Delica Canada | Mitsubishi Van Club

Just for us who are not in BC. I'm sure the same my apply or be even worse for private insurance companies that insure us in Alberta. We all know how sleazy these companies tend to be and if they get any chance at all, they will use it to avoid paying. So I'm sure if they realized a vehicle was lacking DOT tires, etc., they would gleefully rub their hands together and deny a claim if they could get away with it. Now I'm not sure if they could or not, but I certainly didn't want to risk it, so I ditched the perfectly good Geolanders that came on my Delica beacuse I thought I'd get nailed when I visited the Coast.

I see a lot of JDM vehicles now almost every second day and it seems like if I take a look at the tires, it is about 50/50 if they are sporting DOT approved tires or not. I used to think if you can get a vehicle through inspection you're good to go (insurance wise), but now I'm not so sure about that. THink I'll ask my agent for some clarification now that I'm curious.

Its true, a vehicle can have a BC VIN (or use the japanese VIN as they started doing) legally without having all of the actual requirements because of inspectors letting things slide, or people with a conflict of interests who sell or import and inspect vehicles. I dealt with icbc, without e code headlights and they didnt say a word... I used e code bulbs in the old light housings, (its an 89, square lights, nothing special) but later changed mine out to be fully compliant. I also added the reflectors on the front and rear just before i went in to icbc because I thought that was all i had that wasn't compliant. I also do not have the DRLs, however since my vehicle is pre mid 1990 (I think) I do not believe it is required.

No trouble from icbc though even with an at fault accident and non compliant headlights. Maybe they don't care as much as everyone thinks, or maybe i'm very lucky, as I haven't had any of that random compliance check crap either.

OK, if someone would chime in here, what about the incandescent bulbs like the 1156 for the signals, etc. When I got a compliance set from Rocky Mountain Imports there were a bunch of 1156 bulbs in there. But I used LED's in the end. I recall other posts alluding to these bulbs needing to be replaced to be legal. However, if that's the case there must be thousands of domestic vehicles out there that have changed over to LED's that would also be illegal no?