'Buy vehicles from only authorised dealers and local manufacturers' - NADDC advises

The Director General of the

Speaking to newsmen, Jalal urged motorists to buy cars from these sources because of the benefits, such as warranty and recall services.

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He referred to the recent recall of nearly 1.6 million Toyota models, adding that only cars bought from the forementioned sources would benefit from these recall services.

“Automotive manufacturers have devised warranty, recall services and some special service campaigns to replace or repair parts of vehicles that have been found to be faulty. Toyota manufactures over 80 million vehicles annually and sends to different countries. So, they have records of where they send these cars.When these faults come they check their records. When they find a vehicle is sent to Nigeria, they will contact Toyota Nigeria to which they sell to. Toyota Nigeria in turn will contact the distributors they have sent it to, and the distributor will contact the owners/buyers. Then they will recall and do the recall services.In fact, last year Toyota actually recalled some vehicles to replace those airbags. The problem we have in Nigeria is that for new cars, only half of them come through the authorised distributors.About half of the new cars are what is called grey imports. People just go to , buy cars and bring them. When those vehicles are subject to recall, all the companies know is that they have sent those cars to America or Dubai.So, they contact the Dubai or America office about the recall, and then that man you bought it from in America will try to contact you. But if you are here in Nigeria he cannot contact you. So, you cannot have recall because nobody has your information on that vehicle.That is why we tell people buy from authorised distributors or Nigerian manufacturers. With that you are sure you can have warranty or recall service.’"