Grappling with high-tech cars, the auto-mechanics’ way

The cause of the car’s problem is ironically what was meant to be an advantage for it, high-tech. According to Idowu, the engine became bad when the local electricians used the wrong, crude approach to repair an electric fault in it. “The electricians here,” Idowu explained, “touch wire against the battery head to know if […]

The cause of the car’s problem is ironically what was meant to be an advantage for it, high-tech. According to Idowu, the engine became bad when the local electricians used the wrong, crude approach to repair an electric fault in it. “The electricians here,” Idowu explained, “touch wire against the battery head to know if power gets there. Once the battery sparks, something has been destroyed in its brain box because it uses diode (electronic current converter) in its brain box.”

He said the breakdown could have been averted if they had used detection machine. “Even a machine can detect fault in this one as it is. The machine will tell you this or that place.”

This is the problem auto-mechanics in Nigeria grapple with when dealing with high-tech cars. The detection machine that will save them costly crude methods is not cheap either.

“It is not common,” the tall mechanic said with a tinge of uncertainty. “It is becoming available gradually, but the likes of us cannot afford it. Now it is almost N250, 000 or N300,000. That of N50,000   is not efficient because if a car has a fault now, it can be saying the tire should be changed.”

“It is just like a laptop. It will just be plugged to the lighter socket. It will then be communicating. We were repairing a Pathfinder that slowed down on its way to Lokoja and the detector said we should change the tires.  Truly, the tires were in bad shape, but to me here in Nigeria I don’t think a tire can cause a car not to move. But the machine explained that if the car moves beyond that speed, the tires could burst and could cause accident. That was why we accepted. Each tire was bought for 45,000 naira.”

The models and their problems

For the Skoda 2009 model, Johnson Obasi, a thickset mechanic at Apo, Abuja said: “What causes most of the problems is battery. Some of the owners or drivers can remove the battery heads without removing the key. And immediately they do something like that, the problem has started. For such cars, before you remove the battery head, you have to remove the key because the key itself is computerized. So, when it is there and it is working with the sensor, if you remove the battery head without removing the key, the thing will stop. By then we have to use laptop to diagnose it again.”

Secondly, this Touareg 2006 and 2007, they have the same problem. We here, we use our brain to follow it up. Some of them were brought here just from were company.  I worked on it. The problem was the battery. They removed the battery and left the key at the ignition, and the problem started. So, when he came here, by God’s Grace, we used our own brain, got the sensor and changed it. The car became normal. It was a Touareg 2007.

Muhammad Qasim, a mechanic at the Federal Housing Junction at Lugbe, Abuja, said each brand has its peculiarities.

“The most common problem of German cars is wire. When their wires expire, they melt, and the cars breakdown. But if wires are changed, it will be okay. Otherwise, wherever they take the car to, it will not be successfully repaired.”

Reeling out the various brands and the spare parts of brands that can be used interchangeably, Qasim said; “there are things in Peugeot 406 that can be used on Ford.”

Improvisation to the rescue

Muhammad Qasim believes the work of the detecting machine is limited. Spraying a Golf Fuel-pump with an aerosol containing what he called carburetor cleaner, Muhammad said exultantly: “If I buy the detecting machine, it is just to show off.  I have repaired so many cars that the company with machines have failed to repair.”  Then he was done with the spraying. He explained that the fuel-pump had been declared bad. Blowing through it, Muhammad said he has repaired it They took it to the company, he said. But the company doesn’t repair spare part. It always changes them. The customer that had been hitherto weary brightened up. He collected it smiling. But the improvisation is not confined to Muhammad.

“They (the cars) are very, very sensitive as Oyinbo said, but we use our own sense and follow it,” said Johnson Obasi, a thickset mechanic at   Apo, Abuja. “Because we here, we can do something and take it back, not to change. But in companies, they are using all these labs, all these things; their own is ‘remove’. They don’t know how to follow it up and find out whether, this thing, there is any way to do it and use it again.”

“But we here, as this thing is, we know what to do to still use it far more than the original one. This one is break pad. The rubber is bad. So, we remove the rubber. We can store another thing or we put packing. There is how we will do it and it will still give us what we want: we will put something under (it).  There is new one in the market, but that new one, you may put it, and it will not work. A new one, you buy it now, put it and it will not work and you can’t put it back. But this type is Belgium one. It is the normal and original one. So, if we work on it, it will still serve us very well.”

Through the improvisation, Obasi said he saved several customers a lot of money. “He said he spent over 190,000 and nothing happened,” Obasi said of a customer who had spent about a week at an auto-mobile company workshop without results. “But here with just only N6,800, the car moved. He was here this morning to just thank us.”

“There is another one which I forgot, but the man is working with Sahara Company. He has a Skoda, he same problem. He took it to the company. After over a month, the problem wasn’t solved. He brought it here. And in short, I gave him a week. When he came back, he took his car in good condition. He himself said they took 98,000 naira from him. He said he filled form for N10,000 before they admitted the car. At the end of it they charged him 88,000 naira. That is 98,000 altogether. The problem was not solved. When he took the car, the second day the problem started. But by God’s Grace today, he is using the car.”

“They have equipments. They have (spare) parts, but they are not better than us,” he beamed with a smile. “Secondly, they are more educated than we are, but not that they know the work more than us because some of them before they do anything, they go to the catalogue. We just hear the sound and go direct. If a car is jerking they have to go to the catalogue and read. That may take them one or two days. But if you tell me a car is jerking, the easiest thing I will do is to enter the car, drive it listen to the engine, come back and solve the problem.”