Along with adding various bike modification accessories, youngsters in India are also taking interest in painting their bikes. A common example is, you must have seen bikes painted and given new racing colors with stickers.
Legality of painting bikes in India
In this blog, we will discuss if painting bikes are legal in India or not. Along with this, we will give you some important tips regarding painting bikes and also we will also list some custom modifications which are illegal in India as mentioned by RTO.
- Your bike RC has the color of your bike mentioned in it. For example, if your RC shows your bike’s color as black that means 80% of the area of your bike has black color. Your bike may have green or yellow stickers on it but that is not mentioned. Only the majority color is mentioned.
So, now if your bike’s RC has black color written on it as the bike’s color, that means you cannot paint your whole bike into white or green or any other color. You can only paint 20% of your bike into some other color. If you paint the whole body then that will become illegal and you will be challaned and fined.
- If you want to paint your bullet or any other bike only for some parts and it is old enough then you need to paint all other parts too. I’m talking about the same color as mentioned in RC obviously.
Firstly,we should always get our bikes painted only from a skilled professional. Any unskilled professional will do an improper job and your painted par will mismatch with the rest of your bike.
If your bike is about 10 years old then if you paint only the fuel tank, it will give an abnormal shine to the fuel tank as compared to the rest of the bike. So, in these cases, you need to paint the bike completely.
- Here’s some of the agreement you should do with the painter when you go to get your bike or scooty painted:
Ask the professional that he should paint by removing each part only. If he paints while the panels are fitted then the paint will not get to all parts and it will look ridiculous afterwards.
Then another important one or rather an essential one is this: Only go to a painter who has painting space in his workspace. Never get your paint done who does his job at the roadside. Before you judge me, let me tell you the reason:
When you are getting new paint for your bike, there should be no dust particles. At the roadside, there are enormous amounts of dust. These dust if caught in the new paint will form bubbles. That’s right, the bubbles you see in repainted bikes are due to dust particles.
Next thing is you should get your dents fixed first. When your bike has run for 10 years, it is common that it will have some dents. Now, many painters just add putty to the dents and paint over it. But once the putty becomes too dry after 8-9 months, it will crack and the part will fall off. Then you will be left with an annoying paint job.
If the painter doesn’t know how to repair dents, first get the dents repaired from an expert and then go to the painter. A dent first need to be fixed and then the old paint is removed properly by using sandpaper etc and primer is painted and then the color and finally the finishing layer which makes the paint shiny and new.
Then, ask the painter that the rubbing of the old paint should be done by 3M Marine paste. A lot of painters will try to use cheap rubbing materials which will not yield good results.
- Finally, tell the painter that he should paint in a way that if you bring a new showroom bike next to it, the colors should match. If the paint is not like that then you will not pay or cut a huge portion of the fees. You need to scare the serviceman to get your job done properly.
Now here are the RTO rules regarding bike modifications:
- Engine modifications- Your bike has a fixed engine specification and that is approved by ARAI. you cannot change those specs and try to achieve high speeds by adding more cylinders in the engine etc. these are illegal.
- Next illegal modification is related to our bike color only. You can add stickers on your bikes but you cannot change the full color of your bike. The chassis number and engine number which your bike has, is registered with the color of the bike it came with.
In a nutshell, you can paint as many times as you want with the original color it came with but you cannot repaint the full bike with a different color. You can add minor arts like a start in the tank etc. We have a store full of bullet modification accessories which are completely legal. Do check them out!
