Even if your car doesn’t come with 470 HP and Wi-Fi connectivity, your car is the biggest and most expensive gadget you own.

The Nigeria auto-industry is saturated with large number of mechanics who have little experience on car repairs or sometime driven by excessive profit motives to become deceitful. As such, unless a car owner changes his or her vehicle as often as a MacBook, keeping that ride in peak operating condition is as well as keeping repair costs down over its lifespan becomes very vital.

Here are 4 insights compiled by Autofactorng, an online retail store for sales of quality auto spare parts to make sure that a N5,000 brake job doesn’t cost you a N50, 000 leak in your checking account.

1. Trial and error

A large number of mechanics have little experience and knowledge about the well-being of cars. Working on modern vehicles demands unprecedented talent and training. In the bid to fix the problem, more problems arise.

2. Charging for unnecessary repairs

A mechanic diagnoses a problem, repairs it and – surprise, surprise – the problem is still there. They then re-diagnose it as a different problem and repair that. Eventually, the mechanic repairs the original defect but charges the customer for all the repairs. In some other instances, the mechanic is fully aware of other faults in your vehicle but will keep mute so as to get you to come back and pay more.

3. Misdiagnosing something that is not faulty

Sometimes to pad their bills, mechanics will tell a customer non-defective parts need to be replaced. Your brakes need to be resurfaced? They’ll tell you to get them replaced. Other parts on the car can be repaired? They’ll suggest replacement. Like unnecessary repairs, unneeded parts being sold to you are also a trick for major extortion.

4. Purchase of inferior parts

Mechanics in Nigeria are in this habit. The car owner pays for authentic parts for repairs, they will not only double the price of parts, they go as far as getting inferior parts which will eventually cause more damage.

Korede Ogunseinde is an auto blogger at Autofactorng