I sold this bike in Cochabamba last week for USD$5,500.
SELLING IN BOLIVIA
Albert at the Turtle´s Head advised me against selling in Ecuador, and i read another thread about importing/registering foreign bikes in Colombia not being possible.
I think Bolivia is a good place to sell a bike, at similar values to the US. This is supported by the fact that many cars and bikes are sourced in the US and then shipped to Bolivia with all imporation taxes/fees paid. There are very few KTMs in Bolivia, and probably all KTMS except my old bike are in Santa Cruz, since Ferdy Kronenburg (Cell 70816001) in Santa Cruz imports a few bikes (RFS EXCs) and parts. But there are quite a lot of BMWs, as the BMW shop in Cochabamba imports crash damaged bikes from the US and repairs them for sale (don´t have his number, and he will deny they´re all crash damaged btw). And also in Cochabamba Bolivian born and US raised Eddy Avil imports new BMW bikes and various other second hand bikes/cars from the US (Cell 72264266, 1182 Av, Pando). Eddy helped find me plenty of prospective buyers. Good guy. Personally i think your best option is to get your bike/s to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. And Paraguay is your second best option, with only a few hundred $ required to make it legal. I was ready to sell my bike by Pucallpa, but the taxable amount for my 2007 was the same as for a newly imported 640, and most possible buyers were negative so i travelled back to Bolivia purely to sell it.
In La Paz (population 1.6m) I advertised in El Diaro and La Razon, both of which have offices near each other in the downtown, and i have a Bolivian SIM card for my cellular which costs USD$5. I had 10 people come to look but wealthy people there seem to have plenty of spare time and i got the feeling they were wasting my time, as there are many more bikes and more $ in Cochabamba (population 500k) and Santa Cruz (population 2m). I only stopped in La Paz at that time as there were road blocks (stopping bikes too) between Cochabamba and Santa Cruz at the time.
In Cochabamba the best newspaper to advertise in is Los Tiempos, and in Santa Cruz is El Deber, as advised by my Bolivian friends. Sunday is the best day too.
But funny enough i ended up selling it to a guy i met in a pub! I was in a live music venue i noticed a stripped down and ratty Cagiva Elephante leaning against the wall outside, with no licence plate or tail light. I asked who´s bike it was and of course it was the drunkest guy there. I rode my bike there too, and he was very keen on my bike and funny in the morning he rang me at 11am, now sober but still serious.
I learned there are 2 methods of calculation taxes. For the people in Cochabamba and Santa Cruz who import bikes/cars from the USA, they pay 52% import tax upon the value of their invoice, plus a few hundred $ more for administration and licence plates. If your bike entered the country by riding in, then the Aduana are unlikely to accept the value stated on an invoice between you and the purchaser, and will rather will treat this as a bike with ´no papers´and Import Tax of 38% needs to be paid upon what they determine as market value, which they research via the internet. For my 2007 640 Adventure they would usually find values of USD$8-10,000 and so the total worked out at $4-500, was the consesus of most prospective buyers after they asked customs themselves. Some prospective buyers thought it best to ride it out of the country to say Chile, where most vehicles enter, and then return it into Bolivia in a truck with a shipping document.
A 3rd option some people in Bolivia have is where they (or friends) operate a non-profit organisation, for charity purposes, and so they are allowed to import/register vehicles without paying taxes. This is more common than you think!
EXPIRED PERMIT:
Also, i wouldn´t rush to exit Peru because your permit has expired. I have exited countries in Sth Am 4 times without surrendering permit or with expired permit.
I exited Brazil twice without handing in my Aduna permit – first time i couldn´t be bothered as it was near the town of Corumba and the Aduna is 5km from border. The second time was when i crossed the jungle between Cruzeiro Do Sol and Pucallpa, for which there is no actual route and took me 14 days to connect rivers with tracks made by loggers, indigenious or drug traffickers. That was a fair adventure so i´ll put a story and short film on my site
LongDetour later. Crossing through the jungle also meant that i had no Temporary Import Permit for Peru, so when i left Peru weeks later at Desaguadero (south of Titcaca) i deliberately arrived close to 5pm, so that they couldn`t confirm with Pucallpa customs since this is more of an office and closes at 5pm. I told them i lost the Temporary Import Permit so they made me go to the Police and file a report stating as such, and so they had to accept this and let me go. Took a few hours but no costs to leave.
And in Paraguay i didn`t stop at Immigration or Aduna, near the Iguazu falls, as you don`t have to and i wanted to go ask the Brazilian immigration if i could pass through their country (only way to ARG via bridges) to get to the Argentinan town to apply for my Brazilian visa there (required for Australians). Plus in Bolivia my permit was expired by 2 weeks but the prior police checkpoint gave up on me after 10mins once he could see i wasn`t keen on paying, and my bro just dropped both our forms at the Aduna upon exit and left fast.
Usually the Aduana and Immigration are in seperate buildings, but i even if they did stop you, you can always get of a country with an expired bike permit, with a penalty or not.
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