Buying a car for your folks

The first-generation 5-door Suzuki Vitara costs less but gets you more of a car and is cheaply available with an optional V6 engine. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • No need to saddle your parents with a manual.
  • Beware of someone trying to palm off a former wreck or write-off on you in the name of “expatriate leaving”.
  • At this price range, you are most likely looking at a Toyota Corolla 110.
  • A first-generation Suzuki Vitara JLX is also your best 4x4 bet at that price range.

Hi Baraza,
I would like your advice on car options for a small budget of about Sh400,000. I would like to buy a car for my parents who are elderly and live upcountry in western Kenya. They don’t travel much except for occasional trips to the hospital or other small errands. Roads in my home area are mostly murram. What would you suggest as the best option for them? 
Nelima

Hi Nelima,
There is a stage — and state — in one’s existence where the privilege of choice is denied and the best one can do is pick the least unsuitable option and run with it.

This is the exact situation one finds oneself in when shopping for a Sh400,000 car; I should know, because that was me two years ago. There are some rules of thumb to follow when faced with your slightly unique set of circumstances and here they are:

1. Focus on known brands that have a strong reputation for robustness and resistance to age.

In other words: Toyota. At this price range, you are most likely looking at a Corolla 110, in fairly good nick. You say the roads are murram but you had not specified how bad. Smooth murram like inside Tsavo West, or a car-breaking moonscape like the Namanga-Meshanani trial-by-fire?

If it is particularly tragic, you might need something a little more gnarly but for this you will sacrifice whatever little factory sheen might still be left on a first-generation Suzuki Vitara JLX, because this is your best 4x4 bet at that price range. You could even land a V6 if you are lucky, I’ve seen a few in the 400-450 range.

2. Get an automatic.
No need to saddle your parents with a manual; manuals are for strapping youths who enjoy the challenges of grappling with a row-your-own transmission because it gives them a sense of achievement against an increasingly difficult world to stand out in, so they take what little victories they can get from the daily slog, even if the victory is as mundane as a jerk-free shift from first into second at 4000rpm.

Your parents don’t need this existential crisis nonsense (Save the manuals!); they have lived their lives, achieved what they had to achieve — including progeny with hearts big enough to buy them a car in their twilight years, which is no mean feat in itself — and just want a peaceful and stress-free means of getting from A to B on small runs. Automatics fill that gap well.

3. Avoid complexity.
The simpler the vehicle, the better. Basic creature comforts like power windows and power assisted steering are, of course, desirable, but you don’t need pointless extras like swivelling headlamps, radar- guided cruise control or adjustable ride heights. These will fail, sooner rather than later, if you find a vehicle so specced for that kind of outlay.

This point ties in with point No. 1 above: cars known for reliability are a much safer bet than showy, glowy, techy Eurocentric trinkets formerly owned by disgraced government officials now being sold at throwaway prices on auction in a bid by an embattled finance institution to recover some of the loans it unwisely advanced under a former regime (this sometimes happens).

4. Don’t rush the purchase.
You might feel a need for urgency in getting them a vehicle but this is what traps buyers into shelling out their hard-earned money on a ramshackle concealing fatal flaws under a new paint job. The older cars become, the more issues they tend to have, so a keen and discriminating eye is your prerogative when checking potential purchases for acquisition.

The used-car scene is a buyer’s market in foreign lands but in Kenya, we are yet to discover conventional logic and people still price vehicles like they were invented a few months ago despite strong indicators that it is not, in fact, a seller’s market out there. Beware of someone trying to palm off a former wreck or write-off on you in the name of “expatriate leaving”.

Just be careful and take your time. Let your parents get what they deserve, which is a functional vehicle, and not yet another money pit when they should be enjoying a peaceful retirement. All the best with your search.