Buying a motorbike in Peru

Before I returned to Peru at the beginning of 2014 I decided to research motorbikes. I had decided that I needed something a bit bigger than the 150cc I had borrowed the previous year, so started looking on the internet for ideas - and soon realised that Peru has not really taken to internet commerce!
I started in classified ads, and soon found a vendor in Trujillo who appeared to be selling a few large bikes, some suitable for touring, at what appeared to be low prices (first warning, I guess!). Often vehicle adverts in Peru have the prices in US dollars (which is legal tender, and even cash machines will dispense them), and occasionally a price will show Peruvian Soles, but is in fact dollars (2.5x  greater!) so can catch out the unwary. However these adverts were showing dollars already and I decided to try and make contact. There was a "reply to advertiser" button, as well as an email address and a telephone number, so I tried that first - as expected no response! So I emailed (2 different adverts) and again, no response. As a last resort (as I was in Brazil) I tried phoning and my cell provider did not recognise the number!! So I made a mental note to try again once I arrived in February.
I had, in fact, experienced this lack of response to internet ads before, when apartment hunting - I must have contacted a dozen advertisers online and only one ever responded to me. It made me wonder why they went to the bother, and sometimes expense, of placing an online advert in the first place!
In my research I had spotted a rather nice looking 350cc bike - the Regal Raptor SPT350 - manufactured in Singapore, but the only dealership was in Lima, a long way from where I was in the North, and there were no agencies anywhere near. Despite the fact that they assured me I could get servicing done "anywhere" I was a little concerned that any warranty might be invalidated, and that I would be unable to find anyone suitable skilled while touring.
All imported bikes are very expensive in Peru, and they hold their secondhand values too, so I was finding myself priced out of the dedicated touring bike market, and also the "larger engined" market! There is a huge motorbike market in Peru, heavily skewed towards imported Chinese machines, and none bigger than 250cc, so I started researching this market, and decided I needed a trail bike, for my fishing trips, but that might be suitable for long distance cruising.
A problem I soon encountered was that fuel tank sizes were very small (at that stage I wasn't sure how easy it would be to find petrol stations while travelling in rural areas) - usually no bigger than 3 gallons, and these are US gallons, so 3.7 litres rather than the Imperial 4.5. The second problem was that most of these "trail" bikes had a maximum top speed no greater than 55 mph (88 kph), so touring was going to be very slow and tedious, and potentially dangerous on highways where you would be among the slowest moving traffic.
Armed with rudimentary knowledge I went to Avenida Peru in Trujillo, where all the bike shops are, and started asking questions. I started with Ronco (the same make as the 150cc I had used before), as I had seen one there the previous year, and it looked the part, but they had no technical data for it other than tank size (12 litres - 3.25 US gallons, or 2.7 Imp gallons), but "thought" it would do 120kph (75mph)! I visited various other companies, and they all had visually similar models (in fact at least one appeared identical other than brand name and stickers), and was even showed one that had a built-in MP3 player and speakers on the mirror stems! Technical data was again in short supply, with wild claims being made by the salesmen - most of which were seriously at odds with the data I had found from the manufacturers' websites!

Ronco Demolition 250

Eventually I decided on the Ronco Demolition 250, mainly because it was the best looking of the bunch, and I knew the shop and the mechanics from the previous year! At the prevailing exchange rate the bike was just under £1000 - on the road! This also included plates, registration and a crash helmet - oh, plus a small t-shirt, and a litre of oil for the first change!

I was expecting a long drawn out process to get the registration and paperwork done, especially since a foreigner is supposed to go to Immigration and get a document allowing him/her to sign contracts. But the shop simply gave me the receipt, and the (unsigned) sales contract and told me I had to go to a Notary and get it authenticated. I had no idea what the process was at the Notary, but went to reception and explained I was there about a bike purchase and they pointed me in the direction of an office at the back, where there was quite a queue. One of the two employees attending then went for lunch, and this delayed things further, but eventually after over 2 hours it was my turn - and I was in the wrong place!! This was for transfer of ownership from private sales, and all I needed was to go to the front desk and get my identity authenticated!!! They looked at my passport, checked it was me, signed the sales contract and then I had to pay a 15 soles fee, and was done!!

I went back to the bike shop and handed the papers back in - and they gave me the keys!! I asked about registration and plates, and they simply said I just need to show the bill of sale to prove ownership and tell them that the rest was on the way - but I did need to go and get SOAT, the compulsory third party insurance. So it was on my birthday, February 14, 2014, I walked into a bike shop at 10.00 am, and then rode away on a new bike at 4.00 pm (would have been quicker if I had known what I was doing at the Notary!!). Two weeks later they called to say the plates had arrived, and 5 days later the bike registration (like a credit card) was ready. Compared to Brazil it was a piece of cake!