Selling Foreign Bikes in Canada

[Adelaide to Anchorage]

I am about to set off on an andventure of a life time in about 7 weeks we will riding our Kawaski KLR 650 from South America to Anchorage Alaska. Once we reach Alaska we will ride back to Vancover Canada to stay with some friends.

What we would like to do is sell our bikes in Vancover instead of shipping them back to Australia. The only problem is we will be travelling on Carnet and a condition is we have to ship them back, but i have heard that if you pay the local taxes for selling the bikes then you are able to sell them. Can anyone confirm this? and what are the processes you need to go through in order to do so?

cheers

Dave

[MountainMan]

Hi Dave,

Sounds like a great trip.

In regards to selling foreign registered bikes in Canada, it's pretty much no go. They are picky about importing bikes from countries other than the US, and yes this seems to be ridiculous as they sell that model of bike here in North America (I assume that you have the A model, not the C) but customs rules are arcane at the best of times.

A different issue, but you mentioned a carnet but just to confirm you do not need a carnet to ride from SA to NA. They are helpful for border crossings, but not absolutely necessary for that part of the world.

And if you can get away with no carnet, then you increase the likelihood of selling your bike to another traveller to reverse the trip. This is limited by the ability of you transferring ownership of an Aus vehicle lcoated outside of Aus, I seem to remember Australian states can be downright picky about certain rules.

All the best and have a great ride. Drop a line when you get up to Canada and we'll give you a place to crash for a while to get the road dirt off.

[wheatwhacker]

Selling a KLR will be easy. They are easily worth $1000 in parts and there are plenty of titled frames around to transfer all the stuff if somebody wanted an oz spec bike. I have a CA titled frame here, 1987, if anybody wants it for $50 and shipping.

[Adelaide to Anchorage]

Thanks William Joseph

that would be awesome even just check if he want to catch up for a when we ride through his neck of the woods

[mark manley]

I have just picked up this thread looking for info about Canada and see you mention a carnet, it might be too late now but to the best of my knowledge you do not need one for any country in north or south America, certainly not the US or Canada. Whatever other problems you might have selling in Canada the carnet should not be one of them.

[John Ferris]

All I know is what I read online and you do not need a carnet in North America, you sell the bike or part it out. It is the buyer that would not be able to regester or title the bike after he bought it.

BUT

I am not sure but I think that will cost you the amount of the carnet or bond if you don't bring the bike back.

That is the point of a carnet.

[pecha72]

^ Yep, you might have trouble getting your carnet bond back, if your bike does not return to your home country. Even if it does not remain in a carnet country.

Happened to me (sort of) 3,5 years ago, when my bike was coming back from Oz as seafreight. During those 2 months, the AA in Finland simply refused to end the carnet, and return my money, even though it was clearly stamped out of Australia, and after that had not been stamped into any carnet country (and in the counterfoil, there were both in- and out-stamps from all carnet countries that the bike had visited, too, so there should not have been any chance of a claim from any of the carnet countries either).

What they wanted was the customs in Finland to give a stamp to the last page, where there´s a special ´proof of location´. After I got that, the bond was returned within 1-2 weeks. But I still do not quite follow, how it is any of their business, where exactly the vehicle is, if you can prove, that it is not in a carnet-country?!

I don´t know, if it´ll be like this everywhere (or if it´d satisfy them to have that proof of location stamped by the customs of some other non-carnet country?)... but beware of this possibility, if your bike has a carnet, and you plan to return without the bike.