Why do car garages treat women so badly

[Boldernow]

Ok massive generalisation, but I’m currently waiting for my car to be checked and it’s yet again been such a frustrating and belittling experience. When my husband booked it they were super friendly to him, said it would take no time at all etc, I’ve arrived and dropped the car 2 hours ago, they wouldn’t give me a timeframe of when it would be done, spoke to me like I was an idiot, I just called them and they still haven’t looked at the car. It’s Halfords, this has happened to me at multiple locations so it’s not just one bad one. One time at another location I had an MOT booked, turned up and they said our MOT machine is broken so we can’t do it. By this time everywhere was booked up for MOTs for the next two weeks so I couldn’t get my car done before it ran out. I said to them, your machine has been broken for a week and you didn’t call your customers to let them know so they could book elsewhere? They didn’t even say the word sorry once. I just couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t have let me know earlier or even just that morning before I drove all the way there? Another time at a Farmers Autocare they massively overcharged me for work after an MOT - I was young and it was my first MOT so I think they took their chances, I realised in hindsight how I’d been taken for a massive fool, I had no money at the time so it was a massive blow, and to top it off they all hid in the office and sent out their apprentice to charge me the bill. I felt so humiliated and silly for not knowing better but didn’t feel like I could question it.

I would say I have only ever had 1 good experience at a car garage - Shout out to KJL Motors near Sawston, they were so kind, literally walked me under the car to show me exactly what was wrong with it before I agreed to the work, it was like a whole new world of being treated like a proper person as a customer, so I’ve never forgotten that standard of service that is possible.

Anyway, is it just me? Anyone else get this kind of treatment?

And if you’ve been somewhere in South Buckinghamshire that treated you well please let me know your recommendations!!

I shopped around until I found one that didn't belittle women and stuck with it, even though it's less convenient. They are very polite and professional

Ive never experienced this at a garage before. Easy solution don't go to Halfords. Find a small local garage. More likely to get a good personal service from those type of places. Also avoid kwik fit like the plague as well.

I use a local garage owned by a female - she took it over when her DF died
I would recommend if in my area but she’s so popular it’s hard to get work booked in!

I’ve never had anything like this and I’ve been driving for nearly 50 years.

I had that happen to me years ago we bought a brand new Fiesta and the door lock kept jamming. It went in for repair/adjustment a couple of times. It went in again and still it wouldn't open, when I went it and said it still wasn't fixed the foreman called the apprentice over and told him 'show this lady how to open a car door'. The apprentice couldn't open the door either!!

I was livid and we made a complaint after but nothing came of it. So they then said they were going to order new parts, but we took it elsewhere and they adjusted the rods and the lock was fine then.

These days I would have said something at the time, but I was young and didn't like to cause a fuss

Even OH says that Halfords treat him like crap and he's a bloke. We've only used Halfords a couple of times and both were fiascos, first time their "mechanic" going straight on his lunch hour break at the time our car was booked in because he didn't check the diary, so OH was sat there like a lemon until he came back. Second time, it was to buy and fit a webcam and the fitter screwed it up, scratched the interim trim, broke off a couple of tabs holding trim in place and then tried to argue it was all like that beforehand. Never again!

We should have known better really. When son was small, we bought a couple of bikes from Halfords and both times, they'd been "assembled" wrong, first time a stabiliser fell off because they'd used a bolt too short and second time the entire front wheel came loose because they'd not tightened the nuts enough.

I think it's the place where incompetent people end up after being chucked out from other places.

It's not just mechanics in my experience, it's also builders, plumbers, electricians etc. My mum raised me alone and I couldn't tell you the number of times she got ripped off by these chancer types, who saw a woman struggling in a difficult situation and thought they would capitalise on that by overcharging. It makes me pretty cross. We had a neighbour who used to overcharge her any chance he got for doing DIY bits, whose daughter now finds herself raising a child alone. He actually said to my mum that he makes sure he pops round when she's having work done, so they know there's a man in the background and don't take the piss. I find it pretty disgusting tbh.

I had an Audi TT years ago. My car, for which I paid, registered in my name. When it went to the Audi garage for a service, DH came with me to give me a lift home. Every single male in that place spoke to him. Despite him telling them I was the customer. It happened each time it went in for anything. They also wrote letters addressed to Mr My ( female)Name Our Name.

