May as well tack this on this thread here for others.
This is the 2nd superbike I've imported from the US. The first one was road-going, this one was a parts bike (track bike) with a clean US title. Long story short, found one out in California and had it shipped to CBI USA in Niagra Falls, NY via motorshippers.com.The team at CBI was great (just give them a heads up its coming, since its a big item), but motorshippers.com was basically a disaster.
They rescheduled 3 times for pickup, only to show up on a date they weren't supposed to. They had another bike rubbing against mine (the R1 I shipped was nearly brand new ffs). They did admit it was their fault, and I'm still waiting for a resolution which they seem to have gone really quiet on. One of the stands is missing and no one seems to have a clue what happened. Quick to take payment, but it's downhill after that. The frustrating part is no communication at all, I wouldn't use them again.
Back to the story. The RIV is fairly responsive on email, but they only give verbatum textbook answers. I wanted to know if the RIV actually requires vehicle export for a parts bike. It says you must (for all vehicles), but it doesn't say anywhere this is a legal requirement of Canada. Dig deep enough and you only see things about penalty under US law for not exporting. I believe it is only a US requirement, but I couldn't get a straight answer from the RIV. I know of a couple people that just drove across parts vehicles without any US export, but I'm not sure how strict the Canada border guys are on this. I did get asked on the way over if I had exported it by the US guys. I did export just to be safe, and the Lewiston bridge is the only Niagra bridge with a vehicle export office. It is only open M-F 8-4. The online export tool the RIV points you to is straight forward. You get an ITN (within an hour), forward that to a border email address, they confirm (again, within an hour), wait 72 hours, you are good to go.
When you get to the Lewiston border from the US side, there is only one turn off point that says "exports" on the left and an office in the middle of the Canada and US traffic lanes. Note that the office that says "Export" in front of it, is not the vehicle export office. This is way off to your immediate left, past the traffic lanes coming into the US (you need to drive across them which is a bit weird), in a separate building that looks like a maintenance building. It does have big red letters saying "Vehicle Export Office" so just have a good look around. They take the title double check the VIN and stamp the title saying "US Export". On the Canadian side, they will ask you to go to secondary inspection. I specifically asked for "Form 3" to import the vehicle. The guy didn't have a clue what I was talking about. He gave me a Form 1. I said, no, it must be a Form 3. Why? If you declare form 1, but can't get a vehicle to pass the federal (RIV) inspection, it must be returned to the US or destroyed. You cannot change your declaration to a parts vehicle, according to the RIV.
After a rather lengthy explanation on the differences to him, the border guy just said "I don't know, you're going to have to wait for someone else". That is not an acceptable answer. Finally, another person comes by and says "they are in the drawer". lol
Fill it out, pay 13% tax on claimed value (no one verified anything, other than the cashier made a copy of the title and bill of sale), and you are on your way.
I really wanted to get an answer on the US export stamp thing on the title, but given how this was going, I didn't want to start asking questions. It would have been nice to know for sure, but clearly this was the wrong person to ask anyways.
To be fair, the first time I did this (Form 1), they tore the truck apart and we were grilled hard. This time not at all, so you're mileage may vary.
