Car accidents are an unfortunate fact of life. With millions of drivers on the Nigerian roads every day, many of them distracted by phone calls, bad-mouth passenger :-D , bad weather, lack of sleep, or drunkeness crashes are inevitable. Luckily, most of these accidents are relatively minor and nobody gets injured.

But a minor accident can seriously damage the outside of your car. Areas like the fenders and doors are especially susceptible to damage.

While it's generally the insurance company's job to get your car patched up and back on the road when this happens, there are a few things you should know in order to ensure that your car is properly fixed.

1. You can choose the body/ repair shop

Insurance companies can refer you to shops that they work with, but ultimately you can choose who does the work. Most insurance-recommended body shops are reputable and perform high-quality repairs, but there are a few bad eggs out there that cut corners to get the job done faster and cheaper. These shops will entice insurance adjusters with lower repair costs, but that could result in a shoddy repair. Before agreeing to get your car fixed at an insurance-recommended shop, do some research online by searching Yelp or other sites with small business reviews. You could try Wisdom Autos, they're a Lagos based auto repair company based at Aswani in Oshodi. I did a job with them once and I've been referring my people to them ever since; my friends haven't been dissatisfied since.

2. Avoid aftermarket parts

When you take your car in for repair, you should inquire about the replacement parts that are being used by the auto repair shop. Auto repair shops may use new original parts, used parts or aftermarket parts. While used parts were made by your vehicle manufacturer and perform as well as new original parts, aftermarket parts are often cheap imitations with inferior quality. These parts can corrode, rattle and ultimately diminish your car's value. If you do not trust your ato repairer to get excellent parts for you, you can try NGspareparts, an auto spare parts store with it's own online store where you can choose what you want and/ or send the link to your auto repairer to buy.

3. Carefully examine paint match

All too often, you see cars on the road with body panels that don't match in colour. For your body work, matching a newly painted body panel to the rest of your car is a difficult challenge, and sometimes there can be a big, obvious difference in shade. When you pick up your car from the body shop, ask which panels are original and which ones were painted. Step back ten feet from the car and see if there's a difference in colour. If there is, there may be additional paint work necessary to get a better match.

4. Check warning lights

After an accident, there are a number of warning lights that may turn on in your dashboard. These can include the airbag light, the low coolant light, the check engine light and others. When you pick up your finished car, make sure all of the problems have been corrected and none of the lights are illuminated. Illuminated lights can indicate that your car's on-board computer may need to be reprogrammed, or that certain electrical components need replacement. Make sure your auto repairer clears all these errors before you hit the road again.

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