Hello all,

I'm running into a problem and have searched the forums for answers:

I contacted Honda France to recieve my Attestation de Conformite for my 1984 Honda CB650. The inform me that my bike does not meet the MINIMUM French "power regulations" I am confused, because, as their website says:

"Indeed, the French regulations limit the power of two wheelers to 78kW with an EC Special clamp for France"

My bike has a power output of 78.xxxx.

Does anyone know what on earth they could be talking about? They are awaiting my response to let them know if I still want to continue with the process...which leads me to believe that if I do they will just givev me a recommendation for modification...this seems unlikely and quite strange for a bike as simple asmine...after all, it's not a 1k cc I'm dealing with here!

Thanks everyone,

Clayton

Have you tried Bike Club France • Portal
There are plenty of people on there who have been through the process of registering their UK bikes in France

I have imported a fiat panda, citroen xm and a RE Electra all without a problem. My fiat tipo however did not have a certificate of conformity as they claimed the fiat tipo was not known or ever had been registered in france. odd as there are scuds of them running about. .. so I had to get a certificate of NON conformity from Fiat France

they were happy with that and it was registered then without further problems.

don't know if this will help or not.

I have found it seems to help if you ask them how do I do this? they then like to demonstrate their knowledge and be helpful.

I understand you are importing your British plated Honda to France since you move to that country.

Years ago we imported a Spanish VW Polo to Switzerland and were requested the (bloody) “Certificat de Conformité Européenne”, which took us ages and lots of insisting to get from Volkswagen Spain via the dealer. The stupid paper looked 100% like a photocopy with no original stamp or signature, but badly printed ones. The car was identified with chassis nr, all the specs listed (in German) and it was stated something like “it was appropriate to be driven in the EU RHD member countries”. Good news, we had driven it in Spain! If you think it may help you, I can take a picture of it and send it to you (so you can see how stupid and not official looking at all!).

Oldbmw’s experience really puzzles me: you don’t get conformity, but provide the (heinous) certificate stating so, but you can import it anyway. I don’t get it, it’s even more surrealist. Our Polo had never been sold in Switzerland (a weird 3 cylinders diesel engine; found it out when the bearing of the primary arm of the gearbox got prematurely worn, such low quality!). However, we could import normally it with the Certificat de Conformité issued by VW Spain (or Germany, dunno), for sure we did not get it from Switzerland at all, and it stated it was good. So, I’d ask Honda UK for the document, not (only) to France and INSIST A LOT. If they want the document, give them one.

Good luck!

Esteban

EDIT: Some bad news I just saw... the Certificate is called Übereinstimmungsbescheinigung and there is an entry in German Wikipedia which says (if my rusty German still works) that it was first issued in 1993, so if right not available for your 1984 bike (unless it remained in production with no changes until 1993, I imagine, which looks pretty improbable). So, there's still hope, maybe you need to ask for a Certificate of Non Conformity as OldBMW! ;-)

The French claimed that my Fiat Tipo did not exist in France or the rest of Europe. despite it being European car of the year ( when it was first registered) and I see loads of Tipos about. So I asked them what to do and they said contact Fiact France to get a certificate of non conformity. I know, utter madness. but you just have to do what they ask, and smile sweetly. BTW that bit of paper cost me 120 euros.

if importing into France, best thing is to go to an insurance company and ask how much to insure. They will then look up all the "Known to the French" models. MAKE SURE YOU REGISTER YOUR VEHICLE USING A FRENCH KNOWN MODEL. for instance my Electra is known as a Bullet in France. If you try to import am Enfield Electra you are likely to have troubles. so always call it a BULLET.

This was the prob;em with the Tipo, the model was Eleganza which is a UK only Variant.

I absolutely agree with your approach, even more being that surrealist. In the private sector, things may be changed (you want the customer's cash), but in the Administration procedures are procedures so if you are told "you have to register your Fiat Tipo as a motorcycle first so that you can import it and then you change the status into a car", just do it, go with the flow, not against the current, leave your brain at home and register it as a bike first, it's all to comply with the procedure. (needless to say the Bullet, never heard of any Electra!)

I think my certificate was for free, I cannot remember that, but I do remember I send a DHL guy to pick it up quickly only to find it was the aforementioned stupid "photocopy" that could have been scanned, e-mailed and printed.

PS: If anyone speaks some Spanish, I found this e-mail... I had already got pretty upset waiting and waiting and waiting with the import blocked due to the certificate!

Estimado Sr. Gonzalez:

A continuación le reenviamos el correo donde reiteramos la solicitud de dicho certificado el cual deseamos este lo antes posible en nuestro poder para transmitirselo y poder solucionar las molestias que se le estan ocasionando.
Enla espera de recibirlo lo antes posible reciba un cordial saludo.


JESUS ******** *********
DIRECTOR COMERCIAL
AVISA VW


----------------------------------------

Asunto: certificado COC

Buenos días Andrés: Ante la imposibilidad de hablar contigo por teléfono, me dirijo a ti para pedirte información de un certificado de conformidad comunitaria que os he solicitado a través del Triton hace una semana y no tengo noticias de el.
Por favor dime algo al respecto, te adjunto nº de solicitud:
03403/000008/2008
Saludos.