Is it practicable to import motorcycles from Thailand?

Question

Would there be lots of paperwork. Would there have to be lots of modifiacations to make them legal here?

Answer 1

A container load of bikes will cost you around £2,000 to ship over to the U.K. from Thailand.

You will pay 30% import duty and V.A.T. on the total value of the consignment. If any of the paperwork is wrong, the whole consignment will be rejected.

You will then need to put EACH bike through an S.V.A. (Single Vehicle Approval) test, in order to obtain a registration document. This is because you are a private importer. The S.V.A. will cost you £750-£1,000 PER BIKE...

If the bikes don't meet the U.K. standards, you willl not be able to register them. You will have to pay the S.V.A. fee every time you want to register a bike, even if it has failed before.

This all entails a mountain of paperwork and, for a private importer, a whole load of hassle. Then you will find that the bikes will sell for less than you have paid out - which is why no-one bothers to do what you are suggesting, unless they are a fully fledged, experienced import business...

Answer 2

It's a very, very silly idea indeed. You'll be buying a cheap, low-capacity piece of junk with at best a severely questionable history and almost no mechanical provenance. Don't do it. It's among the worst plans I've ever heard. There are very good reasons that nobody does it, and they aren't wrong. For the love of Soichiro, don't! I can't express this strongly enough without several automatic violation reports being triggered.

Answer 3

not to much problem with mods,
shipping agent does paperwork,
and used to be 5.1% import tax,
firm in southend tried bringing in suzuki sprinters a few year ago but they didnt sell, do some research first

Answer 4

why would you want to? dont they have skips in thailand... and i thought china was buying all the scrap metal it could find...