New to VFR'S and new to this forum :D

hi guys, my name is elliott im 22 from england
i recently bought a vfr400 and after doing a few bits to it, i have realized that they are awesome bikes!
my one is 28 years old and it runs like a dream.
the reason i joined this forum is simple, to meet people who also enjoy the benefits of owning a vfr
and if i ever need help with something haha
anyway guys that about it for me, im pretty standard, i hope to make some friends off of here

 

Welcome Elliot, the guys here (the girls are much smarter) see you post and think uh huh Blah blah blah blah need a picture.....LOL post up a picture of your bike and let us take a look at it!!!!

 

here you go haha

 

another one

 

:welcome: to the zoo from across the pond mate :wave:
Congratulation on your new ride, you have come to the right place.

Ride safe and ATGATT

 

thanks man

 

Hi and welcome.:welcome:


Quite a lot of 400s came to Europe as grey imports from Japan complete with kph speedometer and they quickly earned a pocket rocket reputation. If you have not come across them yet you will find the 400greybike website has a heaps of information about them in their document library.

Take care




SkiMad

 

i know haha, ive already been al around that site

 

Please explain the "grey market" thing to me. Were these bikes not badged as Honda's? I ran across a review of the VFR400 watching reruns of an old Brit show called Used Bike Heaven on YouTube. (It is amazing what you can find on YouTube) The review was by Richard Hammond of Top Gear fame. They look like a very cool ride.

 

hi, the reason they are called grey is because they were just imports, not manufactured in UK/US etc etc, so my bike for instance is a grey bike and is very hard to get parts for, because they never made them over here, plus its weird because its in kmh and everything is in japanese haha

 

Black spray paint so seldom seems to correlate with a safe, sensible history..........

 

And deadly paint at that.

 

Welcome aboard and ride safe. Quite a few grey 400's came to South Africa too.

 

Good question Jim - but unfortunately one without a precise answer as it depends on how grey the import was and whether the bike was new or second-hand!

Typically the term grey import applies to any bikes which arrive in the marketplace outside Honda's official import route.

So even if someone purchased a brand new motorbike in Japan and then shifted the bike outside its official sales region (like Europe) the owner would struggle to even get one year warranty support from Honda, as relevant parts etc might not be ever officially supplied to that region.

For the 400s Honda did officially import them to the UK for about 4 years, but with import taxes etc their price was so high dealers struggled to shift them with many still lurking in showrooms for years after the dealer arranged their official first registration.

Meantime the 400s produced and sold for the domestic Japanese market were available for a more reasonably price and were going down a storm. This was partially due to big tax incentives in Japan to own bikes which did not exceed 400cc - so at the time Honda focused on making a ridiculously quick 400 - to grab the premium domestic market. The big driver for the grey import market was Japanese government policy and insurance costs which rise sharply on vehicles of 4 years old (to encourage the new vehicle sector which remains a dominant sector in Japan). The effect was that a few years, thousands of second hand - often low km bikes needed a new home and being set up for use on Right Hand Drive roads (so great for UK and South Africa) middlemen made good money shifting boatloads overseas.


SkiMad

 

haha, the black spray paint is only a quick fix, it was galva spray to protect from rust, because when i first got the bike it was all sanded down, so i only put one coat on it until i get enough money to get it gloss painted proffesionally

 

"and being set up for use on Right Hand Drive roads (so great for UK and South Africa)"

I made a joke about this on another thread, but it got me thinking. Is there anything different about bikes set-up for driving on different sides of the road (switchgear possibly)? I believe the headlights are different.

You are right though, guys bought in container loads of Japanese 400's in the mid '90's. A similar thing is happening here with cars now, but weird import laws means that South Africans can't buy them, they must go out of the country. Durban being a harbour city, the area around the harbour is full of dealers selling the things at ridiculous prices (all quoted in Euros or Dollars). Some locals buy them and register them in Swaziland, then just drive them acroos the border and back every 6 months or so.

 

tbh i think it is just the headlight, i might be wrong though

 

So grey market bikes are still badged Honda or what ever. Over here there are grey market tractors. For instance Kubota made tractors but the same tractors were imported and badged as other brands. They were exactly the same but Kubota didn't recognize their existence. I don't know why.

That makes sense with the bikes. A lot of the money to be made in that market comes from exchange rates.I used to get a number of vintage bike magazines from the UK. I noticed that a nice Norton, in good nick, would bring around 6 to 7000 pounds. Over here a nice Norton would bring the same in US dollars but the exchange rate meant that the UK Norton would be just under $12000 in US currency. If I imported a Norton, not accounting for import duties and taxes, the US Norton would be half price. It's the same bike but for the exchange rate.

 

yeah, mine was all badged and stuff and it says honda on the engine and logbook, im not too sure what exactly a grey import is but i think it is just an import

 

The official 400s sold in the UK by Honda had to meet UK homologation requirements - so in addition to the various Japanese language stickers which were fitted to all bikes on the production line they also carry various Honda decals printed in English which show the vehicle met UK certified emissions and noise standards and also various safety tags around the bike showing things like recommended tyre pressures and acceptable fuel - for some 400s this was leaded 4 star! Official bikes also came with the official Honda UK owners manual and service book - all of which was in English.

By comparison grey imports tended to get registered in the UK via the SVA(Special Vehicle Approval) route. Provided the kph speedometer had extra markings added to show at least 30, 50 and 70 mph and suitable documentation matching the VIN plate to show where it came from, then the bike could be registered as a privately imported second-hand vehicle once it passed the standard UK motorbike MOT testing process.



SkiMad