Help with registering a car TN/TD visa holders

We have moved to Maryland temporarily. We are on TN/TD visas. My husband has a temporary position, for 2 years. We called the manufacturer of our vehicle many many times prior to our move and they never sent us the paperwork confirming our vehicle meets US standards for import. When we crossed the border we had no problem, they didn't ask us to import it. We've been here 2 months now and after hounding the manufacturer they finally have told us our car doesn't conform. Its a 2002 nissan, and I don't understand how a relatively new car doesn't conform, but thats not the issue anymore. We're trying to decide what to do. We can drive it back to Canada and sell it, and buy something here, but now isn't a good time. We've seen that we can possibly get it registered temporarily for one year without importing it but at the end of the that year it has to be brought back- we are looking into that now as that would work for us, but we don't know if we would need a safety.
Now, because we brought it here no problem can we just register it? It seemed odd they didn't make us import it. But also, because we are here only temporarily why can't we keep our ontario plates?
Any suggestions on how to handle this? We've read everything we can find and we're overwhelmed.
On a side note, we tried to get drivers licences here and apparently our visas wont verify and it seems they think we dont even have them (even though they are stamped in our passports) so we can't even get licences until they sort that out.

Thank you in advance for any help.

Regardless of what you may or may not be able to do at the Md DMV because your car is not formally imported federally (most states won't allow you to register it -- and most US insurance firms won't insure unless it is locally registered), you will have to take it back to Canada at some point in the next year (sooner if you can't plate it) and sell it.

You cannot sell it in US. And, because you cannot sell it, you will have big problems if you ever total the car in accident (presuming your US insurance will pay you based on the gray-area of your registration) you will have a problem because you won't be able to transfer ownership (worst case -- you'd need to haul it back to a Cdn junkyard yourself). Bringing in a car temporarily without import just doesn't work very well unless you are a student going back and forth after each school year. Almost all states view any non-student living in the state more than 30 days a resident required to register and plate their cars. Your Ontario plates are based on living in Ontario, so their validity is questionable regardless of the expiry date. You could not move to Alberta for a job and keep your Ontario plates, much less Maryland.

I had a similar experience back in 2000 with an "unimportable" Corrolla.

I simply found a buyer in canada, and on my next trip home sold it to him. It's tough, but to try anything else is risky.

Unfortunately Nissan Canada didn't do you any favours by not letting you know this upfront so that you could have unloaded the car before leaving (what did the letter state was the problem? usually it's airbags, bumpers or lights -- you might be able to modify to meet standard, but unlikely).

First off, THANK YOU, you have helped us understand this a bit better.

We have it insured already, that was not an issue, oddly enough. Nissan definitely did not do us a favour. We haven't received the details yet, my husband was so overwhelmed that it didn't comply, and was walking to the metro, that he didn't ask many questions. I guess the lady was very apologetic, but I would have been telling her how much of our time and money she wasted by not telling us that months ago when we first called. We've been discussing altering it to meet standard and it seems there would be a fee just to work with a RI, and then the work on the car which would probably be at least $500 because someone else has to do it - my husband usually does the work on it. And then with the strict safety rules here, we'd have to put money out for that, it just seems like its not worth it and it would make more sense to bring it back to Canada. We just wanted to see if there were any temporary solutions for us.
So now to make things even more complicated, our Ontario plates have just expired and we can't get MD plates. It sounds like we need to make a trip back to Ontario this summer and offload our much-loved Xterra.

Thank you, very very much for your help.

See, that is what I mean by questionable insurance coverage?

The insuance firm will take your money, but when it comes time to pay.....

Especially now that your plates are offcially expired -- you are driving without plates -- a slam dunk insurance denial based on illegal driving.