The Sunday News
Lovert Mafukure
Is it advisable to buy used German cars from Japan or from the UK? Most ex Japs are petrol while ex-UK cars are mostly diesel, what are the advantages of each? Reader.
Quite some interesting questions we are getting from our readers, these are the things that matter and some people end up trapped after buying bags of lemons instead of oranges.
Japan has set its motoring standards so high for motor vehicle performance and safety from production to maintenance. There are strict rules and regulations that guide keeping and maintaining a motor vehicle which if not followed will lead to confiscation of a car that’s deemed not roadworthy.
Because of such strict laws, they keep their cars well maintained so that they can pass inspection every year. The inspection is so thorough your car can be condemned for a microscopic stone chip on your windscreen.
Unlike other countries, the government inspectors will not even hear of your back-pocket underhand advances. Most of the time therefore you are guaranteed that you buying a car that’s been well maintained. It is better therefore to buy a German car from Japan because you will get a car that’s in better condition. The downside is you will get German cars with Japanese Specs like limited to 180km/hr for example.
In most cases the Japanese guys don’t drive their cars so often because of a very efficient public transport system. That means that, their cars stay in good shape over a long while. We cannot say the same about European cars coming from the UK. UK cars are affected by a lot of things. First of all, they use their cars well and they drive them very often unlike the Japanese. Cars from Japan come looking like new cars while those from the UK really look their age. That said, the odds are you will get a better car from Japan than you will from the UK.
As you may have noticed, the majority of the cars that come from the UK are rather not so clean and most are blemished with spots of rust bubbles. Rust is associated with most UK cars because of the climate there in the UK. Their winters get cold, to sub-zero temperatures and that means water will frost up, ice up, and become a hazard for road users. Snowy conditions mean that drivers will have no traction and cars will just slide about. To counter this, a de-icing system is used and chemicals that include salt are used to treat the roads to delay the formation of ice and permit easy removal of the snow from the roads. While this system works for the removal of snow, it’s bad news for the cars in the UK. These salty compounds collect under the cars and fender wells, eventually eating away the metallic parts. So be careful of very cheap cars from the UK, you are better off spending more money on a good car than a rust bucket
Japan has never been a big fan of dirty diesel cars, maybe the idling rattle and noise from diesel engines is not their favourite. Maybe they just don’t like the smoke, or mess associated with diesel cars. Newer Common Rail diesel engines, however, make less noise and perform almost just as good as their petrol counterparts if not better. New generation common rail diesel engines are fuel efficient and more powerful and that is what the UK people are all about…economy.
There are a few things to keep in mind before choosing a diesel engine. Diesel engines are more expensive to maintain. The new generation common rail diesel engines are even more expensive to buy and to maintain. Another challenge for Zimbabweans is that we don’t have machinery to service common rail so eventually it becomes a problem to maintain a car with a common rail engine. Keep away from high mileage diesel engines. They get expensive to maintain as they get older. They also feed on very clean diesel. Contaminated diesel affects them a lot.
Some of the diesel trucks from Japan would have reached their end of life and come here looking for the after-life. Unfortunately, there is no life after death here.
There are no spares and no technicians well acquainted with these cars and some of them have had hundreds of thousands of kilometres knocked off the odometer.
I have said it before that, the moment I hear about UK car imports, my mind automatically shows me a picture of rusty, noisy, smokey old looking trash cans that have us believe when they say Africa is a junk yard. Be careful therefore when dealing with UK imports. Till Next Time. Happy motoring.
Feedback – [email protected] <mailto:[email protected] / www.facebook.com/automartzimbabwe
