Shipping from Portland, Oregon to Buenos Aires??
 

Need to ship my Triumph Tiger 800xc from Portland to B.A. in January to start a 5 or 6 month tour around South America. I've ditched my plan to freight into Rio de Janeiro based on all the negative feedback about the nightmare that entails.

Any suggestions on freighting companies in the Northwest region to organized this? Or does it need to even be a regional company - aka, should I just deal with a reputable national company?

Or can I just call up some airlines cargo departments and organize it myself?

Air vs. Ocean? For some reason, I feel partial to Air, just to make sure it gets there when I want it to be there?

Anyone else going that direction from the Northwest in January to share costs?

Fritz
Portland

I'm doing that now
 

Hey, Fritz.

I'm north of the SF Bay and I'm headed for Buenos Aires next month. I was planning on shipping my KLR650 by ocean to Chile and retrieving it there, but I'm having second thoughts. I'm doing some last minute scrambling to attempt air freight to Buenos Aires from the SF Bay Area.

I'll let you know what I come up with if you send me a reminder in a week or two. Also, we could connect in BA if you need a place to ground out after your flight, prep the bike after shipment, etc.

Stay in touch,
Brett

DakarMotos Buenos Aires
 

hey there,

check with Javier at Dakar Motos in Buenos Aires... i finally found out about D.M. from a couple other sources, and they can help you out for sure. here's an email exchange that is in process:
--------

From: Fritz Jünker
Subject: Shipping from US to Argentina

hola!

i'm planning a trip to ride south america starting in january 2013. i live in portland, oregon usa, and need to freight my bike + gear into B.A. where i plan to start my trip. i have a friend who recommended you to me, as he met you on a similar trip.

i need some advice on how to organize getting my bike to your location. i am willing to crate my bike, and drive it to Los Angeles, where i am told all usa motorcycle exports to international locations need to originate.

can you help me with this? thank you for your time and any advice.

fritz

ps. or, would you recommend simply renting a bike in BA, or does that create complications at the border crossings if i plan to go to brasil, uruguay, chile, peru, bolivia, ecuador....
-----------

Hi Fritz

We only manage expo air freight from Buenos Aires to anywhere but not to Argentina, only can help with tips and our impo customs assistance services…

You can ship the bike by Sea or Air but have to advice you few things:
You will have to be in Buenos Aires for the clearances in any cases before boat or plane arrive. Nobody can do anything before rider arrives. Temporary importation in Argentina is a personal formality and you must be present during the whole procedure...

Then, what have to worry is what the logistics cost here, if you send the bikes by Sea, here will be involve, a Maritime Line, and provably a Freight Forwarder who will manage the papers and the procedures for the deconsolidation, the transport of the container from the port to the fiscal warehouse, and the warehouse itself where will be unloaded.
If you send the bikes by sea the procedures could take 1 or 2 weeks and the local charges could be around U$D 700 or U$D 1000. Our fee for the assistance at the port is U$S 350.

If you send the bikes by air the procedures to clear it will take 1 or 2 days and the local charges will be around U$D 300. Our fee for clear custom assistance at the airport is U$D 250.

So our main recommendation will be send the bike by plane, by boat and coming from the North Pacific you could find a lot of delays regarding few changes of boats.. Nothing by sea comes directly from west coast US to Buenos Aires and provably will be connecting in Honk Kong or around... so you should expect an around 45/60 days transit.

For send it by Air just gives a call to a Cargo department of the international Airlines like “United” or “Continental” that operate near your home and ask if they provide their services directly themself or through any Forwarder... provably from LA will be a little cheaper.

By Airfreight the bike can come in a crate or just strapped and wrapped in plastic on a pallet, Really important is that the Bike comes only consign in the owner’s name. No others people names or others companies names. Please the AWBs must be made in the right way to avoid troubles and others future “extra” payments that you could find at this end... If you want, you could send a copy to check...

Regarding renting, no one in Argentina rent small bikes, like 250 or 400cc. Distances in Argentina are very long maybe too long for small bikes that will need to make long trips client after client.... Mainly they do BMW 650/800 & 1200 or Hondas (Transalps 700). Around U$D130 a day is a normal starting price for a TA considering Spring/Summer is a high season you have to see if they don’t have everything booked yet..... A guy I can recommend you is Mariano from Motocare Rentals (tell him I recommend you), other options could be Rentamoto.

Cross from Argentina to others countries only will make difference about the price (need more paperwork and a permit for each country) and that anyway you will have to come back to give the bike back....

My personal main recommendation if you have some months for travelling around will be to bring your own bike from your country; rent a bike for so long will be very expensive...
Hope all this information helps you and if you have other questions don’t hesitate to ask....
Regards

Javier...
[url=http://www.DakarMotos.com]DAKAR MOTOS-HOME OF

one more from SF!
 