When I was looking to buy a bigger car I went into a local showroom. There were five men sitting at desks, Not one of them approached me, enquired if he could help. I left. Some months later both of us went again and were ignored until the manager appeared from another area. I bought a car from him, but getting it serviced or looked at was a nightmare. The satnav failed within a month. The battery failed within a couple of months. I waited four hours in their service area- no coffee machine, no information, nothing. Two of our neighbours had the same model and we all refused to use that garage in the end. I got rid of it after two years and part of the reason was their misogynistic, rude and dismissive behaviour.

Some years ago I worked for AXA the insurer. They produced research which showed that for both jobs at home and for cars, women were actually charged more. I think the figure was c 20%. Its a massive area of discrimination.

Stay away from places like halfords.
Go to a local independent one.

I had a patronising experience with Halfords many years ago as a young woman. Went in there, accompanied by my boyfriend of the time. The mechanic proceeded to ignore me completely and insisted on talking to the boyfriend. Not only was it my car, the boyfriend didn't drive. Even though the boyfriend explained this, the mechanic still refused to talk to me. I got the job done elsewhere.

These days I use a small, local garage in my village and I find them very good.

I had to ring around a few garages recently and was disgusted at how patronising some of the men were. Luckily I use the mechanic that's been servicing our family's cars for years and he's not like that at all.

I'm also a biker, and even mentioned to DH that in all the years of me going to bike mechanics, shops etc. I've never been patronised or spoken to like that. There's an element of respect between everyone.

I have never experienced this, although I live in Europe, not the UK.
I am only on the 3rd car I have ever owned (been driving nearly 50 years), but have never owned a car in the UK as I either drove one of my parents' cars or had a company car.
I have only ever bought 1 car completely new, this was years ago. I took it for its first service and was invited to view it on the ramp as well as being asked if I had had any issues with it. Polite, friendly and totally not condescending.
I have been with my current garage now for over 20 years, they take immense care with my car and I can ring them any time and usually get a slot within 24 hours.
I would suggest, much like hairdressers, that you find somewhere that suits your requirements and cultivate a good, working relationship.

A lot of garages nowadays, like a lot of places, have become about making as much money as possible, rather than their actual 'fixing a car' purpose.
I vividly remember a gent showing me the washer fluid resovoir in my car, telling me it was low (it was) and suggesting that that'd require looking at.
Alarmed, and misled, i paid to have it looked at.

A friend later pointed out, not entirely kindly, my error. We were all 18, at uni, and i was livid.
Not quite to the point of marching back up the road mind, but since then i've had a fault reader in the garage, and a bit of knowledge about the basics. It's got me out of the worst of the unecessary repairs.

All that aside, it's shit to have to research a topic, just to avoid being ripped off and misled by people who should be helping.

A main dealer (Honda), once charged me on a year old car to re-gas the aircon. I complained. First response was "yes, please do not think this will need doing every time". I then complained direct to Honda that work had been done when not required. I got a refund.

My car is ancient so I take it to a tiny local garage who are great. A friend insists on taking her car to a main dealer and then complains about how expensive it is and how many ‘extra jobs’ they find each time!

You would think if a car was booked in for brakes, it would be the first thing they would check wouldn't you? I didn't have any dashboard alerts either.

I do agree on the course. I'd love to do a basic mechanics thing. Shouldn't ruddy have to the prices garages charge.

If I'd had caused a pile up on the A19 I'm sure it would have been a comfort that the problem couldn't be replicated in a garage another post said. Despite you could hear the problem while driving and coming up the street. Maybe mechanics are all deaf as well

Sadly, I've found that the women can be just as bad, particularly the female sales staff and the service/reception staff. When we bought our last new car, at our nearest franchised dealership, it was a female salesperson who homed in on us first as we looked around the showroom and I thought we may get a better service, but she was awful - very patronising and wouldn't listen to what we wanted, couldn't understand why we needed a test drive as the car we were wanting to buy was just an updated version of our existing car and she patronised us by saying all the controls were in the same place! We ended up in a franchise in the next county where a young lad salesperson was exceptionally good with us, very patient, listened to us, let us have three different versions of the same car to test drive, and that's where we bought it.

