The Sunday News
Lovert Mafukure
Of all the cars that find their way to Zimbabwe, most of them are from Japan and the United Kingdom. This week I will deviate a bit from my normal JDM frenzy and look at the English cars. Most of us cannot afford new cars and these imports offer a bridge into a more comfortable life.
Japan is the favourite for many including myself solely because their cars are just as good as new — well, most of them. Cars from the UK on the other hand are not quite the icing on the cake. Here is why.
Because of the good public transport infrastructure in place in Japan, a lot of people prefer to use public transport than their cars to avoid to traffic jams — public transport there is more efficient than what we are used to here. While the system in the UK is just as good, the same cannot be said about their cars that end up here in Africa. Some of them especially the trucks 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 acquainted with these cars.
If you 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 naturally that means water will frost up and 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 car and fender wells and eventually start eating away the metals.
Sea water for cars that are close to the coast also eats away the undercarriage on most of these vehicles.
Now, not all cars from the UK are as bad as some that we see looking like rust buckets. Some people there do take care of their cars so well you will not see a rust bubble anywhere. Others are very well acquainted with how rust works and do flush their cars with fresh water after driving on treated roads. Some go the mile of rust-proofing their cars using some bitumen compounds to ease up the rust process.
Checking a car before buying is a bit hard since we only depend on pictures from the internet. If you have access to someone who can check for you before buying then it’s always better. If you cannot however, check to see on the pictures if the fenders, doors, boot lids and bonnets do not have rust bubbles. That would be the first sign of more infection underneath.
It becomes dangerous to drive a car that has rust bubbles everywhere. Imagine this, if you can see the rust on the body what more the parts that you cannot see. A lot of these cars from UK usually suffer from suspension failure — coil springs and leaf springs breaking due to rust. It is advisable to do a suspension overhaul on most of these cars when they land. It saves you in the long run and increases your safety as well as that of other road users.
High end cars however, suffer less rust infections mainly because they are rust-proofed better than the cheaper cars.
However, that does not mean they are immune to rust unless they are made from aluminium like some of the late model Audis. A simple thing like chipped paint to the metal can start it all, now it all depends on how careful previous owners were with the car. Some people still enjoy a good run from the UK imports but just be careful when buying.
One thing to keep in mind when importing a car from the UK or even Japan is that these cars are grey imports meaning they are cars that are not originally meant for Africa but for the European market or Japanese market. That said, it also brings into play the fact that these cars do not have the same specs as the cars meant for Africa. You may find that they have better specs and better equipment but that also means the approved dealers here do not cater for them.
Grey imports usually have different engines from the ones available locally and I will give an example. A Nissan Hardbody Wolf originally comes with the ZD30 engine on the diesel platform but the UK version — the Nissan Navara has the YD25 diesel motor. This poses one problem, locally, people are not well acquainted with the YD25 and people have problems with them. This also has something to do with climate, different climates have different engines recommended for them by the manufacturer. Different engines perform differently in different climates. Quality of fuels also comes into play. That may also add to the list of reasons why some of these cars are just a headache for us in Africa.
What’s your experience with UK cars?
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