Farang buying motorcycle or car in Thailand

Are you traveling to Thailand on a tourist visa and wanting to become a Farang buying motorcycle or car? Well lucky for you it can actually be done.

Many will tell you that on a tourist visa that it is impossible for a farang to own a vehicle, and at best you could put it in your girlfriends name. Well lets face facts, this is a bad idea no matter what country you live in.

I recently arrived from Australia on a double entry tourist visa. If you read my other posts, I spent the first month riding a Z800 I hired from Big Bike Rentals in Bangkok. Once I gave that back, there was still plenty of country I wanted to see. The idea of buying a bike is great, but I found that the heat was a real killer, especially when doing long days in 40+ temperatures.

Deciding on a vehicle, instead of going with a cheaper vehicle, which could potentially cost me more in the long run with problems, I opted for a 2012 Chevy Colorado extra cab.

This thing is turbo diesel, chilly aircon and only 70’000km on the clock. I ended up parting with 400’000THB which may seem high, but after doing a lot of research, and looking at plenty of shitboxes what looked great in the ads on one2car.com, spending more made sense.

Why a ute? Well what do you see the most of in Thailand, utes, so resale shouldn’t be a problem. Now to get onto registering the car in your name and getting it all official in the little blue book for the car.

It’s easy, all you need is a statutory declaration from your embassy that shows the address of where you are staying, then parted with 510THB for the witnessed piece of paper.

Take that, copies of your passport pages, all signed to the dealer and you can get them to do it all for you. My dealer got rejected the first time, so I contacted Tim Brooks at Siam Motor World in Bangkok and asked if he would be nice enough to speak to my non English speaking dealer and explain what it has to do and say at the government transport office to make it happen.

He was more than helpful, full marks to Tim for the assistance. My dealer ended up coming back with brand new plates, and my name in the book (note always check, they used my middle name as surname in blue book, getting fixed on Monday). Also worth checking is that your passport number is correct in the book. Making sure all of this is right ensures you can sell the can on at the end of your journey without any hassle.

Now I am driving and riding around on my Australian drivers license, and have been pulled over heaps especially on the big bike, but now with my own car, and having to have insurance myself, I am ok on this drivers license for a little while, but I am arranging my international license. Depending on my length of stay, I might even look at the Thai lic.

UPDATE: Obtaining a Thai Drivers Lic

[embedyt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XTM8-zOO_I[/embedyt]

So anyways, want your name in the Blue Book for a motorcycle or car in Thailand on tourist visa, IT CAN BE DONE!!