How friend nearly lost 11 Million buying a Flash Faulty Car, Toyota Harrier in Uganda Africa.

A friend of mine Mark (Not real Name) was coming from Sierra Leone and wanted to buy a car before he arrived in the country, He contacted several people online who showed him several pictures of the cars they had on sale.

When he arrived we visited a number of the vehicles that he had been showed on the internet. There was a Toyota harrier in which he had picked kin interest because it really looked nice in the pictures; Mark thought to himself that it was the car he would settle for. He was so anxious to see it physically that the day before viewing the car he called me late in the night to be in town the following day by 8 a.m. In the morning of the D-day, I found him at the Makerere University main entrance where he told me that he was from test driving a Toyota Premio but he was not that much interested in it!

Anyways Mark hoped into my car and off we went to Living Stone Hall to wait for the supposed lady who was bringing a silver colored Toyata Harrier. We sat patiently until it was 10am! Then we started to wonder whether the lady was coming or not! Mark kept in contact with her via the phone but unfortunately, she later communicated to him that she would be coming with the car at 4pm in the evening! She had disorganized our schedule, all the same we just had to leave and first do other things in the mean time.
My friend Mark was expecting some big wire transfer through money gram but it was also delaying and he had to first receive a confirmation on his phone that the funds had arrived. At 4pm the lady called so we rushed to meet her at Makerere University hall parking. When Mark saw the car from afar off it looked really nice in that excitement he said to me “I need to go to the bank and collect this lady’s money,” when the car finally reached where we were standing, Mark just said a few hellos to the occupants and off he left for the bank.
I stayed behind to inspect the car, the interior looked quiet inviting save for the cracks in the airbag areas i.e on steering wheel and co-driver dash board. Looking critically at the car boot, I noticed a crack in the paint! Then I opened the bonnet my observation led me to a creased front frame as well as the engine cover! At this moment I knew that the so called “nice” car had most probably had a major accident! Immediately I sent my friend Mark a quick text highlighting to him the faults I had observed in the car before he could return.
When he returned, he also double checked and observed the very faults I had highlighted for him.

To our annoyance the lady owner of the car was denying any accident to have happened to the car and yet it was very visible with the naked eyes! Just to find something good on this car, we decided to test drive it, but to our dismay, it was pathetic in its movement on the road! We just simply left in disappointment since it was not as good as we had hoped.

Let me take you back a bit, notice that my dear friend was going to pay this lady for this car even before inspecting it! Had he paid her in advance, the story would have been different.


The next day we made several appointments with car dealers who had the same type of car Toyota harrier , I didn’t even know why on earth Mark was so obsessed about buying a Toyota Harrier! He later told me that he wanted to buy it because it was his Dad’s dream car, and since he would be leaving the car with his dad and that it would be a nice thing for his Dad to drive his dream.

We then meet with this car dealer called Elvis, he showed us a number of Toyata Harriers from which we chose one for a test drive. We first went to a fuel pump and put in some fuel then off we drove. This harrier was really a machine to reckon with, as I drove it, engine sound was perfect, stability and firmness on the road perfect, air conditioning system perfect, radio transmission perfect, but while we were about to finish the test drive, I started to smell some oil fumes and asked my friend Mark and the other people in the car if they could smell the same, but none of them could smell a thing.

We therefore drove back to where we had started our journey so we could finalize with the car price. I properly parked the car and my friend Mark started negotiating the payments, as for me I kept on investigating the smell, so I decided to open the car bonnet to be sure and alas! There was a leak in the engine such that the oil was flowing like a river of water from the car! I hurriedly called my friend Mark to the car spot where I was, so he could see what I was seeing, when he gazed at the Oil leak, I saw disappointment showing on his face! But the car dealer Mr. Elvis confidently insisted that it was a minor leak that he would readily repair and give us back the car. But we insisted that we call our mechanic to inspect the same and agreed that it was a minor leak that he would fix in like 2hrs.

On that note we deposited Ugx3,000,000 (three million Uganda shillings) on the agreed sum of Ugx11,000,000 (eleven million Uganda shillings) whereby we would pay the balance after our mechanic was done with the repairs and the repair cost were to be met by Elvis and us. Little did we know that it was going to take forever.

The rest of that evening we spent in the garage trying to fix that “minor” leakage and then our mechanic tells us that we have to pay extra money for the repair which was far above what he had calculated initially! We told him to just fix back the car engine as it had been and we pay him the initially agreed money so we could take back this car and pick another. To our disappointment, our mechanic had got the contact of the car dealer who in turn sent his mechanic to the garage where the repairs were going on! Oh God I said to myself where is this man’s loyalty.

Now at this time the car engine was out and Elvis had got word of it from his mechanic who in turn called our mechanic and told him not to put back the engine until the said repairs had been properly done. Here we were in “catch22.”

The following morning we had discussions with Elvis and came to an understanding that since his car had several mechanical problems, he would take us back to his car bond and we pick any other car of our choice. To this we were glad that at least we had breathing space to forfeit taking the Toyota Harrier. At his car bond we identified a Toyota Vista which was still in good condition and above all had a VVTi which is a fuel efficient engine. To this we paid up the remaining balance for this newly identified Adeo Toyota Vista after it passed the test drive. We took it for service and some small repairs which we gladly did because we had acquired it at a relatively cheaper price than the first car.
After several experiences now we are able to identify a good car for you.

Dear reader here at africa-uganda-business-travel-guide.com, we have the right consultants to help you acquire that car of your dreams; you’re guaranteed to get your car in excellent working condition and at an affordable price. Call: +256700196417 for assistance with selecting the right Car to buy in Uganda before squandering your hard earned cash. You can also drop us an email here when you’re planning to buy a business car in Uganda.

By Yulio.

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