Finding a motorbike in Kunming, the YBR250?

Hi,

Me and my girlfriend are trying to find a motorbike in Kunming that is strong and reliable enough to get us to europe. I found the thread where tokyokid did it on a 125 which sounds a bit to slow to me. After having a conversation with andre he recommended the yamaha ybr250 to me. Yesterday I went to the Yamaha dealer on the Dianchi Lu and he charged me 24,800 rmb for the ybr250. I find this price to high for the bike so I was wondering if anyone knows any other contact or dealer who could do a better deal for me?

cheers,
bart

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Originally Posted by bartez88

Yesterday I went to the Yamaha dealer on the Dianchi Lu and he charged me 24,800 rmb for the ybr250. I find this price to high for the bike so I was wondering if anyone knows any other contact or dealer who could do a better deal for me?

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I don't think you will get a YBR much under 24k, dealers don't seem to bargain when it comes to the YBR. A little expensive, yes, but it's a nice bike, and probably your best choice for your trip. There are other Chinese bikes for less money, but let's be honest, most are shit and hardly up to the task of carrying 2 people + luggage from Kunming to Europe.

Cheers!
ChinaV

Hey Bart,

the YBR250 sells for around 4500EUR new in Europe (Germany) - you might get a good discount on your trip budget, if you can resell the bike for 3000EUR.
Its the only bike in China that has any resale value in Europe. The rest, if it survives, may be good to keep for the farm.

Happy shopping.

Andre

Thanks for the replies! Today we ran around with a translator/guide who opened up many doors for us. We called many other yamaha dealers, but like ChinaV said all of em mentioned the same price 24,800 rmb. So we decide to go to the yamaha dealer on dianchi lu in kunming and start talking. The dealer is very reluctant even now that we have a translator. After about 5 minutes there is this guy walking in and started looking around. Id say this was already very unusual because we have always been the only customers in that place, guess thats why suzuki left that place. The new customer starts looking at the YBR250 and takes a seat on it and 2 minutes later hes at the counter with us telling the dealer that hes buying the ybr250. He shows a big lump of cash, tells hes been saving up for the last 6 months and the dealer starts smiling. Right in front of our eyes the bike gets snatched away. We were only there to ask for some more information so after we heard that we had to wait another 10 days so they could order a new one, we headed for the door. When the dealer and 'the new customer' saw that, they mentioned it was allright that we take this one and 'the new customer' said he wouldnt mind to give this one to us and wait 10 days. Mainly because he didnt have a place to register the bike yet. But by thursday(because its public holiday now) he would have everything done so we would have to make a choice now. It feels all too pushy to me and my girlfriend so we decided not to do it. Was this all a setup? Would they really make that much effort to get you buy a bike? We would rather wait and see if the bike is still there on friday :) In the meantime get the paperwork ready and translated and look around for some riding gear. Anyone know a good place in kunming? Or just order some from taobao?
Cheers bart

check the parts market, its just a bit south/east of your home, slabo mentioned the coordinates somewhere in the forum.

Isn't it a bit insane, that the cheapest Chinese Cars (4 wheels, car engine) cost around the same?

Some of the breadvan's from Wuling/Changan start at that price level - new, 4 wheels, 800cc engine, lots of space.
A Cherry QQ is just a tad above 30.000 - Changan BenBen is just a tad below 30.000...some of the classic Suzuki Alto copies are below 20.000

Something is not right :confused1:

Yeah, it sounds like they had a shill or ringer customer, though it does seem very excessive.

As far as riding gear goes it depends on what your talking about, a rainsuit or equipment like bags I would buy online. You should probably both try your helmets on before you buy them. What you could do is buy one medium helmet first and see how it fits both of you, and buy a size larger or smaller depending on whichever you need. Like, if it fits both of you fine, buy another medium, if it's tight on you, buy a large. You would have to pay shipping twice.

I got myself a HJC IS-MAX recently and it's a nice helmet. I tried one on in a local shop and figured out what size I wanted but thought that paying 1,499 kuai was a little excessive to say the least and bought mine on TB for just under half that after shipping.

If your wondering about any gear, or anything, just search around here, it's always got lots of good info.

Today we finally did it. This morning we went to the Yamaha dealer to buy the bike. Luckily we had a different guy behind the counter this time, not the grumpy one anymore. Finally somebody trying to help us. We asked him for the price and he marked it 1000 rmb less! Now the YBR250 was only 23800. After counting the money, getting the bike prepped we were on the road an hour later. Finally something different than the public transport! :D Its great!
Last Wednesday I took my girlfriend to the parts market to buy some gear. Helmets, pants, gloves and a jacket for her. Unfortunately it was a bit hard to find a proper helmet for my girlfriend as all the shops only stock sizes M and above. There is alot of cheap gear around that place but there is definitely good stuff too, for a reasonable price I'd say. Maybe its possible to get a bit cheaper on taobao, but you'd never be able to fit it before you'd buy it.
Today we also managed to get the insurance at CPIC, like andre described in his 'getting your motorbike registered' post. No problems so far. Monday well get back to business as everything is closed over the weekend.
Have a nice weekend guys!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bartez88

Today we finally did it. This morning we went to the Yamaha dealer to buy the bike. Luckily we had a different guy behind the counter this time, not the grumpy one anymore. Finally somebody trying to help us. We asked him for the price and he marked it 1000 rmb less! Now the YBR250 was only 23800. After counting the money, getting the bike prepped we were on the road an hour later. Finally something different than the public transport! :D Its great!
Last Wednesday I took my girlfriend to the parts market to buy some gear. Helmets, pants, gloves and a jacket for her. Unfortunately it was a bit hard to find a proper helmet for my girlfriend as all the shops only stock sizes M and above. There is alot of cheap gear around that place but there is definitely good stuff too, for a reasonable price I'd say. Maybe its possible to get a bit cheaper on taobao, but you'd never be able to fit it before you'd buy it.
Today we also managed to get the insurance at CPIC, like andre described in his 'getting your motorbike registered' post. No problems so far. Monday well get back to business as everything is closed over the weekend.
Have a nice weekend guys!

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Congrats, but please try to buy the most expensive insurance possible. Also, the best place in the market for gear, especially helmets and jackets, is at the top left corner taking the main entrance as a reference point, or south west corner of the market looking at a map. At least they had the best gear a year ago.

What a week! It all started about getting the residency registration outside the second ring. Nobody had a clue what we were talking about. We even had to move to a bigger hotel. Finally we got some receipt from the hotel that said that we were residents in the hotel, but no way this was enough for the registration office. So we had to get a little paper from the police office which had several red stamps on it to make sure the paper we got from the hotel was real. we drove back to the registration office to find out that we can only get a temporary registration for the bike because we have a tourist visa. Basicly they were telling us to get lost because they didnt want to do alot of paperwork and to get the proper license in a smaller town. Apparently there are more rules in bigger city's... So now we are driving around, still without license plates but with a temporary registration. Its a little piece of paper with a registration number and the date untill its valid. Only a month, but i hope time enough to find a better place to try. Any suggestions?
We also left kunming by now, we settled in Dali and going to try our luck here next week. The bike seems te be handling well, but there is a weird knocking sound coming from the enginge when its warm. My guess is that the valve timing is out. Ill go see the yamaha service dealer here in dali soon.
Our plan is to head up to lijang after this, anyone any tips for routes after that?
cheers!