Brett,
I live in SF and am also in the same boat (sic!) as you. Thinking of flying the bike out of SF or LA in mid-september to either BsAs or Santiago.
I've done some amount of research on the shipping topic and have a quote of approx $2800 to ship via air through Schumacher.

Lets connect locally? Text me at 404 293 0606 or write back here for others to benefit.

Fritz,
I am in the planning stages of shipping my bike to BsAs or Chile. I was considering shipping by sea, but after reading that excellent info from Javier about sea shipping costs and delays, i think i would rather ship by air directly.

I contacted Schumacher a couple of weeks ago and spoke to a fairly friendly guy called Steve Haratani and here is the quote they gave me for my DR650.

Rate to Bogota

A/F $1883.00
Fuel $296.40
A/L UN $100.00
DG Dec $75.00
Apt $75.00
Crating $150.00

Total $2579.40 Schumacher warehouse to Bogota Airport.

A/F $2066.00
Fuel $296.40
A/L UN $100.00
DG Dec $75.00
Apt $75.00
Crating $150.00

Total $2762.40 From Schumacher Warehouse to BUE Airport in Argentina. Santiago is the same price as BsAs.



Hope that helps with your planning. Keep in touch!

super helpful info. and javier is your man on the ground in BA to get the bike through customs in argentina.

Well i started calling the airlines for cargo direct. Delta very politely told me that they dont ship motorcycles anymore.
I'll try the other 2 major airlines and then just go with Schumacher i guess. Would be nice to have an alternative. Who did you guys call up?

i started making calls, got sent down 10 dead ends, and then got distracted by other stuff. i still need to go through the resource page here on the HUBB and start calling some of those contacts. all in due time! i'll keep posting on here when i have new info.

as far as a way out of south america back to the US, i'm going to have mike at motolumbia in cali, columbia help with that. he says shipping out of bogota is the way to go for that.

Motolombia

Thanks, yes, lets keep ourselves updated on here.
I too plan to use Mike motolombia for for my way back, except that i hope to sell the bike through his site and just fly back on my own. the DR will be better used there than back here.

I called Schumacher again and had a good conversation with the agent there. He informed me that they actually use Aero Mexico for their air freight to SA and that my bike would be flying from LAX to Mexico City and thence to BsAs. He said the US customs takes about 72 hrs typically and the whole journey from crating to destination is about a week. All of it is trackable via the airway bill of lading.

I feel pretty good about Schumacher at this point to go with them. What shippers have you talked to?

shridhar

Yeah, it seems like LAX or Miami are the two points of departure out of the US for bikes. Is Schumacher doing your transport from Chicago to LAX, or are you doing that?

I haven't spoken with anyone worth remembering or writing yet, and I'm going to contact Schumacher soon to get a quote.

PM or post the contact info for your guy at Schumacher.

Can i go yet!???

Sorry i saw your reply just now.

www.schumachercargo.com/ and ask for Steve Haratani. He is a pretty friendly guy and will answer all your questions. They use AeroMexico for their air transport and it routes via mexico city, not miami/chicago.

I live in SF, so LAX is fairly doable as far as transportation is concerned. One good thing with schumacher is that the crating is very reasonable - just $150 and it is actually at their facilities, so no extra payments to take it from crating to shipping.

I called United and Continental today. used motorcycles cannot be shipped directly by airlines. dangerous goods. have to use a freight forwarder.

Here is some heresay from down south. I am in Argentina with my bike.

Price flying a bike home is around $2000 and easier to arrange than flying it down.
Ease of entry and local costs are better in Santiago than Buenos Aires. I really suggest Santiago as a port of entry.
It costs money to store the bike in the warehouse so be here and get it out the day it arrives.
Ask about holidays down here as that screw' up a lot of people. There are a lot of them.
Selling a bike down here is difficult. You can sell an offroad bike to someone to use in the country at a lower than papered price. If you don't close out your bike permission, just don't plan on ever coming back. I have not confirmed but the talk down here is that you can sell anything right now in Paraguay. Not sure on the price.

hey srileo -

were those prices you were quoted from schumacher for the bike only, or bike plus panniers, boxes, luggage, etc? did you give them a gross weight?

fritz

Antonltd
 

Hi fritz
For what it's worth about 18 months ago I was getting prices to fly my gs800 to Germany and found the cheapest way to go , was get a crate from BMW put it in my truck and take it to Vancouver. Air Canada ( using a freight forwarder ) was great and only $1600.00
You are avoiding TSA, also ask where the airline you choose flys to and avoid transfers to keep extra costs down.
Garth

oh canada!
 

yes, i've heard that before. which freight forwarder did you use? could you post some details, contacts, etc on here for my and other's benefit?

did you do the same thing coming back? did you use the same frieight forwarder on the way back or something different out of germany?

thanks!