Alright here it goes my first post!
I’m wanting to register an unlicensed big heavy in Taiwan. You can buy these bikes almost anywhere at a great price but most descriptions will tell you the “Duty” has not been paid and/or it’s Unlicensed. I’m wondering what would the cost be to license one of these beasts if you can at all. I’m looking to buy something 500cc and up for under 200,000NT
Thanks, any help would be much appreciated.
Can’t. That’s why they sell them so cheap. They catch you, they’ll just take the bike off you. Some people take the risk.
I see, but I have established bikes roughly around the same price range that are registered fully. Some of these bikes don’t interest me. I’ve heard stories that you can pay a fee to get them licensed but it would cost upwards of 70,000NT. I’m curious to where you found this information as it’s very important for me to understand what options I might have.
PS Omeroj got his SV 1000 (legal) for 250K and I see a lot of them for 260K What is 50-60K more for peace of mind?
In the old days you could buy a fake license of a previous release but now it is banned. So you could even buy a Busa now for 100K, but without license plate/duty…they imported that bike as “metal junk” from Japan…I would suggest to buy a legally imported one…met 2 friends who lost their bikes because they went for the “cheap” option to the police who impounded their bikes.
You should have a read of this site. I thought it was interesting since you said they would take the bike off you. One of the quotes from the story was:
"Like other big bike enthusiasts at the time, Lin had to ride an unlicensed bike and face the risk of being fined. So did Huang De-shun, the head of the Taipei-based Taiwan Harley Club, which was founded in 2001. Huang says that in his experience, police tended to turn a blind eye to violators. “I was stopped by the police several times but I was never fined,” says the 54-year-old Harley lover, who likes the venerable American brand mainly for its distinctive exhaust roar. “Generally, it was okay as long as you didn’t break the traffic rules.”
Not anymore. I can not count the times we have been stopped for nothing on county roads just to check licenses and paper work. Now they (cops) even stop at 7/11 when you are not on your bike and they go bike by bike asking who they belong to.
Good old time is over.
This is true, the law in Taiwan has changed and cops wanna flex a lot more these days. I own a modified Honda Civic, thats lowered, with a carbon hood etc and I have been stopped at check points. They say its not street legal or even roadworthy! but I have it tested every 6 months, pay all my registration and taxes. These guys must be smoking trees, they even said my international license is not recognized in Taiwan even thou it was checked and stamped by the Taiwanese government. I feel like I’ve enrolled in some foreign clown college. In the end I guess it depends which part of Taiwan you are living in and the type of cops you are dealing with.
I am just saying what I go see every weekend.
They don’t like bikes because either they can’t afford one or their wifes wont let them have one. So they are hard on us.
Sorry, posted in wrong slot.
[quote=“iix23”]Not anymore. I can not count the times we have been stopped for nothing on county roads just to check licenses and paper work. Now they (cops) even stop at 7/11 when you are not on your bike and they go bike by bike asking who they belong to.
Good old time is over.[/quote]
You have to laugh about this place. Why aren’t they checking on all those unregistered, uninsured scooters you see everywhere. You just need to be stopped at a red light and see all the out of date stickers on so may scooters, and then talking about redlights, why don’t these coppers focus on something like stopping idiot redlight runners and help reduce the National Road Toll, wow that may even take some of the burden of the Natonal Health Insurance by reducing the amount spent on traffic accident injuries, and save so much grief to so many families, but maybe that is too obvious, simple and sensible, It must be easier to target a minority than a majority… You just have to laugh sometimes…
Thanks Mordeth for spotting this:
au.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_VSnYM2hCw
As far as I know, it isn’t law that up to date stickers be on display. It may be that the person does have up to date insurance and tax, but they failed to display it. This is because as most people know, those stickers can wash off after a few days or a couple of jet washes, and then can’t easily be replaced. It is for this reason that instead everyone needs to hold proof in paper form. I believe the police can also easily retrieve this information from their database. This might account for police sometimes patrolling parked scooter zones.
Sure maybe so, but then you just look at the condition some of the scooters with the out of date stickers are in and you would question there roadworthiness…Perhaps they need to think of a new system if there is such a problem with the stickers. You must display the up-to-date sticker in my country, oh silly me, that isn’t Taiwan… But these road blocks, there was one out near Chungli two weeks ago on Sunday, so they will let hundreds of scooters that may well be illegal go past, but they will stop a few big bikes…
Everyone is used to the antics of the scooter pilots and they don’t really bother people too much. Everyone in Taiwan owns a scooter and rides it like an asshat, so it doesn’t bother them much. OTOH the big bike clubs (“teams”) seem to be on a mission to get every other class of road-user pissed off with them. Once the average Mr. Chen detests a particular minority group it’s easy for the cops then to focus on them for a wallet-lightening session. The fact that a large motorcycle is an expensive luxury only goes further to bring that on. The riders obviously have more money than sense, right? They deserve what they get, right?
Not that this is not a Taiwan-only phenomenon of course. For example many parts of the US currently have problems with stunters and squids spoiling it for everyone else.
To be fair, it’s not street legal. Modifications of any kind are generally illegal in Taiwan. You might not like it but that’s the law. And to be extra fair, they haven’t impounded the car, have they?
And cops are doing more checks on license/registration lately… good. I get pissed off when I went to the trouble of getting a local big bike license and pay all my tax and insurance to have some unlicensed, unregistered asshats moan about how the police are getting so mafan. (Not taking jibes at you or anyone in this thread BTW, just making a general comment).
