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Originally Posted by mrhyak
Can someone please show me ONE example of a grey market Lifan bike? I hear a lot of talk about them but I have yet to see one.
Show me a link, or a photo or something? Just curious if this is all just talk, or someone actually has a REAL GREY Market bike.
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No.. They are the same exact bike as everyone else has. They are called gray because the vin number was never registered with the DMV. You cannot tell the difference unless you goto the DMV and they don't list your vin when they look it up. Because the vin was never sent in via AL it cannot be registered with the DMV. If AL wanted they could send in the vin number of grey bikes for the DMV record but they won't because they did not make money on the import. The grey dealers can import direct cutting out AL but they can't send in the vin to the DMV computer. Only AL can because they are registered to and they set everything up with them.
AL is trying to be a monopoly, any dealer can import from China but they have to jump threw more hoops to get connected in with the DMV. AL jumped threw the hoops and they are using it squash new importers out of the market. It is much easier for new dealers to go threw AL if they want to sell platable bikes then it is for them to go threw the process AL did. The grey dealers don't bother going threw any process at all that's where the problem lies.
It's all about money. For example MotoX goes threw AL and AL takes some of his profit and its absorbed by the consumer. Frontier Imports goes china direct and pockets the money they would have paid AL and AL finds out and makes sure the vin does not pass at the DMV.
Maybe there should be a sticky explaining it because many people still don't know what it means. Basically the consumer has NO IDEA if its gray or not until he goes to check the vin and the DMV tells them sorry, no plate for you! Some states don't check the vin in the computer and the grey bikes slip past. This makes AL very upset so that's why they refuse to sell parts to us. AL is cracking down on the DMV and more and more people are not going to be able to register their Lifans very soon.
In fact when I was at the DMV they said they were going to recall about 80% of the Lifans plates in the next few months because they were not AL authorized vins.