Hoping someone can provide insight or advice on this complex situation. My motorcycle is registered with Colombian plates and it was stolen and recovered in Mendoza, Argentina. I paid $5000 for this bike with the hopes of selling at the end of my trip. The motorcycle was scrapped a bit— the plates removed, dashboard, and headlight. It’s still in good mechanical condition. I recovered the moto from the police. The TIP is suspended.

I believe my options are the following:

1. Get the moto running, ride it to Santiago and Ship the moto to punta Arenas for about $200. Fix it up a bit and Sell the motorcycle legally because there’s a zona franca. I also wouldn’t need to replace the Colombian plates because it would be imported to Chile. I have a contact /mechanic there that would fix and sell for me for around $3000.

2. Pay import fees to register it in Argentina- waiting to get an Indra of how much but in guessing $400-800. Leave it with a friend and sell it as-is. Motorcycle are v expensive in Argentina and I think I could get $2500 even in its current state.

3. Try and sell the moto for parts here in Mendoza. $1000?

4 leave the moto here with a friend and return for it in a year or two but also risk just losing the entire moto with the time risk factors

5. Any other ideas? Ideally I’d like to be done with the moto and not worry about this anymore. I’d like at least $2000-$2500. Am I delusional for thinking I could get this amount? I paid $5000 for it. 2022 Honda xre 300. Has 29,000km

Selling a foreign plated bike in the socalled «Zona Francas» does not make any sense at all. You can sell it to another traveller using a Poder - but that can be done everywhere as long as you find a local authority to write and stamp the document.
You can sell it to a local in the Zona Francas but it takes a lot of buraucrasy for the local person to get the bike reregistrated to the country and thus legal - and you wont find many locals that want to do that.

The Zona Francas are made to sell locally imported goods with lower import fees - it has nothing to do with foreign vehicles.

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In the end everything will be fine. If its not fine its not the end....

Hi there,



sorry to hear about getting your bike stolen in Mendoza. What a shit situation .... I know the feeling, because I had my bike stolen in Damascus Syria a few months before the war started and I never got it back.

The XRE300 is a popular bike here in South America, but this means they get stolen quite a lot.

I dont know which one out of your 5 options I would recommend. Option 2 sounds to me impossible, but who knows? Maybe it can be done.

Maybe try to sell it here on the Hubb to a traveler who wants to fix it for 2000-2500 Usd, just an idea. Take pictures and and advertise it here as is ....


All the best. Saludos mika

Anyway you can get a replacement license plate from Colombia?

If you are still located in Argentina, I would get those parts replaced and the bike running asap and try to cross the border into Chile, and than back to Argentina so you can get a good TVIP again. (If your current TVIP is expired I think you could get the police in Mendoza to write you a report saying that your bike was stolen and than recovered and that you could show that to the border agent for leniency hopefully.)

I think your best bet is trying to sell it to a foreign motorcyclist. If you can sell it to a Argentinian for $2000 as is, without being legally imported I would do that too.

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http://www.journeyrider.net Latin America blog (07-8)

Sorry to hear that it was stolen, good news that it has been recovered (I think).

A couple of questions;

1) did you make an insurance claim (if you had full insurance) and if so was it paid? If so you now have the challenge of sorting that out.

2) The TIP is suspended, so presumably you can reactivate it. I imagine that this is what you are required to do, since the basis for suspension has gone away.

Importing the bike into Argentina is difficult and you’ll find few if any potential buyers will to go through the hoops needed. The same goes for Chile.

Your real option is to sell to another traveller, cancelling your TIP and the buyer taking out another, which normally requires doing so at a border.

You are supposed to take the bike back to Colombia within 12 months of departure. Although this has for years not been an issue as systems become automatic and tied to databases this might be a concern if you don’t take it back.

On your specific questions:


1. Get the moto running, ride it to Santiago and Ship the moto to punta Arenas for about $200. Fix it up a bit and Sell the motorcycle legally because there’s a zona franca. I also wouldn’t need to replace the Colombian plates because it would be imported to Chile. I have a contact /mechanic there that would fix and sell for me for around $3000.

Getting the bike into Chile with no plates is not going to work - you need to replace the plates. As noted, above and by others, selling in Chile means either to another traveller or to someone willing and able to go through the hoops of importing it to Chile (which may not be feasible at all). Although the Colombian plates are gone, the bike is in Argentina with its original registration so you have to replace the plates.

2. Pay import fees to register it in Argentina- waiting to get an Indra of how much but in guessing $400-800. Leave it with a friend and sell it as-is. Motorcycle are v expensive in Argentina and I think I could get $2500 even in its current state.

I’m no expert on this however I believe that this is optimistic, both in terms of being possible and in the cost of import.

3. Try and sell the moto for parts here in Mendoza. $1000?

You will still have an open TIP, so what will you do to close it?

4 leave the moto here with a friend and return for it in a year or two but also risk just losing the entire moto with the time risk factors

Some hoops to go through but potentially the best option - request keeping the TIP suspended. What are the “time risk factors”?

5. Any other ideas? Ideally I’d like to be done with the moto and not worry about this anymore. I’d like at least $2000-$2500. Am I delusional for thinking I could get this amount? I paid $5000 for it. 2022 Honda xre 300. Has 29,000km.

Your best bet, in my view, is to spend the time and money to fix it for sale and sell it to another traveller - close your TIP, the buyer takes out another.

I dont think you can get a new Colombian plate issued to your moto, a plate issued to a Colombian motor Vehicle stays with the motor vehicle for ever.
New plate means new Carnet de Propedad .You can have a plate Made there are all kinds of sign shops in Colombia and having a plate made is perfectly legal, the carnet is what ties the plate to the registration - serial Number
I have seen quite a few Home Made plates on motos in Colombia
If you have your Carnet then go for it But now there is insurance and taxes that have to be paid and of course the technical Inspection to make the bike legal for the road
Sell it for parts this moto is a right off, If it was in Colombia then you would have no problems. You are a world away from geting anything Done Right