How legal is a 35.000Baht book??

[mezcal]

Hello everybody

I'm quite new to this forum. I'm a bike lover coming from a family of bike enthusiasts. Right now I'm driving a Suzuki Bandit (which is up for sale if anyone is interested :thumbup: ) and a Tiger Boxer ST 200 for everyday use.
My intention is to get a Yamaha SR400 after selling my 2 bikes. I absolutely adore that bike and can't wait to get my hands on one.

I found this shop in Bangkok (thaigigabike), which specializes in SR's. They get them in parts from Japan and assemble them after customer's specifications. I can already see myself helping them to assemble my bike and contribute to it's birth (or rather "rebirth"). (Red Baron also has SR's, but they want 120.000 for bike+book! :huh: )

Now, the guys at gigabike told me that an SR with green book would cost around 90.000Baht...about 56.000 for the bike and 35.000 for the book. Does anyone know how "legal" these books are? Will I be safe to drive around without having to worry about losing the bike? I don't live in hotspots like Bkk, Pattaya or Pukhet, but still.... Will there be any kind of problems when it comes to paying the tax and insurance? I don't mind if the book is not 100% as long as I have a number plate and can pay the tax+insurance in a normal way...

I hope you can shed some light on this issue. Any thoughts are welcome
Thank you in advance
Markus

 

[DavidFL]

Markus
Gday & Welcome to GT Rider
For 35,000 baht I'd say it is an old book, that more than likely will see your bike's engine & frame nos. changed to match to a bike that once was in the book.
The book & bike will be legal in the province / office were the bike is registered. If you keep it registered there it should be no trouble, but the problem could come if & where you want to transfer the rego to.
The new rego office might have a list of the all the bike serial numbers in their computer & show a picture of a completely different bike; and if it is Chiang Mai, where they are very strict, they will refuse to register the bike. The book will still be legal, but technically not the bike, as they will know it has been re-stamped. Makes sense? :?

You can also ask the shop about what sort of book you are getting, an older recycled book with your bike's VIN changed to match the old book, or a totally new book.

When your bike first comes in make a note of the engine & frames numbers so that you know exactly what year & model it is for ordering parts.

Many recycled books seem to come from Sa Kaew /Prachinburi, so if the bike rego is from there I'd definitely say you've got a recycled one.
When your green book finally comes check out the model year, to see if it matches your bike.

Take a look here for more discussion on bike rego
grey-book-t8225.html

Good luck with the new bike & sale of the "old ones." What size is your Bandit by the way?

 

[mezcal]

thanks for the post david! All this book business is a bit confusing but it makes a bit more sense now
I also read the other thread which is very informative, thanks.

I will contact the shop again and ask them for more information.

My Bandit is a 400cc, you can see it in the buy&sell section here on GTrider...

 

[hs0zfe]

Hello Markus,

drop the price and sell your Bandit - I really want to buy your Boxer today rather than tomorrow. And since you are into SRs, www.siambigbike.com has several and they are just 6 km down the road from my place, a few hundred meters from where Wat Don Muang is, on the other side of the street starting at the temple.

SiamBigBike offers different prices for Green Books. Cheaper ones (darn, i forgot the quote, but around 40 k) and fully legit ones on the bigger bikes for ~ 80 k. Make sure your Sr has a license plate and the tax sticker and it's for Bangkok.

I keep seeing SRs now and then as private sale with book in the region of 60 k. Keep checking the websites, including MOCYC and HD PLAYGROUND. The other day, i saw a beautiful 500 cc with wider front rims and a beautiful paint job on the tank. That was in Pai. Half way from the bike shop to my condo village, there are some beautifully restored bikes parked in some town house shop. One of them is a minty SR. Maybe you an get the bike of your dreams from a private seller?
Some of the Japanese SRs are, how shall I put it, tacky. But then perverted is something I'm not into :wtf: One has 2 odometers, the other bizarre handlebars which might make a masochist weep with pleasure. The asking price sans book are way too high to be of interest to me, although I had more SRs over the years than any other bike.

Sell the Bandit, call me that you are coming and I'll have cash waiting for the Boxer. I do need a book for short local trips.

Ride on!
Chris

It doesn't matter what you ride as long as you DO ride!

 

[mezcal]

Hi Chris

We talked before, right?!
In my first post I made a mistake...the 120.000 quote for an SR with green book came from Siambigbike NOT from RedBaron! SORRY about that. At SBB they want 85000 for a 2005 bike PLUS 38000 for the book...that's bloody expensive. They would take my Bandit in, but still...that's more than I can and want to pay.

I guess I will have to drop the price for the Bandit a bit. My patience is rapidly wearing out hehe

Private sellers would be ok. I've been following mocyc.com for quite some time and the best bike (with book) was this one.
http://mocyc.com/store/view.php?idclassified=350797
The price is basically the same as if I would get it from thaigigabike...

