Buying a bike in Argentina; questions to fill in the dods
 

Hi everyone!

Now I have been searching the HUBB alot on info about how to buy a bike in Argentina (or maybe Chili). I have found a lot of usefull stuff (thanks everyone!!), but there are still a couple of important questions of which I can't seem to find the answer:confused1:. So hopefully there's someone who can help me out.

Regarding buying a bike in Argentina I found out that:
- If you buy a Argentinian bike, you can't cross the border in the first year
- If you buy a bike from a foreigner you have to do a trick at a border at which the old owner leaves the country, in nowman's land the owners switch and then the new owner enterns the country with photocopied registration.
- This trick only works at border crossings without computers, cause else they can look up the licence plate and see that the owner has changed.
- You can legalize the sale itself by getting a Carta Poder, which legalized the sale, but doesn't do anygood for the registration papers that you'll still have to chance yourself.

My questions are: is this an accurrate account (especially that thing about the computers)? And more importantly, what does this scheme imply for getting a local insurance? It's probably no problem to get it, but if you get it an accident, will they dig through the records and find out the bike's not actually registrered in your name?

And when it comes to buying a bike in Chili:
- You can get a Chilean bike that you can actually take out of the country if you go through some bureaucratic steps. But with some countries, for instance Bolivia, this turns out to be difficult because of strict borders due to drugscontrol.
- The bike can leave the country for 6 or 12 months, but must be brought back eventually?

My questions for this are: can you also buy a foreign bike legally and maybe registrate it to a Chilean bike? (This because the Chilean bikes are so crazy expensive!) And if you get a Chilean bike, can you take it to whatever country (We want to visit Argentine, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador)? And how does it exactly work with the demand to bring it back? For instance, if a next owner with false registration papers comes back to Chile after the 6 or 12 months (which one is it anyway?) the borderpolice will find out and conviscate the bike??

To anyone who can help me, in advance: thank you so much!! Can't wait to finally have all this business taken care of and be able to start with the trip!:mchappy:

Cheers,
Suzpot

I cannot answer some of your questions but generally the consensus is that it is far easier to buy and register a bike in Chile and then legally leave Chile to other countries. There are some very extensive threads on the HUBB explaining in detail how to do this.

Registering in Argentina as you appear to be aware of is rather restrictive and its not a popular place for foreigners to buy a bike legally.

The illegal option you mentioned is popular and again lots of threads on it. I believe the popular option is to take the bike on the ferry to Uruguay and change title in no mans land.
I'm sure others will chip in on the computer issue when entering back into Chile or Argentina but I believe from reading lots of posts is that the most important thing is that the paperwork is done correctly. Photoshop is the word that gets thrown around a lot. If you are open to doing it on a small Honda or suzuki that will cruise at between 90-100 km hour depending on your weight and luggage you can pick up a new, legally registered bike in Chile, new for well under $2,000 US