Common Question Car Buyers Ask in Nigeria

It is always good to understand a little about what the driving culture of the area where your buying your Tokunbo cars from. Be it from U.S. or your buying from Europe.

Nigerian car buyers are more sophiscated now than some 15years ago where information was not easily accessible, for you to be able to hold a buyer you must be able to offer more than just providing what he can easily see on the internet, provide information he won't have access to e.t.c. It is a norm now for buyers to ask this common questions:

• What is the mileage of the car?
• Was the car converted 
• Does the car have any accident history?
• Can I get the vin of the car? e.t.c.

• As much has it is good to be cautious, it is not also good to be paranoid and unreasonable. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation they compiled a database of average miles driven in the U.S by age and gender find attached below.

While average miles driven in Europe by Leaf Car Drivers (Electric Cars) is 10,307miles as against the traditional internal combustion engine which is 6,721 which is a 50% difference (by Nissan telementry data from its carwing system). European tend to drive less than Americans.So this is not also cast in stone, it is only a guide to help understand their driving habit there. So when as a buyer you are expecting a 10 years old American car to be under a 100,000miles its been rather unreasonable. And understanding the mileage sometimes does not necessarily mean the car automatically is in bad shape, it all depends on maintenace culture of the previous owners.

• To the question of conversion from left hand to right hand. Nigerians tend to run from converted cars because of our short cut attitude, easy way out or saving cost attitude. Converted cars tend to have issues when all necessary parts are not bought for the conversion and patch work is done. If all parts where bought for the conversion you would have little or nothing to scared about. One can know the build of a car from the Vin number (Vechicle Identification Number). So if you are not comfortable with it, dont't go for it. But if you don't mind make sure you inspect well and be sure all parts where bought for the conversion and the proper rewiring was done.

• Checking for accident history of foreign cars is available but at a cost, anyone can visit some of this site and pay for the service to know the history.

• People tend to demand for vin numbers for different reason. Most times it is to investigate the history of the car before it was exported to Nigeria. Some could ask to ascertain the year built, the type of engine, the type of trim, type of make and model, e.t.c.

Unfortunately I could not find any statistic for average miles driven in Nigeria. If you have access to that information please share alternatively we can start ours now by filling the comment box below and say your average miles a year is, it will be much appreciated.

Cheers