It’s Just a Small Noise": The Psychology of Ignoring Car Repairs

The volume knob is the most dangerous tool in your car

You know the moment I am talking about. You are driving home from work, inching through the traffic at the Lekki Toll Gate. The AC is humming against the humidity. Then you hear it. A faint clicking sound from the front left tire.

Click. Click. Click.

It is rhythmic. It speeds up when you accelerate. It is annoying.

But then you look at the date. It is the 12th of the month. Salary is still two weeks away. You have school fees to pay. You have a generator to service.

So you reach for the volume knob. You turn up the Burna Boy. The clicking disappears under the bassline. You relax. You tell yourself it is probably nothing. Just a stone stuck in the tire tread. You will check it on Saturday.

Saturday comes and goes. You do not check it.

This is not just laziness. This is a psychological defense mechanism. In Nigeria, we practice a form of selective deafness. If we acknowledged every rattle, squeak, and groan our cars made on these roads, we would never leave the mechanic’s workshop.

But physics does not care about your denial. That small noise is not a nuisance. It is a countdown.

The Anatomy of a Catastrophe

Let us dissect what that "small clicking noise" usually is.

In a front-wheel-drive car, which covers about 80% of the vehicles on Lagos roads (Corollas, Camrys, Accords), that clicking sound when you turn the steering wheel is almost always a Constant Velocity (CV) joint failing.

Inside that joint, there are steel ball bearings packed in grease, covered by a rubber boot. When that rubber boot tears, maybe from a piece of debris on the Epe Expressway, the grease leaks out. Dirt gets in. The friction starts to grind the steel balls down.

Here is the math of ignorance.

To replace a CV boot when it first tears costs about ₦5,000. To replace the CV joint when it starts clicking costs about ₦25,000.

But you turned up the radio.

Two weeks later, you are making a U-turn at Anthony, and the clicking stops. It is replaced by a violent snap. The axle separates from the wheel. Your car drops onto the asphalt. You lose steering control.

If you are lucky, you are moving slowly. If you are unlucky and doing 80km/h, you flip the car.

Now you are looking at a bill for a new driveshaft, a lower control arm, a fender, and a towing van. Total cost? Conservatively ₦350,000.

You turned a ₦25,000 problem into a ₦350,000 disaster because you were afraid of the mechanic.

The Fear of the Bill

I have interviewed hundreds of car owners in this city. The number one reason people ignore noises is not a lack of time. It is financial anxiety.

We live in an economy where liquidity is tight. You have the money, but it is tied up. Or you have the money, but you are terrified that the mechanic will open the engine and find something worse.

So we wait. We pray. We hope the noise goes away.

However, mechanical wear is exponential. A worn brake pad (₦20,000) eventually eats into the brake disc (₦120,000). A leaking radiator hose (₦3,000) leads to an overheated engine and a warped cylinder head (₦400,000+).

The noise is your car begging you to save your own wallet.

The Lag of Maintenance

Data from Nigerian auto markets suggests that 60% of engines replaced in Ladipo are not replaced due to old age. They are replaced due to negligence.

We treat maintenance as an event. We fix the car when it stops moving. But maintenance is supposed to be a process.

The Japanese engineers who built your Toyota designed it to last for 500,000 kilometers. But they assumed you would change the timing chain tensioner when it started rattling. They assumed you would replace the water pump when it started whining.

When you ignore these cues, you are treating a precision machine like a wheelbarrow.

The Rabbar Intervention

This is where Rabbar Africa changes the dynamic. We looked at this psychology of fear. We realized that if we removed the immediate financial shock, people would fix their cars sooner.

We introduced Installmental Auto Services to strip away the anxiety.

Imagine that same scenario with the CV joint. You hear the clicking. Instead of turning up the radio, you contact Rabbar.

We send a technician to your office or home. We confirm the CV joint is failing. The quote is ₦35,000 for parts and labor with genuine components.

You do not have ₦35,000 spare cash right now.

With Rabbar, that does not matter. You pay a fraction of the cost today. We fix the car immediately. You pay the balance over the next few weeks.

The car is safe. The noise is gone. You did not have to break your monthly budget. You stopped the countdown before it hit zero.

Listen to Your Car

Lagos is loud. The generators are loud. The Danfos are loud. The markets are loud.

Your car is likely the only quiet place you have. When it starts to speak to you, listen.

That whine when you accelerate? That is your power steering pump dying. That squeal when you start the engine in the morning? That is your serenity belt slipping. That low rumble that gets louder with speed? That is a wheel bearing about to seize.

Do not touch the volume knob. Touch your phone. Send a message to Rabbar. Fix the small noise while it is still small. Your savings account will thank you.