In as much as the economy is bad and the purchasing power of Naira is low. Never you buy Nigerian Used cars randomly. Even if the price is cheap except you are familiar with the history of the car. Majority of Nigerian car owners dont maintain their cars. Nigerians dont know that a little stitch in time saves nine.
Why am I writing all this? I recently bought a Nigerian Used sienna from a nairalander through a proxy. I didn't personally inspect the car myself and I blame myself for that. I was told that the engine is Ok, gear Ok, a.c. ok and interior ok. I was deceived by the pictures I was sent. I never knew the windscreen was a little crack. It has scratch all over it's body. I have spent more than 300k for it's minor faults and oven baking it. Yet it can't be compare to a direct toks. I have spent close to the amount for the toks. I have found out that buying Nigerian Used is even more expensive if you factor everything together. I will never advice my enemy to buy Nigerian Used car.
Please always buy direct toks people

You can't tar all sellers of Nigerian used cars with the same brush.

Some imported used vehicles are far, far worse than the car you bought - the buyers of such made the same mistake you made and didn't do their due diligence. Anyway, lesson learned. Life goes on. I hope after all you've spent on it, the vehicle serves you faithfully and for a long period of time...

Op, Volvo60 is very right.

Inspecting a car before buying is important and should never be taken lightly.

I've been there before. I bought a naijabet used car about 7 years ago, within 3month of purchase I almost went mad with repair cost.

OP is right. Most car owners in Nigeria have a very bad vehicle maintenance culture. How in the name of God will any car owner keep a car on the road knowing fully well that it is faulty and will still belief strongly in his or her mind that the car will still get to the predetermined destination.

I sold my 01Corrolla few weeks back because I wanted to upgrade. I decided to take a look at some Nigerian used vehicle advertised here on Nairaland with the assumption that most vehicle owners will be like me, maintenance wise. I was disappointed by the various Scrap being advertised.

When you see the picture of the ride you will trill and when you eventually get to the car for physical inspection, you would almost want to slap both the car owner and dealer for wasting your time and money

Advertising & selling scrap in the name of Naija used seems to be what is trending lately and it is quite sad

Buying Nigerian Used cars is like buying trouble. Everyday wahala. Though not every Nigerian Used cars is bad but the problem is the stress and time to cross check it. How can you
physically inspect about 10 to 20 used Nigerian cars before you find one that u can buy? Is that not time consuming and expensive? Majority of the Nigerian Used cars on car stands and almost everywhere are time bombs. Majority has hidden problems. Even if the engine and gear is good, the minor faults can even be expensive than engine and gear when u sum it up.
In order to have peace of mind, please and please just save till u have money for a good toks.

Nigerian problem is so massive that I don't know where to start. From car owners managing their cars like that cos they want to pass down to cost to their future buyer to the unscrupulous dealers everywhere trying to convince you that someone is about to buy the car and you should hurry up, to even the incompetent Kazeem mechanics that we have that might not diagnosed the problems with it.
Please all this dealers should repent and stop deceiving people. My next car which I will buy this April must be a toks which will hv just minor accident and not flooded.