hassle is in order, but just of what magnitude.

Anyway, thanks for the replies and thanks for the contact info Seoultrader. I might just drop them a line...

[Bulsajo]

Make sure it meets N.A. specs!

N.A. has the strictest safety and emissions standards, consequently many non-N.A. car companies make export versions to meet N.A. standards (or have manufacturing plants in N.A.) while their domestic lines are cheaper partially due to lower standards.

N.B.- Not sure how up to date this is (used to be a problem importing cars to N.A. a dozen years ago) or whether it applies to Korean cars, but I imagine you should check into this before you buy- better safe than sorry.