Due to my nature of business I happen to have loads of calls daily from prospective clients here, and in some cases on some of our nigerian used cars, we experience something which i find very irritating, and annoying from customers. I will elucidate below:

A buyer calls you for a NIGERIAN USED car, and after discussing on the price and duration of use he/she asks one last question "Has the car been sprayed before". You answer "Yes, it has been re-sprayed", and the next-thing you hear is that the buyer is no longer interested in the car due to the respray done to the car.
This notion I have also heard other dealers complain about both online and offline. Its so not sensible to me why someone who wants to buy has used a car for say over a year in lagos(with the mad driving okada's and KEKE-NAPEPs)
Now, I would like to clarify-on and discuss this:

Does spraying a car mean the car is bad or not a good buy? Why will spraying a car de-value it, does polishing a shoe make the shoe bad?

They think it has been in a wreck, so there could be hidden problems.

Sultaan,
95% of the time that is true !
Off course there is also the colour change out - white to another colour .
And the negligible pimping for neatness.

Piedpiper, most times, a lot of sellers i know just feel the need to 'refresh' the look of their car by respraying it not because its been involved in any form of accident.

Siena:

Sometimes, [size=15pt][color=#000099]it's best to sell an automobile with honestly-derived scratches and minor dents, that way prospective buyers know what they're getting[/size]. A respray can either be for cosmetic purposes, or can also hide a multitude of sins.
.[/color]

True, its the best way to sell a car, but trust me many buyers will come and tell you they wont buy the car in such a state or those that will even want to buy will start claiming they have to STILL SPRAY it themselves so why not sell the car HALF your asking price. Sometimes, some buyers can really be insincere/double standard all to get massive discount, and its a very irritating scenario to find oneself

Siena:


Personally, I'm really fussy about my automobile - if I'm interested in an automobile, and I find it's had a colour change, I might decline to buy it. If the colour change involved stripping the car completely - lights, bumpers, glass, doors, fenders, hood and trunk, along with all body trim, then I'll be interested, and complete the purchase.

That's actually the professional way of spraying.

I am yet to see a car that is used in Nija for a year without any dent from Okadas, danfo and that glorified Okada called Keke Napep. I don't see anything wrong in re spraying such a car before selling. The truth is that most Nija buyers wants the best but they are not ready to pay extra cash for it. If yuo place an accidented car from overseas that was refurbished and resprayed here side-by-side with a well mentained Nija used car that is also resprayed, they'll be willing to cough out extra 700k to buy the Tokunbo car. Most people don't realise that it makes a lot of economic sense in buying Naija  used car. As long as I have a trusted mechanic who can confirm that the car is in a perfect condition, I don't care whether it is resprayed or not cause I don't use a car up to 3 yrs before I sell off.

For exaple, I bought a Nija used car at 650k some years back while its Tokunbo goes for 1.1m. Spent about 70k to refurbish it and after using it for a year, a colleague offered me 750k and I sold it to him. Would've lost a lot of money if I had bought it as Tokunbo. A pastor jus offered me an SUV at about 800k cheaper than it's Tokunbo counterpart and I discovered after inspection that this SUV has everything U'll find in a Tokunbo. should I change my my mind cause it had been resprayed during its 2 yrs of use in Nija? No. Why bother whether it has been resprayed or not when it is obvous that you can hardly use it up to 6 months without paying a visit to the spray painter? This doesn't make any sense to me.