TOYOTA GHANA

Welcome to the growing group of value conscious people who drive Toyotas. We are proud of the advanced engineering and quality construction of each manufactured Toyota vehicle, well generally most people are of the view that Toyota is Toyota. Its performance would always be good irrespective of where the vehicle is being used. This may not be necessarily so. The reason being that, depending on the region where the vehicles would ultimately be used, Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) puts additional quality features for the vehicle to withstand the peculiar territorial situation.

Some of the criteria considered by TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION, Japan are as follows:

FUEL - Generally, fuel quality and composition differ from country to country and in some cases region to region.

GASOINE ENGINES - For gasoline in general there are two basic categorization-leaded and unleaded fuel. At the moment Ghana uses unleaded fuel.

However, the octane rating for instance in the unleaded fuel for Ghana, is lower than that of most fuel in developed countries that serves as alternative source of imported Toyota vehicles. Other parameters for gasoline such as peroxide content, sulphur, unwashed gum, oxidation stability are important factors that affect the performance of vehicles. Now, when vehicles that are not designed with Ghana fuel composition in mind are used, they eventually do not perform satisfactory as those meant for Ghana market.

DIESEL ENGINE - Currently, the sulphur content in Ghana fuel makes it unsuitable to bring several types of diesel engines vehicles into Ghana. At the moment the best diesel engines for Prado and Hilux pick-ups are what Toyota calls “L” engines. This engines withstanding inferior quality grade fuel. Meanwhile vehicle meant for European market uses “IKD and/or 2KD” engines. Generally KD engines operate quietly, but would develop a lot of problems when fuel with high sulphur content and of inferior quality is run on them.

For this reason Toyota at the moment, does not recommend and would not supply Prado with this type of engine to the Ghana market. Again Toyota cannot offer warranty on such vehicles.

WEATHER CONDITIONS - TOYOTA produces vehicles specifically suited to a particular market. Moving vehicles from one region to another can result in problems. As an example, vehicles manufactured by TOYOTA for Ghana market has bigger sized water radiators as against smaller sized radiator tanks for European market. On the other hand, some countries have Dry Running Light (DRL) system as very important standard requirements due to the rather low visibility, even during the day. So clearly, there is specification variation due to the weather condition, among others.

ROAD CONDITIONS - TOYOTA sells vehicles to different markets depending on the nature of roads in that market. Vehicle for Toyota Ghana are equipped with rough road (using) package. An entire design package for reinforced suspension, heavy duty shock absorbers, increase of vehicle ground clearance etc. Bear with us that the road conditions I Ghana are not suitable for cars manufactured for use in Europe and America. Such vehicle may initially perform satisfactory but would deteriorate quickly with time.

COMPONENT REPAIRS vrs REPLACEMENT - Toyota designs some vehicle components for certain territories with provisions for repairs whilst for other territories, particularly areas with high labour cost (e.g. Europe) have no provisions for repairs. That is to say, one has to remove and replace the entire damaged components. Below are some listed examples:

Power steering vane pump: Ghana spec usually has repair kit that makes repairs cost lower, (as explained earlier, in Ghana, cost of repairs is much cheaper than cost of replacement)
Steering Rack: Ghana specification usually has repair kit.

The Ghana specification usually has recalculating ball type that is suitable for rough road usage. Some non Ghana spec has rack and pinion type that makes driving a bit more comfortable but nor suitable for rough road usage.

Above are few reasons why it is advisable to purchase from Toyota Ghana. We are the ONLY distributors in Ghana authorized by Toyota Motor Corporation to import vehicles that are approved by Toyota Motor Corporation, Japan as suitable for Ghana market.

Generally, the level of breakdown for non Ghana standard spec vehicle in Ghana would obviously be higher than the Ghana standard spec vehicles. Also, the performance may eventually be lower than expected. This means, the overall maintenance cost as well as inconvenience would be high, not forgetting the increased safety risk.

There are also other difficulties associated with maintenance delay and increased cost resulting from space parts non-availability during repair and maintenance; slow repair due to non-availability of repair manual etc.

Spare parts needed for major repairs on such non-Ghana specification vehicles are mostly not stocked by TOYOTA GHANA. Customer may have to obtain the spare part by himself/herself with support from TOYOTA GHANA

In case the customer wants the parts urgent, it could be air-lifted but of course, would be about twice or three times the normal cost.

Repair manuals and specifications needed for professional repairs of these vehicles may also not be readily available in Ghana. Until the correct repair manual is obtained technicians both at TOYOTS GHANA and elsewhere would not be able to repair the vehicle to the manufacture’s standard repair procedures. When repair manuals are not available, repair by trials is usually adopted. Note however that such repairs can result in major damaged to your vehicle.

Special service tools play a very important role in the repair of vehicles. The special service tools for non-Ghana model may not be available resulting in long delays of repairs.

Also technicians from TOYOTA GHANA receive continuous training and information from TOYOTA but these are limited to only models sold by TOYOTA GHANA.

We all need to be reminded often that we use vehicles regularly, if not all the time. We cannot overlook the fact that vehicle controls human safety and life. We therefore need to get vehicles suitable for our use.

We advice customers to purchase from sources approved by the vehicle manufacturer.