Cross-Border shopping

[Joseph Olajos]

Need some info here from anyone who has purchased a vehicle from the States, and brought it into Canada(in this case, Ontario.
We are close to buying a 2004 Ford Ranger 4x4 from a local Dealer,and will be getting rid of our Chev Silverado ,as our primary tow vehicle.
Bought by our Dealer from another Dealer in Pennsylvania,and imported into Ontario, it must now meet certain Cdn requirements to be certified here, prior to sale.
One of those items is the matter of changing Miles to Kilometers,both on the speedometer, and the odometer. They say they are going to "re-calibrate" the odometer, but do nothing with the Speedo, since it already displays miles, in small numerals along with the prominent numerals for miles. How will they recalibrate the odometer ?
Has anyone gone thru this exercise with importing a vehicle from the States into Canada?
What requirements have to be met in the above example, and what will I see in the final product ? Anything I should watch out for...any short-cuts they may try?
Joe

[Chester Taje]

I don't know the answere,but that sure seems strange to me

[Alf S.]

Hi: Try to find out the U.S. vehicles history Make sure it's not a flood/hurricane victim
Alf S. North shore of Lake Erie

[Bigfoot Mike]

Hi: Try to find out the U.S. vehicles history Make sure it's not a flood/hurricane victim Alf S. North shore of Lake Erie

Try CarFax

[Joseph Olajos]

Try CarFax

Thanx, all

I've already done CarFax...the truck is squeeky clean...and not from floods !!!

Picking it up Friday.

Joe

[Brian B-P]

If they really are leaving the original speedometer, then they can't be "recalibrating" by changing gear which drives the speedo cable (if it still uses that technology) or the sensor which produces pulses as the vehicle moves. They must be changing some component of the instrumentation, or more likely just changing a setting in the computer which runs the instruments. The Ranger is a pretty old design (even if it was built only 3 years ago), so it's anyone's guess what's under the dash.

The more common swap which I have heard of (with other models of other brands) is to change the entire instrument cluster to a Canadian version.

[Carol H]

[quote]
Need some info here from anyone who has purchased a vehicle from the States, and brought it into Canada(in this case, Ontario.

Have purchased a 2007 car as well as a 92 Scamp south of the line.

The changing of the speedometer and odometer is not a Cdn requirement or at least in BC it is not. Here the truck would pass inspection with them just the way they are.

Have no idea as to how they will "re-calibrate" the odometer it may be that the manufacture has a computer chip that can be changed over to kilometers - my sisters car can be done with a simple push of a button on the dash. With my car the whole speedo unit which includes the miles, temp, etc has to be changed out and then they set the kilometers to match previous miles and sticker is but on the car to reflect that it has been changed.

If Ontario allows it, you can always just leave it the way it is as I have - takes only a short time to remember to look at the small numbers and not the large numbers to check speed. :-)


Carol

[Joseph Olajos]

If they really are leaving the original speedometer, then they can't be "recalibrating" by changing gear which drives the speedo cable (if it still uses that technology) or the sensor which produces pulses as the vehicle moves. They must be changing some component of the instrumentation, or more likely just changing a setting in the computer which runs the instruments. The Ranger is a pretty old design (even if it was built only 3 years ago), so it's anyone's guess what's under the dash.

The more common swap which I have heard of (with other models of other brands) is to change the entire instrument cluster to a Canadian version.

Brian, its funny you should mention the term "cluster", because that is exactly what the salesperson said was on back-order to bring my truck up to Canadian specs !
The deal went thru, and I picked up the truck on Friday, without the changeover being done, for lack of the cluster.
On the road home, the small km numerals were hard to read on the US speedometer; impossible, with my sunglasses on.
I'll update, when I get called to bring truck in for the required work.
Joe

[Joseph Olajos]

[quote]
Brian, its funny you should mention the term "cluster", because that is exactly what the salesperson said was on back-order to bring my truck up to Canadian specs !
The deal went thru, and I picked up the truck on Friday, without the changeover being done, for lack of the cluster.
On the road home, the small km numerals were hard to read on the US speedometer; impossible, with my sunglasses on.
I'll update, when I get called to bring truck in for the required work.
Joe

Brian B-P, and Carol H
Update:
Went in to the dealer today...yep, cluster meant just that: the whole instrument panel was replaced, naturally, free of charge.They needed BOTH ignition keys for programing something in the cluster...except nobody told me to bring in both ! Almost had to make the 2 1/2 hr drive home to get the second one, but I complained to the Sales Mgr,and he came up with a solution:They would cut a second key...then re-program both keys...then, once they replaced the cluster, they gave me both "re-born" keys, and told me to trash the one at home, since it would not work now, anyway.
All in all, a happy ending; no charge for anything. Dealer went that extra mile !!!
Joe