Deregistering Bike
 

In Arno and Sian's report of their trip through Central and South America, they mention deregistering their bikes in Mexico City. What's that all about?


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In Germany vehicle registration and insurance are rather expensive. Once you leave the countries that require Green Card insurance you are paying road tax for roads you don't use and premiums for third party insurance that doesn't cover you.

So, once outside Europe you can get your bike de-registered by the German Embassy and you get the unused portion of rego and insurance back. Other countries don't know the difference.

The problem is: you can't legally ride back into Europe if your technical inspection has expired, as you can't re-register it without it. And without rego you can't get insurance, theoretically, anyway. A non-German insurance might do it... Plus, 18 months after de-registration the bike is deleted from the rego database, meaning you have to take it back to Germany for a lengthy and expensive re-registration procedure.

German bureaucracy.

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Salut from Southern France, the bikers' paradise,

Peter.

Thanks. Makes sense now (the action, not the German system); Arno and Sian did not intend to return to Germany with their bikes.

Lee