Exploring Zimbabwe - Cars

As I continued to explore Zimbwawe, I got a chance to speak with a few people about the country, and guess what I discovered? So Zim being a landlocked country, meaning they do not have a sea or port, they get to import their cars through Tanzania or South African ports. For a landlocked country though, they do have a lot of cars for sale. I have seen a good number of showrooms in Harare as we commuted towards the city center.

Most of the cars that I have seen around here are Toyotas, Hondas and Nissans. Unlike Tanzania, we seem to lean towards Toyotas more than other brands. But lately, I have been seen a few more Mazdas around. It's interesting how Toyotas are heavily available in Tanzania you would think we manufacture those babies. I too am guilty of making Toyotas prominent in TZ because I own one. 

Talking about Honda cars in Zim, they predominantly use Honda Fit as a shared taxi, and boooy are they tiny when 6 to 8 people get in them. I got to experience that first hand. For some reason though, people just don't mind squeezing in for a ride. 

I used to tell my sister how affordable Toyotas are in TZ compared to the US, when she came back, she understood what I meant. She saw every Toyota you could possibly see on this planet in a matter of a week. My African dream safari.

Buying a Car in Bongo vs USA

Hey y'all, 

So, my car was in an accident in December last year, and it was totaled. I was in a mixed state of emotion when I got the news, was the driver okay and how bad is it? Thank goodness the driver's injuries were not so bad, a broken wrist, bruises and a load of pain. For me though, the craziness started when I had to look for a replacement car, it was such a painful experience and I almost cried a few times. I know, I can be dramatic sometimes, but I have every right to feel frustrated and sad because I am so used to the way things work when looking for a cars for sale in Tanzania, life is less hectic when you know how to go about things and in TZ things are straightforward as far as I can tell and have experienced. 

For instance, buying my first car was easy-peasy, even though I bought it from someone and not from a dealership, I was able to grab a mechanic from his office, go with him to the seller for a test drive and do a mechanic evaluation on the car before I bought it. I tried to go the same route here and it sucked big time. First of all, mechanics are super busy on daily basis, and even when I decided to go to a physical nearby mechanic shop - I was never serviced because I didn't have an appointment, LIKE REALLY? How can I schedule an appointment in advance? How am I am to know if I will go look for a car on a particular day and like it and want to take it to a mechanic?  And I know this is an issue because I am trying to buy a car from a person and not a dealership as I believe it's better that way (especially if you don't want to get into the monthly payment business from big dealerships - I blame that on me being broke by the way). 

But even when I went to cash only dealerships, they had a 90 days warranty, they would not return my cash if anything goes wrong with the car, but they would fix whatever problem that rises up, but they would not give me a different car.

I remember buying my second car from Japanese car dealers and all I had to do was go to the bank, make the transfer and pick up my car at the dealership. The sales man guaranteed me the car was great and if anything went wrong in 3 months, they would fix the car but if the problem is sever they would give me a different car, or give me back my cash (which never happens anyway coz they have plenty of cars to exchange with), but how cool is that? You can even get a car imported from Japan through Japanese car importers.

And another challenge is, Japanese cars  are super expensive here. I mean, they do deserve to be expensive because they are durable and all, but maaaan, you could pay $5000 for a 2008 Honda civic with 200,000 miles and pay $2800 on a Volkswagen 2008 with 130,000 miles. It's an interesting challenge buying a car here I tell ya.

I gave up on the whole process and decided to wait for a miracle, like literally, I am waiting on a car miracle because I don't want to pay for a car that will die on me just because I didn't have a mechanic look at it, or end up spending $$$ every month to fix a car. Then I might as well go to Carmax and buy a good car and do a monthly payment and get over with it. But such is life, we live and we learn.