importing a motorcycle

My son, currently in Qatar has acquired a couple of older BMW's (1976) that
used to be Royal Escort bikes. They are now pretty much basket cases and
there is no "title" or even valid "Bill of Sale", but then again, it is
Qatar, the concept of ownership by anyone other than the Sheikh if fairly
new over there.



When my son returns to the US, the company will transport them as personal
belongings, but then he faces the problem of paperwork here. I know about the places that issue titles based on a self generated bill of sale and that may
be an option, but I'm not completely sure that it will be sufficient.

Does anyone have any practical knowledge that will assist with this problem?



Dane McKitrick

Houston TX

Don't know if you've read this page, but it may answer some questions: http://www.txdmv.gov/vehicles/titles/bonded.htm

Tell him to count the number of digits in the VIN#'s I think some of the other countries had less digits than the US and that might present a problem. Also the EPA, and US Customs can run you through the ringer requiring a $10,000 per vehicle refundable bond that is returned when the vehicle is certified EPA DOT compliant. Which btw is impossible to obtain. The option is to state that they are being imported for either Race only use or as parts only. Then once your here go through the Title app process mentioned above. Years ago a friend who was a mechanic for the Pennzoil Penske team brought a RG500 Gamma over with him and it turned into a horrible situation and resulted in him having to ship it back home to Germany to keep the Feds from keeping his 10K and seizing his bike! Retarded if you ask me.

Mr Marie
SRAD

I've always heard that it's a lot of hassle in most cases, even for an older bike.

It has to meet these NHTSA standards:
http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/import/

And these EPA standards:
http://www.epa.gov/oms/imports/

Customs duties?
http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/trade/basic_trade/importing_car.xml

Best of luck. Keep us posted on how it goes.

If there is no chance of someone claiming ownership he may want to go the route I went, which involved no bond. This is also dependent on if there are the correct number of digits.

Only took a couple of weeks and cost about $80.00

International Title Service
www.its-titles.com

Ship them as parts. He may have to pay someone to partialy strip them down but it will be more than worth it. Tires off, engine out, tank and seat off. When they come in then he has a bunch of options but shipping as parts is the way to go

Many, I say many years ago I air freighted a BMW from Frankfurt to JFK in New York. I simply got a ride to KLM's air cargo terminal, re-installed the handlebars and rode away. When I got it to Texas, there was no hassle or problem at all. I lot can change in forty years though, look at me,,,,,,,HB

Without a doubt, tell him to bring them back, especially if his company will pay the freight. I just left Japan and my biggest regret is that I didn't put more Japan-only exotic motos in the container (one made it in as "parts"). I completely disassembled a supermoto for shipping but the moving company or Customs didn't give any of it a second look during loading or unloading - in hindsight, I could have left the motor in the frame, left all the wiring hooked up, etc. Getting the BMWs to the US in pieces should be the easy part.

Once he gets the bikes here and reassembled, he should be able to register them as untitled bikes, regardless of the VIN length (I say "should" based on what I've found out - my 9-digit VIN bike is still in pieces so I have not done this personally, yet). I did follow the temp plate / Green Sheet / anit-theft inspection process for my Canada-VIN VStrom with no issues at all. I had a Japanese title that really didn't mean anything to the DPS as they could not read it.

I suggest that he creates a bill of sale or something to show ownership in Arabic. VIN, his name and address there, bike description, etc. Just enough English to show what the bike is and that it's his, but plenty of Arabic to make it official. That's exactly what my Japanese title looked like.

If he gets to TX and can't get through the registration process, I'm sure he could unload the bikes as projects. I'd certainly be interested in something unique like that!

BTW, I had a nice business trip to Doha a few weeks ago. Interesting place.

HTH, Tom