Insurance varies hugely depending on where you live so is not comparable - at all.
I live in Ontario. Currently insuring two cars (so discount), plus house (another discount), and it still comes out to $1800 for the two cars.
If we moved to Quebec, it'd go down to 1/4 that. But tax would be 3-5% higher, and the brackets lower.
However, it is true that petrol is *not* expensive. $60 will get me 500km. In a very large lump of metal. That is batshit crazy.
Our heating bill in Canada (-30 degrees C folks, sometimes) - for the worst month was $180 I think. It averages out to about $60 per month year round.
Just remember, it used to be that 1/3 or more of peoples' pay would go to buying food. We have it easy, we really do (except society finds things for us to spend our money on when we really shouldn't).
And.. the difference between brand new and known-shitty or really old is quite high. Like... instead of brand new, how about 1/3 the price, but in cash. And don't buy Altimas. Or Skylarks. Check out carcomplaints and find a year and model that does NOT have a horrid spike, or has a spike for the auto when you're buying manual, or the 2.5 when you're buying the 2.0, etc, etc.
Cars aren't magic. Things wear. Some are badly designed. And sometimes you get unlucky. But if you're having something fixed every 3 months... and it costs $200 each time... well, that's $800 a year. New car is $12k, or $15k, or $20k. If you paid 1/3 the new price - say $5k for something decent - and are spending $800 a year on repairs... well, that's still 12 years of repairs you haven't spent *yet*.
Plus, new cars break too! My SIL has had two new suspensions on her Mazda 5, apparently. It's 4 years old with 120k km on.
/shrug