As for the Tiger (it's an ST). I will only sell it after I sold the Bandit and got the SR, because I'm riding it every day to go to work...but you will be the first to know, I promise!

Markus

 

[mezcal]

Hey guys

Yesterday I drove to Bangkok to check out 2 bike shops that feature SR's. The first one was Gigabike http://thaigigabike.com/
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source= ... 02411&z=19

It isn't really a "shop", more like a hole in the wall were they assemble and modify SR's, but friendly people. My wife translated most of the conversation and this is what I put together.

The green books they sell for 35.000B are from other, older bikes...sometimes even from different bikes (2 cylinders instead of 1!). The frame numbers always correspond, engine nr mostly, too. No idea how they do that :think: These books take between 3 to 6 months.
A 100% real book would cost between 80.000 and 100.000Baht....2 times the value of the bike! :shock:

The guy said that usually SR buyers don't bother getting a book for various reasons. The most obvious being the extra price, but he also told me that the police knows that all these bikes don't have genuine books. If they really want your skin, they can take the bike AND throw you in jail for forgery(?!)
If you only have the invoice (you can pay tax and get insurance with it), the worst that can happen is that you have to say goodbye to your bike. Apparently that's pretty rare, as long as you don't live in BKK or Pattaya. In Chonburi, he told me, there are lots of SR's and since the police knows these bikes well, the owners never try to get a green book, instead they put red plates on the bike and so manage to somehow fool the law.
There was a policeman at the shop with his highly modified SR and he basically confirmed all this. He also said that a couple of 100 Bahts usually does the trick to get you off the BIB's hook. Maybe a bit more for farangs... :think:

The second shop I went to was Dbigbike. http://dbigbike.com/
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source= ... =UTF8&z=18

They have a few big bikes and some SR's as well as many sport cars. Even though the shop is pretty big and clean I must say I got better vibes from Gigabike. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with this shop....just a personal preference. Sr's here cost about 60 to 70.000Baht strictly without books.

So, this is more or less what I remember from yesterday's trip...a long trip, considering I was stuck in traffic on the way back home.

I thought that by getting a green book (even just a 2nd hand one) I would be on the safe side, but after talking to those guys I'm not so sure anymore. I could even imagine getting a bike without book and safe those 35.000B.

Any ideas?

 

[thaicbr]

Mezcal... A friend has an SR he bought from Dbigbike. Stick with your gut reaction. anuff said.
As for the plate business most Sr's are plateless. Can you still pay the 3% tax to make it semi-legal. does the bike come with FULL import papers (maybe someone else can help with whats needed). As for the grey book plate, I have found that if you have a plate it is unusual to get stopped (i live just outside BKK) and when you do they are looking for the tax and insurance.
Hope this helps a little.

 

[rich1968]

First point is that you although you can put insurance on a bike that is not taxed for the road it means nothing as the bike is neither taxed or documented with a book for the highway :lol-sign: If you want to put a book on an SR then yes go ahead and do it,and as you have stated the best option is a Grey book due to the rip off price of a new book. It does not take 3-6 months to do this the whole process takes about 1-2 weeks. At the end of the day you just need to know what you are doing.

 

[DavidFL]

If the option is there for a recycled book do it! Get it plated & insured & you can ride wherever, even out of the country. No need to say anymore.

 

[mezcal]

Yes, all considered I think you are right David.
thanks everybody :thumbup:

 

[thaicbr]

just check that the basic details match up. Number of cylinders, cc etc. My book is fairly good been transferred owners twice and province once. But the manufactured date is way off. and the cc shows 800 not 805. Things to look for.
Allan

 

[sinclair1969]

It is well known that the only legal registration book is the original green one for a motorcycle. In case a bike owner has bought an unregistered bike, he can pay a sum of money to somebody at the motor vehicle registration department, or whatever that official agency is called, end get the bike registered legally. That costs a whole lot, sometimes close to the price of the bike, but it is the only fully legal way. The other option is to trust your luck, gate a copied book, a letter from the local police that says you are allowed to drive the bike unregistered - yes, this exists - and hope you don't have an accident or your bike is stolen or whatever would bring the matter to the attention of the authorities. I have talked to several people here in Bangkok and they say the traffic police is not so preoccupied with big bikes any more, they mostly leave them alone. This was different a few years back, when the traffic police was on the lookout for illegal big bikes. I would never buy a bike that did not have fully legal paperwork and registration book, I am just too old to take such chances here in Thailand.

 

[mezcal]

Of course I agree with you sinclair and I value peace of mind just like you, but sadly I just can't afford an 80.000Baht book, when the bike costs 60.000. Between no book at all and a, how can I call it, "not-so-legal" book, I will go for the second. At least with a nr plate, the chances to get stopped are much smaller.
And lets just hope there won't be any accidents in my biking future...