Imported bike, registration, insurance, etc...
Imported bike, registration, insurance, etc...
Author
Discussion

Rubins4

Original Poster:

784 posts

155 months

Monday 20th July 2020
quotequote all
Evening all.

I'm looking at buying a Swiss market bike which is already in the UK, on UK plates and has previously been MOT'd here in the UK. I assume the vendor has a UK V5 document, but tbc. The bike is a 1989 Africa Twin.

Reading round the subject, importing/registering/IVA's/Certificate's of Conformity is all a bit if a nightmare. Can anyone confirm, based on the above, that the bike is kosher and no one will be chasing me for backed dated import tax at £5 per day (!!) for non-registration?

Also, does anyone have any experience of insuring parallel imports (i.e imports from within the EU)?

Ta.

Rubin215

4,201 posts

186 months

Monday 20th July 2020
quotequote all
Bear in mind that if it is a Swiss market bike it might have some very different parts to a standard UK bike; pretty sure their exhaust and emissions regs are much more strict than ours.

Many years ago, a friend's Swiss boyfriends bike (Swiss reg that he had ridden over) was knocked over by someone reversing; it ended up being written off due to the cost of replacing one silencer as he would not accept a UK spec replacement.

Rubins4

Original Poster:

784 posts

155 months

Monday 20th July 2020
quotequote all
Thanks for this. The ad refers to it being unrestricted and full power, so I assume it's been un-Swissed.

roboxm3

2,485 posts

225 months

Monday 20th July 2020
quotequote all
As a used bike, particularly one of that age and given that it's already over here, registered etc. I don't think you've anything to worry about.

I bought a bike that was living in Spain, registered there etc. and had to re-register it in the UK and it took nothing more than a trip to the Post Office to complete the necessary forms. It was a slightly different situation as my bike had been a UK bike originally (well actually a Belgian market bike that a UK dealer had obtained).

V8RX7

28,982 posts

293 months

Monday 20th July 2020
quotequote all
Rubins4 said:
Evening all.

I'm looking at buying a Swiss market bike which is already in the UK, on UK plates and has previously been MOT'd here in the UK. I assume the vendor has a UK V5 document, but tbc. The bike is a 1989 Africa Twin.

Reading round the subject, importing/registering/IVA's/Certificate's of Conformity is all a bit if a nightmare. Can anyone confirm, based on the above, that the bike is kosher and no one will be chasing me for backed dated import tax at £5 per day (!!) for non-registration?

Also, does anyone have any experience of insuring parallel imports (i.e imports from within the EU)?

Ta.
If it's on UK plates - that's it, nothing to do

Insurance is rarely an issue these days

Rubins4

Original Poster:

784 posts

155 months

Monday 20th July 2020
quotequote all
Thanks all. That all confirms my suspicions.

Unfortunately, I'm way out on budget on this one so I'll have to give this one a miss. I'd love an RD-03 AT but it looks like they might be out of budget unless I go to the continent to get one. :S