Why you should not leave your car at garages for long

MOTORING 

Taking your car to a garage for repairs is a given due to the wear and tear of parts and sometimes as a result of an accident.

Most trusted mechanics will tell you to take your car to a garage only when you have the money and spare parts to fix it.

Otherwise, you could live to regret a hasty decision to abandon your car for weeks on end at a garage.

William Busuulwa, a Kampala businessman, is one of the many people who have paid a high price for leaving a car at a garage for several months.

"A couple of years ago, the gear box of my Toyota Corona ST 190 became faulty and I left the car at a garage.

Since I did not have money on me, I told the mechanic I would return when I got the money. In the meantime, I decided to use my second car to get around. When I went back 11 months later, the car was in a sorry state," Busuulwa says.

"It could not start, the battery was dead. The car seats had oil, the fuse box was almost empty, the tyres were flat and had developed patches," he says.

On top of footing the bill for the gearbox, he also had to pay for missing car parts, panel beating and spraying.

The engine, on closer inspection, was now smoking, so the piston rings had to be replaced.

"I had thought about selling off this car while it was still in the garage, but it was now too late as it had depreciated considerably. Since I had to inject in a lot of money in repairs, I decided to keep it," Busuulwa says.

Motorists have different stories of how their vehicles depreciated in garages.

Gonzaga Ssabaggala, the proprietor of Bannabuddu Service Garage in Namasuba-Lufuka zone, off Entebbe Road, says some vehicles are abandoned in garages for decades.

"Most garages are situated on rented premises. Any car brought to the garage eats up the little space available and it is not strange to find such cars being used to store tool boxes and car parts," Ssabaggala says.

Other mechanics even keep their personal belongings like shoes and clothes in these cars. Since it is stationary, it begins to depreciate faster than if it was on road.

Some mechanics, he adds, resort to stealing parts of the car and selling them off to other people who bring their cars for repair.

James Kabali, another mechanic in Katwe, Kampala, says it is always better to leave your car at home or in another secure place, other than a garage if you do not plan to repair it immediately.

He says some unscrupulous people pluck off number plates from vehicles in garages, while others remove them and return them after fulfilling the missions.

Advice

James Kabali, a mechanic in Katwe, Kampala, says it is always better to leave your car at home or in another secure place other than a garage if you do not plan to repair it immediately.