I DO constantly, but again there is nothing illegal about having a broken bike. It is not a legal requirement to submit a bike for safety testing at all. Only the emissions are tested periodically and an additional test of original equipment spec is carried out when a vehicle is either stolen recovered or is transfered to a new owner. Bald tyres, rusty chassis, broken panels, faulty switches, faulty brakes, leaking oil, worn out gearbox, you name it is not illegal in Taiwan.
In regards to motor vehicle standards, Taiwan is positively third world.
As for the main topic of this thread, there are 2 kinds of illegal bikes, the ones legally imported but not registered or tested and the ones that were illegally imported, for the second ones it is impossible to make it legal, for the first ones there is one thing now, is if FI or carburetor, if its fuel injection it can become licensed, if its carburetor it cannot. the cost of the registration and the test is around 70K or 80K…
my advice is : get a legal one… they are cheaper every day since the 2nd hand market is growing and newer and faster bikes are being imported !!!
as for the law and police “bothering” us, well i have been pulled over by police but so far when they see my face they just let me go, one time they did check for the bike papers, some other times they just check by radio…
Indeed, two pages and only one answer to the question, not an entirely correct answer however.
Ilegally imported bikes have been imported as spare parts and scrap metal not as a complete motorcycle and therefore cannot be submitted for testing. There are no doubt tricks that can be used to make this bike legal if you know the right shady people.
Legally imported bikes are advertised as such and can be submitted for testing. Imported bikes come in different flavours too. The import duty is 40 or 50% of declared value but much less if it is imported as personal property, I have heard of a guy going to Italy (where he is a resident) and buying his bike then registering it there and then importing it, I do not know what duty he paid, however, if you buy this bike from him then you will need to pay the remaining import duty.
The test costs 80K and takes a minimum of 6months. Passing the inspection can be a nightmare and many bikes do not pass the emissions requirements alone which are pretty severe in Taiwan. I have heard of a guy spending tons of cash on modifying his bike to pass the inspection. Again if you can make the right contacts they can assist you in passing as they know the tricks to doing it.
Omero seems to have forgotten that he was standing next to me at WRS when we were told very specifically that the Fuel injection requirement will only be applied at the end of the year, so there is still a window of opportunity to test your bike.
My advice is do what makes you happy dude, but if you want to go this route then find people that can help you, make friends with a bike importer.
My personal feeling is that the cost/benefit ratio of a new superbike is bollocks, the second hand prices are so low and the performance since '94 was so high that I dont need a brand new one, in 2000 I bought a '94 Gsxr1100 with a full Yoshi system, dynojetted with the intake de-restricted and race air filter for 1200GBP and was kicking the cr4p out of brand new Gsxr1000’s and Aprilia Rsv’s that cost like 8 to 12 times the price.
In the meantime those expensive new bikes have dropped their value severely while my old bike still holds its value and in fact when i sold my bike I made a profit.
Big bikes are still too expensive. I can’t fathom 280k for a seven year old gsxr or 330k for a three year old zx10. Even the old superbikes are so expensive.
I want to get an NSR250. Can you get these on the road legally in Taiwan? I doubt a 250 2-stroke would pass any emission test and I haven’t seen any on Yahoo auctions in the last half a year.
As I see it the options are to find one registered (are there any?) or buy an unregistered one.
I saw a couple of nice MC28s unregistered, my wife translated and she said you could get one, then also buy a rooted nsr150 and transfer that registration to your name. Switch the plate from the 150 to the 250 and hey presto you have a 250 with a registration plate registered to you. Not legal but will anyone ever check? If they pull you and run your registration it comes up with you so you’d get away with it right?
Has anyone done this or got an NSR250 legally on the road here?
I was in the garage yesterday and they said they’ll have the new Ninja 250 by the end of the year brand new registered for 200k. It may be a bit gash but 20k brand new, legal is tempting.
[quote=“jaame”]Big bikes are still too expensive. I can’t fathom 280k for a seven year old gsxr or 330k for a three year old zx10. Even the old superbikes are so expensive.
I want to get an NSR250. Can you get these on the road legally in Taiwan? I doubt a 250 2-stroke would pass any emission test and I haven’t seen any on Yahoo auctions in the last half a year.
As I see it the options are to find one registered (are there any?) or buy an unregistered one.
I saw a couple of nice MC28s unregistered, my wife translated and she said you could get one, then also buy a rooted nsr150 and transfer that registration to your name. Switch the plate from the 150 to the 250 and hey presto you have a 250 with a registration plate registered to you. Not legal but will anyone ever check? If they pull you and run your registration it comes up with you so you’d get away with it right?
Has anyone done this or got an NSR250 legally on the road here?
I was in the garage yesterday and they said they’ll have the new Ninja 250 by the end of the year brand new registered for 200k. It may be a bit gash but 20k brand new, legal is tempting.[/quote]
Get a 600cc anything-good range and you can ride on the highways. 250’s are fun-I have a no plater 2 stroke -but I wouldn’t take it up in the mountains at night-too many roadblocks. They are checking plates to frame numbers now .
I haven’t been stopped in the daytime yet or in the city.
The police smell money and they know big bike riders have money-so they bleed us . It’s a very traditional Chinese thing to do.
I was stopped one night by 3 roadblocks while heading down to Yi Lan. They were surprised I had a license etc. They let all of the car drivers through.
I thanked them for wasting my time and keeping the roads so safe.