Car Buyer's Guide

5 Problems with Buying Nigerian Used Cars

People mostly resort to buying Nigerian used cars because having a car in many places in Nigeria is regarded as a status symbol, especially when it’s a recent model. In many circles, you’ll be looked down on if you come for a meeting or a function without a car.

Like in every market, the car market also involves buying and selling cars and cars moving from one owner to another. 

In Nigeria, you can buy “tokunbo cars” (which are cars imported from overseas like Germany, Belgium, the USA, and so on, and have not been used in Nigeria). These ones usually come clean and without number plates and registration. 

However, you can also buy Nigerian-used cars (or “second-hand” as it is popularly called). Buying these ones has a number of issues which we will look at shortly, but first, let’s do a little price comparison. 

For example, the foreign-used 2016 Toyota Camry is sold between 6 and 6.5 million Naira in Nigeria while the Nigerian-used type of the same car is sold for 4.5-5million Naira. Because of the price difference, one might be tempted to go for the Nigerian-used version. However, it would help to take note of these 5 problems before you do such:

1. Low maintenance:

Maintenance is not something common in Nigerian culture. Many Nigerians forget that a stitch in time saves nine. Many times when you buy a Nigerian used car, you’d spend a lot fixing minor faults and oven-baking the car, and it can never come to the level of a foreign used car. 

2. Electrical problems:

As technology advances, cars tend to move from a mechanical piece of technology to electrical, hence a fault in that department means it’s a major problem. Many times, it would cost a fortune to fix all the electrical problems and changing the complete wiring may not be feasible due to cost or availability or both.

3. Gear problems:

Part of the low maintenance problems also affect the gearing system of the cars, many Nigerian used cars have impending gear problems mostly due to poor servicing or no servicing at all. Many car owners don’t know you have to add gear oil to the gear compartment after a few months.

Photo by Nosa Obaseki on Unsplash

4. Overheating:

Overheating is caused mainly when there’s little or no cooling fluid in the car. This could be as a result of damage in the radiator or hose associated with the cooling systems. Overheating could be very problematic as it leads to the top gasket of the car getting burnt as well as other problems.

Over heating car via YourMechanic

5. Messy interior:

Many interiors of Nigerian used cars are very messy and unbearable as most car users don’t know how to take good care of their car interior. From worn-out and torn seats, to broken infotainment systems, broken air vents, cracked dashboard, sandy cabin and so on.

Well detailed interior via MyAutosparkle

Even after intense car washing and steaming, it’s usually not like new, that’s where Autosparkle comes in. Autosparkle has developed a totally waterless detailing solution where the interior and engine can be cleaned without water. Cleaning, detailing, polishing, and other activities can now be done “waterlessly” to give you a sparkling clean interior and exterior. 

Give your car the Autosparkle treatment. 

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