well they rust quick enough in the UK. It would take one sniff of that montreal winter air and disintegrate in about 3 minutes.

I might just store it in my parent's garage in London to use when I get back

Back on the original q. I live in downtown montreal and have been trying to
get a new motor myself of late. The insurance quotes for a VW golf, new, were around $3,800 per year. I have since decided to downgrade and
get a 98 honda civic instead, and go through a recommended insurance agency who cover a lot of people at my company and managed to find a 3 figure quote.

Basically its pretty easy to lease or buy a good new car or 2nd hand but the
insurance can be a killer for immigrants with no driving experience in Canada.

Here is the Transport Canada site for importing regulations

http://www.tc.gc.ca/roadsafety/importation/menu.htm

Looks pretty complicated to me.

All I know from personal experience about this is that my friend's son was living in Baltimore and bought a Mitsubishi there and drove it to Canada. When he wanted to licence it up here, he discovered that the seat belts were not allowed - I forget the story - it was something to do with having seat belts that were attached to the door or something - those things that close around you when you close the door.

He had to drive the car back to the States and sell it there because if the US plates had run out he could not have relicenced it here.

The VW golf would have been the problem. Insuring anything European here is very very bad from an insurance perspective.

Civic might also not be much better since I believe that it's the most [popular car5 for car thieves over here

Or new immigrants who have to buy two cars want to their startup costs down.

I bought the other half an immaculate 2002 Nissan Pathfinder last Friday. Mechanically perfect and not a mark on the body for just over half the price of a new one. This means the new house gets the granite counter tops and the hardwood flooring

My Saab 2.0 Turbo is $1500 per year, the same as our Ford Windstar

Yeah right...not sure which planet you are on...Where I live only the wealthy buy new.

There is no MOT, but there is the "safety" test that all used cars must pass if the new owner wishes to register it.

Non truck diesels are a rarity outside the VW TDis. There is the odd older merc about, but thats about it. I think Jeep are considering selling a diesel option on the Liberty, and its an option of on full size trucks for pulling power. There is really not much consumer demand for it in cars with gas prices lower than diesel a lot of the time.

And for whoever asked, no, In ontario it wont come with plates on it, they stay with the owner. A dealer might sort plates out for you though.

For cars Automatics are the norm, and most clutches will be pretty hard driven. Few domestics beyond the compact size even have a manual option now, Imports are better if you wany stickshift.

My impression is that N.American standard trannys are not the smoothest or slickest you will find. More normal in a truck I guess than a car.