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Re: Importing car from Canada to USA

To: Douglas Braun & Nadia Papakonstantinou <dougnad@bellatlantic.net>
Subject: Re: Importing car from Canada to USA
From: Trevor Boicey <tboicey@brit.ca>
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000 00:55:05 -0400
Douglas Braun & Nadia Papakonstantinou wrote:
> Were Triumphs delivered to Canada built to full
> USA spec?

  Often, but not always.

  Canada wasn't a large enough market for British Leyland
to do specific development for, so certainly the Canadian
cars are VERY similar to US cars.

  However, there are sometimes differences in the bolt-on
configurations, especially the smog equipment. Some small
options are different or more often deleted on Canadian cars.

  To use an example that isn't based in realism, British
Leyland wouldn't design a new manifold for Canadian spec
cars, because they wouldn't sell enough.

  However, if US cars required a specific emission hose
on a part of that manifold, but the Canadian spec did
not, the Canadian car might have came with a plug in
the hole instead of a vacuum nipple.

  BL was smart enough, or perhaps cheap enough, to not
bolt on things that weren't required for Canada, if all
it meant was telling the guy on the assembly line and
saving a few quid.

  Back to you...

  For legality, it depends on the state, but possibly
they won't accept canadian spec cars as being emission
complete.

  It goes both ways, an example is a guy in Ottawa who
imported a US-spec 1995 Jag XJ-S into Canada. The car
had to be converted to Canadian MOT spec and be inspected
before he could license it.

  All he had to do was wire the driving lights to
be daytime running lights (on all the time). That was
the only difference.

-- 
Trevor Boicey, P. Eng.
Ottawa, Canada, tboicey@brit.ca
ICQ #17432933 http://www.brit.ca/~tboicey/
"Must warn Duckman... never run away from enraged stuffed bears..." -
Cornfed

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