Monday, October 6, 2008

Yamaha RD350 Street legal in India

The bike is completely ready but what about papers? I was in rush to find the answer and found that I need to do the following:
  1. New Insurance policy
  2. Non-Pollution certificate
  3. Fitness test and Renewal of Registration Certificate
  4. Cancellation of Higher Purchase endorsement
  5. Tax payment for the past 11 years
  6. and Transfer of Ownership

Now you know why I was not running the bike regularly on the road.

So, my action started with filing a new insurance policy. Here in India no insurance company ready to even give subscription for 3rd party insurance for older vehicles, rather you need to tip the insurance agent and employees of the insurance companies for getting the 3rd party insurance. After running for 3 days finally I had my Insurance ready so now it is turn for other RTO (Regional transport office) related work. But my bike was registered in the capital of nearby state Kerala, so I need to take the bike to originating RTO which is 900+ kms from Chennai where I stay. Driving a bike without current papers is not so good so I decided to transport the bike and myself in Train. After booking the tickets I drove the bike to Chennai Central station and packed the bike with most care for getting away from transport time damages. The Coolie guys in railway station charged me Rs.350 for boarding and packing of the bike, but I still need to tip the gatekeeper in the station. Alas when everything done and we pushed the bike to parcel compartment of the train, we found they have already shut the parcel van and sealed it. Ohh I have to go on the train otherwise I won’t get ticket for next train, so with full of doubts I gave the bike to the coolie guys and boarded in the train towards Trivandrum.After a long journey in the Train, I reached Trivandrum and went to my relatives place for fresh-up. Soon I got a call from fellow RD owner in Trivandrum called Joy. He is the hero of the whole trip and without him the work would have been impossible. With Joy’s help I have received the bike from railway station (coolie charges Rs.150), it came in the next train and fitted the side view mirrors and indicators which were removed during the transport and we fixed our services for RTO work with a RTO agent. Joy also gifted me with a steering lock (OE Rajdoot) with packing, WoW my long pending parts list stroked with one item. The next morning was our re-test, as planned we were at the RTO place and the retest done without much difficulties. In fact the Inspector didn’t even bother to start the bike just by the looks he said everything ok. :- ) man.. I’m still in India. I forgot to mention, Joy rides a Tamilnadu registered blue color RD350 LT. Both mine and his bikes rocked the roads of Trivandrum for two days.By 5P.M in the evening on last Saturday, I received a new Registration Certificate with all current status. At least for next 5 years I have not many problems for legal papers as all other tax payment will made yearly once without bringing the bike to RTO. Finally we(forgot to tell I went with my family) boarded in the train with my bike (coolie charges for packing and boarding the bike Rs. 300) and received the bike in this morning in Chennai (Again coolie charges Rs.150). Thanks a ton to Joy for making my bike street legal.

The following expenses have been made for the whole trip:

RTO work: Rs. 5500
Coolie charges: Rs. 950
Rail parcel charges (two ways): Rs. 2,250
Mechanical work for fitting and removing indicators: Rs.50
My train fare: 1800

5 comments:

Srini said...

y not u try the omni bus transport
like kpn travels or rathi meena travels
those omni buses load bikes into their bottom dicky and u may save on coolie charges

Tony said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Wishal Bhartee said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Wishal Bhartee said...

The Insurance info u typed out here is very misleading.
Fact is, private insurance companies will not insure a vehicle older than 15 years, For insuring older vehicles one has too go too a nationalized insurance company like New India/United India insurance company.
Better still pay a little more and get life insurance done, wont have too bother again.
And, all brokers would charge more for insurance, walking into the insurance guys office or picking up an insurance guy at some bank is a better option.

marina said...

Some times we ignore the promotion freebies that come with the motor oil that we buy.. Recently i bought a Castrol promotion pack for my bike but wasn't informed by the dealer that the scratch card offer to enter the lucky draw to go to South Africa World cup games and the dealer has assured gifts that we can collect at the time of purchase. Make sure you ask your service dealers for the contest details if you buy one in the near future and collect your assured gift :)