But the reception/service women are usually awful. That's not just one franchise, it's three, as we have three different makes of car in our family. The front desk havn't a clue and won't go and ask for advice, so a couple of times we ended up paying for a "inspection" with the answer that what we told them was wrong is what they diagnosed after paying £130 for their inspection. Front desk people wouldn't let us book in to repair/replace what we knew was wrong as they simply didn't believe us. We started by-passing them by asking for the parts department, where you can actually talk directly to someone who knows what they're talking about. We did that when our entire heating system failed - the service reception were quoting something stupid like £1500 for an entire system, but we phoned and asked for the part dept and got a really helpful bloke who basically diagnosed the problem over the phone just by us explaining the problem and then raised a quote for the cost of the parts (which he discounted) and then a quick internal phone call to the service manager he added a pre-agreed discounted fitting fee - ended up less than £500 and it worked perfectly.

Similar happened when we recently wanted 4 new alloy wheels for our new car as the ones fitted upon manufacture were pretty naff. Went along to franchise garage service reception and the woman tapped away at her computer and told us there were only two types - the ones already fitted and an alternative which they quoted £3000 for, which didn't even look nice. We went away and researched ourselves to find styles we liked and then went back a few days later to ask for the parts manager, who came down, with his laptop, and found us a page full of alternative styles, some as low as £1500 for the set, fully fitted. He said he had to "be a bit clever" to by pass the accessories page on the website and choose a different make/model of car where his personal knowledge knew they were the same dimensions etc.

Sometimes the reception/service desk staff may appear "nicer" but they often simply don't have the ability nor experience for anything other than the basics/routine stuff.

We have pretty much the opposite experience. My partner always complains about garages being rude to him whereas I rock up with a beaming smile, flirt a little and have nothing but good things to say about all the garages in my area. I always assume that boys engage in dick measuring contests which is why they always complain about garages being short with them.
The only exception is... Halfords. They are not rude exactly, just aloof.

@gamerchick

Maybe mechanics are all deaf as well

To be fair, I don't think anyone listens any more and it seems everyone is over-confident that they know better. Just had a run in with the NHS this morning. They screwed up my OH's chemotherapy medication AGAIN (they screw it up every month), and the women on the phone just wouldn't let me get a word in - she just kept trotting off the same thing, completely ignoring what I was trying to say - she clearly thought she was right and me and my OH were geriatrics who hadn't a clue. When I finally managed to get her to listen, after about 10 minutes of her constantly repeating herself, I managed to get her to realise that she (or her dept) had got the starting date wrong, the drugs were in the wrong place for collection, the "appointment" she claimed we'd missed had never been communicated to us, and that they couldn't issue the chemo yet anyway because he hadn't even had his blood test! So basically everything she was trying to say was wrong. No apologies, just huffs and puffs when she finalised realised we were right and she (her dept) were completely wrong. If it had been the first time, fair enough, but over the past 3 years he's been on monthly chemo cycles, they've screwed it up every sodding month - either wrong dates, wrong doses, wrong appointments, (i.e. booking blood test after date of issue of drugs then they wondered why drugs hadn't been authorised!), or wrong location for pick up. Considering every monthly cycle follows the same pattern, it's not rocket science that there's an order of things, but they can't do it. They can't even work out start dates which are literally 3 weeks on, 1 week off - they try to issue drugs either a week too early or a week too late. But they just won't listen and have some inner confidence that they're right and the patient is a brain dead geriatric and just has to do what they're told, right or wrong!

There does seem to be a high correlation between mechanic/tradesmen and dim witted misogyny. I have no idea why. Perhaps it’s just the workplace culture.
Very few females working in those professions so the men working there aren’t presented with daily painful reminders women have brains and can do what they do quite easily 🤷‍♀️

I use a local independent man

My fab heater stopped working.... and during this cold spell l was frozen... He said to pop it into him and he'd have a quick look.

Less than 10mins later he'd fixed it.... and refused to charge me as it was a quick job.

I'm in Northamptonshire if anyone wants his details

I had this sort of experience when I was young - 20 something. A Ford garage springs to mind.

Since that time I've swerved the car brand garages and I currently get my services and MoTs done by local places with good customer service.

A friends 25 yr old daughter recently had a similar situation with a garage seriously trying to take the piss, luckily it got sorted.

i have always believed you cant just change ine tyre. So if you re changing one at the front so you have ti change both.
i could be wrong but i dont think so. It is to do with balance or smthg like that.

disclaimer i m not a mechanic

Sorry i quoted the wrong person