Any advice on cheapest central/south american country to buy with least hassle and best to seel in?

Buying a NEW bike in Buenos Aires, touring Argentina, and then selling the bike in Buenos Aires is time consuming, but easy, if you do the following.
1. Rent a place to live for a couple of weeks or more and as soon as possible after you move in, go to the district police station for your street address and politely request a "Domicilio." You will be directed by the guard at the entrance to the right person. Be sure to bring your passport and the exact address of the place you just rented, and ten pesos (about $3.33 US). Some police stations ask for more, but the receipt stamp that will be glued to the "Domicilio" is for ten pesos. You probably know already to carry a little extra cash just in case.
2. You will be told a police officer will visit you at home in the next day or two excluding holidays, protests, revolutions or crime waves. This could take upwards of a week. You must be at home when the officer visits to verify that you really live where you say you do. Sometimes a very attractive policette is sent on these types of missions. I am still dreaming about her to this day. Anyway it is a little incentive for having to hang at home, at least 8 to 6PM or so. If you are at home, you will be pleasantly surprized to be handed your "Domicilio".
3. Take your passport and your Domicilio to the AFIP pronounced "afeep" office near downtown more or less - the Dealer where you are buying your New bike will be happy to direct you to the AFIP office, once you have your domicilio.
3. Be prepared for a wait of half a day, at least, unless you are lucky. At the entrance explain you need a CLAVE DE IDENTIFICACION, which is a tax ID number, and will enable you to buy a new -0 kilometers- motorcycle. I forget what the fee is for this, but as I recall it is not very expensive.
4. You will need these documents so your dealer can sell you a motorcycle new. He/she will take care of registering your motorcycle, getting plates and directing you to a reputable insurance agent for purchase of basic liability coverage as required by law. Forget about any coverage protecting your new bike from theft, as it costs almost as much as the bike. Good news, unlike the United States as long as you own your bike you do not have to renew the plates every year. Plates are renewed by the new owner if you sell your bike.
5. I live in Buenos Aires and purchased my NX400 Honda Falcon here, and would be pleased to direct you to reputable motorcycle dealers and to assist you through the process of buying a new bike. I also suggest selling the bike back to the dealer you bought it from, especially if it is still under warrenty
Buying a used bike in Buenos Aires is possible, but very, very risky in many, many ways. Please contact me if I can help. xfiltrate

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Motorcycle Parking Buenos Aires, Argentina
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Discover how to legally Buy, Tour and Sell a motorcycle in Argentina

Buying a Motorbike in South America; Dec 2007-Feb 2008


I just went through the hassle of figuring out a way to buy a motorbike in South America and would like to share my experience incase it might help someone. I would just like to suggest flying a bike over from anywhere rather than buying one here.


My boyfriend and I started our trip in Southern Africa on a Africa Twin. We toured around for 5 months and decided we wanted to keep touring, but explore South America. We decided to fly the Africa Twin to Sao Paolo, Brazil, (and if you would like more info on that small trial please see our web page at www.motorcyclegypsy.com) and buy a second bike in the first country that seemed plausable. We do not speak Portugese or much Spanish so the language barrier in Brazil was a problem to begin with. In most countries there are enough English speakers you can get by, but in Brazil there were not many. Secondly, people kept telling us not to buy a bike in Brazil, especially since we wanted to buy a used bike, for one because many bikes are not originals, and others have been severly tampered with. So we looked around a little but decided to try Uruguay, where we were headed next. Uruguay had a few more English speakers which was great, but it had no selection of motorbikes. The only place that had a few was the capital, Montevideo, and they were quite thrashed.


So we moved on with our trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina, thinking this has got to be the place. Well we searched and searched for about a week, but not much came of it. It turned out that legally one must live in Argentina for a year in order to be able to take the bike out of the country, or I think there are ways around it and you could have an Argentinian half own the bike and you both leave Argentina on the bike and then I guess it´s yours once you are out of the country...but we did not want to go that route. We heard that if you can buy a bike with US plates it would be a lot easier. So we found a KLR 650 for $3000 with US plates, from a gentleman who had ridden it from Alaska, and thought this would be the one. But, since I have never ridden a motorbike before, and afer looking at the bike we decided to look for a smaller 250cc. I think if that was the right bike for us we could have bought the bike and ridden out of the country with the current owner and then switched paperwork between boarders which isnt legal but it seems like it would work. We looked a bit more for 250´s but there did not seem to be a huge selection and with all the funny laws we decided to head to Santiago, Chile in our search.


