legalize an american car

The OP is the one interested in importing a car. He is the one looking for a starting point. He is the one asking for someone to do it. I assume he was looking for more than any broker at the border can do it easy, simple.
Are you saying it has always been a simple easy process and all the people who went through varying circles of hell and lost thousands of pesos were just stupid? Or that they just made it all up?

They didn't go to the border and use a legitimate broker, but tried to do it through facilitators, most of whom were unscrupulous, or at the least, uninformed.
I think it was just looking for the easiest way out of the problem and not necessarily stupidity.

The same thing happened in Jalisco years ago, when people (foreigners) tried to renew their "tourist papers" every six months, locally, with facilitators/coyotes.

Lady Otter Latté wrote:The OP is the one interested in importing a car. He is the one looking for a starting point. He is the one asking for someone to do it. I assume he was looking for more than any broker at the border can do it easy, simple.
Are you saying it has always been a simple easy process and all the people who went through varying circles of hell and lost thousands of pesos were just stupid? Or that they just made it all up?

You have a hard time with comprehension ladyo.  The OP asked who can import a car.  I am the only one that answered the question, a Mexican citizen.  

Enough people got defrauded by Jan 2014. There were plenty of warnings posted online, Tiocorp, the first GDL airport scam, the Ajijic lawyer.   After that, anybody that tried to import their cars from the comfort of the Lazyboy chair was stupid.  They paid the price for their stupidity.

I should thank posters like you for scaring people.  I have been given cars (3) for free from people that were scared after reading the crap posted on this subject.  I sold one of those free cars to a Mexican in the USA. He imported the car into Mexico at the border and the car now lives 3 hours away in Michoacan.

So keep up your good work ladyo.

Playaboy wrote:
 The OP asked who can import a car.  I am the only one that answered the question, a Mexican citizen.  

Are you saying that only Mexican citizens can import cars?

We did this, three years ago, with our British Columbia plated Dodge Durango (bought specifically so we could import it to Mexico). I don't think the process has changed much since then/could be wrong.
We started with Spencer to get a permit to drive to the border (this involved a trip into Zapopan with our truck and trailer for a check of serial numbers). From here, we hired a broker (his name is Oscar, I have his contact info somewhere), drove to the border and Oscar walked the paperwork through for us. We got a sticker at the border good for 15 days, drove back to Lakeside. Online we got an "appointment" at the government lot for 7AM and two days later we went to Zapopan and spent most of the day going through the process. The thing with a Canadian vehicle is; for lot of provinces the registration does not contain the word "Title" anywhere. Before we moved down, we obtained a letter from ICBC stating the registration acted as proof of ownership. They checked that letter over closely and we put our new plates on in the parking lot. We have been through a couple of renewals of the plates and full coverage insurance with no issues.

Viajero, the Mexican government states that Mexican citizens can import cars.  Read intercasa's blog post.

Poco2012, was it a daunting process at the border to import your car?  Was it simple? How much time did it take at the border?

BTW, the import process for us has been the same for over a decade.  The process for the brokers has changed a little.

Playaboy wrote:Viajero, the Mexican government states that Mexican citizens can import cars.  Read intercasa's blog post.

Hmmm,intercasa imported his car without going to the border and he wasn't a Mexican citizen ..

Depends on how you define daunting.  
We met Oscar at klm. 22 and he drove with us, translated (babysat us), crossed with us and walked all of our paperwork around to the proper desks then waited with us for a physical inspection of our serial numbers.  At the VIN inspection station, there was a problem with the computers at the time (seems like we run into this a lot with government offices) so it took longer than it should have.  Start to finish, about 6 hours.  We continued on into Tuscon to sell our trailer and crossed back the two days later. It was pretty basic, thanks to Oscar.  We couldn't have handled the process alone, particularly with our limited Spanish at that time.  
There were hundreds of vehicles coming across in varying degrees of roadworthyness, lots of crashed vehicles coming in for cheap repairs.  The brokers were very busy.  
We don't think the process was daunting.  We stopped in Mazatlan on the way back for a couple of days on the beach.

PoCo2012 wrote:Depends on how you define daunting.  
We met Oscar at klm. 22 and he drove with us, translated (babysat us), crossed with us and walked all of our paperwork around to the proper desks then waited with us for a physical inspection of our serial numbers.  At the VIN inspection station, there was a problem with the computers at the time (seems like we run into this a lot with government offices) so it took longer than it should have.  Start to finish, about 6 hours.  We continued on into Tuscon to sell our trailer and crossed back the two days later. It was pretty basic, thanks to Oscar.  We couldn't have handled the process alone, particularly with our limited Spanish at that time.  
There were hundreds of vehicles coming across in varying degrees of roadworthyness, lots of crashed vehicles coming in for cheap repairs.  The brokers were very busy.  
We don't think the process was daunting.  We stopped in Mazatlan on the way back for a couple of days on the beach.

Does that sound too complicated and daunting to the rest of you keyboard warriors who never imported anything?  

I had the same experiences.  The brokers do all the work.  You just sit and wait for the process to complete.  

The only place to legally import a car is at the border, starting in the USA.  That means you have to drive the car north.  If you are not a Mexican citizen then you will need to use a presta nombre for the import.  The car can be signed back over to you at a later time.

If you can't or don't want to drive the car to the States, I will buy your car for CASH, cancel the TIP, and remove the car from Mexico.  You can't solve your car issues any easier than that.