Santiago proved to be the place to buy a motorbike. Within one week I had a motorbike and within three weeks I could exit Chile with the bike. I will list the steps below what I did to purchase my bike, but I want to reemphasize that no matter what the Chilean bike sellers tell you, you must have a yellow paper called the Padron, which states the bike is in your name, in order to cross borders with the bike. I had several people, including my seller, tell me that all I need is to go to the notaria and sign the bike over to my name and it should be fine, but no, one must wait one to two weeks for the paperwork to process (through the Registro de Civil) and the Padron to be printed. Also, you need to make sure that before you buy the bike the seller has the bike in his name, as often the bike is in the previous owner´s name. At that point the previos owner must go to the notatira with the current owner and sign it over, before the current owner can sell you the bike. Anyhow, with this Padron I have been able to cross borders between Chile and Argentina endlessly between Ushuaia and Santiago and back. This is the only document they asked of me at the borders.


Anyhow, before buying my bike I e-mailed the Santiago Community on Horizons and they were
very helpful in telling me what I needed to do to buy a bike in Chile. Here are the steps below:

1. Obtain a Chilean tax ID number called a R.U.T. Stands for Rol Unico Tributario. You can go to a “Registro Civil” office, which exists in every large town, to do this. You must bring your passport and have an address, like the hostel you are staying at. In Santiago I was able to fill out the form and get my RUT number in 30 minutes, for free. Not sure if one might have to wait a few days in smaller towns, in which case they will mail your RUT number to that address you gave them. Anyhow you do not need this RUT number until after you have found a motorbike and are ready to change over the paperwork.
2. Find a bike. Santiago proved to have many websites for motos, also there is an area in Santiago, which I cannot remember but has a couple blocks of moto shops. And if you e-mail the Santiago community they are very happy to help. Just so you know things are laid back in Chile, just like other South American countries and it took patience to find a moto, since half the time people don´t show up, or are really late, and many of the bikes are thrashed...oh and they are a lot more expensive in South America than in the States, or even Africa.
3. So once you have found a bike you are ready to do the paperwork. Make sure that as part of your purchase the previous owner promises to come with you to handle all the paper work, both at the notaria and the Registro de Civil (not for the RUT but other doc.s). The paperwork is a confusing thing, as is the Registro de Civil, and things can go array if the previous owner is not there.
4. The first step is to to go to the Registro de Civil where the sale of the bike is registered. Part of the registro process involvess insuring that the past owner does not have any unpaid tickets (multas) or other liens. But before going to register the sale you wil need to get the chenical inspection passed, think it´s called “revision tecnica” (emissions, equipment, working lights, etc.. You will also have to get insurance, but it is very cheap I hear called “Seguro Automotriz Obligatorio). And you need the VIN and an address and your RUT, and maybe your driver´s lisence. The previous owner had all these documents up to date, including insurance which could be in the previous owner´s name.
5. Once you make sure there are no tickets or loans against the bike, step 4 above, you need to go to the notaria to sign the bike over to your name. Here you will have to pay a fee, mine was around $50 for the transfer of the documents. Here they will want to see most of the documents again. I guess at this point, when the paperwork is in your name you can hand over the money, but I would not, and did not, untill the final step.
6. Going back to the Registro de Civil with the new paperwork from the Notaria saying the bike is yours, and applying for the PADRON , the yellow paper that OFFICIALLY states that the bike is in your name, which comes from the government and usually takes 1-2 weeks, which you can not leave Chile without, or can but its hard to get back in I hear. It´s best if the previous owner goes with you back to the Registro Civil until this whole process is complete, no matter what he/she says. Here you can give them an address where you want the PADRON sent to, so I gave them an address in Puerto Veras, way south in Chile so I can travel while the PADRON is being processed. Two weeks later my PADRON still had not arrived in Puerto Veras but I went to the Registro de Civil in that town and they printed my new PADRON out for me, right there.
7. So just to summerize I think the correct order to get the paperwork is
   -RUT
   -Buy Bike
   -Registro de Civil to register to bike, make sure there are no loans or fines
   -Notaria to change the paperwork into your name
   -Registro de Civil where you go with your new paperwork to apply for the PADRON, which you wait for 1-2 weeks.

But what I did because I was not totally aware of the proper way is
that I went to the Notaria first and signed the bike over to my name before seeing if there were any loans or fines against the bike, and then to the Registro de Civil, oops, luckily
there were no loans or fines.


Good luck and if you need any other info please send me a message throgh HU or e-mail me at jolaglabek@hotmail.com