You don’t have to dig too deep to find out why so many women feel powerless when their cars break down. Despite the fact that women are the automotive industry’s number one customers, there are virtually no women working in the front lines of the industry. It’s no wonder 77 percent of drivers believe women are more likely to be misunderstood and/or taken advantage of when bringing their cars in for service. We’re walking into a man’s world, grudgingly handing over our credit cards for repairs we don’t understand as we tiptoe around with a serious lack of education about the 4,000-pound hunks of steel we have parked in our driveways.
That’s a big part of why I went back to school to become a certified auto mechanic. My mission is to change the status quo, through the information in this book, the workshops I lead, and the inclusive atmosphere women encounter when they come to visit my shop and have their cars tended to by knowledgeable female mechanics.
My goal is to bring women along the path I traveled, wherever they are on the spectrum from auto airhead to car-care pro.
Building a Workshop
I skipped class at auto tech school to hold the very first Girls Auto Clinic workshop—a beta clinic that took place in a parking lot at the University of Delaware, where about twenty sorority members gathered on a crazy hot day in April 2013.
I’ve held more than forty workshops since then, and they always fill up fast.
We gather in parking lots, and women bring their cars so that we can take a hands-on look at the issues they have questions about. We start by congregating around a table stacked with a bunch of parts—brake lines, brake pads, rotors, belts, tie-rod ends, spark plugs, air filters—all in various conditions. And just as mechanics diagnose a lot of what’s going on with a car by looking, listening, and touching, we do the same. We feel and examine the parts, comparing a worn brake pad that needs to be replaced and one that’s brand-new or midway through its life cycle.
After show-and-tell, the first thing we do is learn to pop our hoods. So many women are embarrassed about the fact that they don’t know how to do this, but I always emphasize that a Girls Auto Clinic workshop is a safe space. There are no questions too dumb, no maintenance flubs too gory.
Then we take a look under the hood and see what’s going on in there. We learn which car parts can be touched and which should be handled only by a mechanic. I also demonstrate how to safely and confidently execute maintenance tasks and emergency fixes, such as jump-starting a car, adding coolant to your system, changing your air filter, and measuring tire wear and air pressure. (You’ll find those skills in the color-coded DIY sections in the relevant chapters.)
Often women come in asking about a specific repair—they’ve gotten a quote from a mechanic and want to know whether I think they’re being overcharged, or they want to know whether the repair their mechanic recommended is actually essential. One of the most common questions is, should they be changing their own oil? (The answer is: probably not. Sure, you could buy five quarts of oil and an oil filter from your local parts store for the same thirty dollars a mechanic would charge for the repair. But you would still need tools and the proper equipment to jack up the vehicle.)
The book you’re holding in your hands grew out of a pamphlet I started handing out at those workshops. Just like my workshops, it’s meant to empower women to take ownership over the care of their cars, and to replace the fear and anxiety that surrounds the subject with some know-how and a can-do approach.
A Brief Personal History of Car Ownership
I didn’t grow up around cars. My family couldn’t afford one. I was raised by a single mother who walked four miles to work, each way, in the blue-collar town of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.
The first car in my household was mine, and I worked my way through a long list of high school jobs to save up for it. Getting that first car was a very big deal. Since no one in my immediate family drove, my grandpa, my pop-pop, taught me how in his dark green boat of a Buick.
After I’d gotten my license, he took me to the Honda dealership in Pottstown. Everyone had been telling us that Hondas lasted forever, but we ended up with a used 1988 Chevy Cavalier that was brown all the way through, inside and out. Not the most desirable color for a teenage girl, but I loved my “poop car.” It’s still my favorite to this day. We worked out a plan so that my pop-pop paid the $2,500 up front and I paid him back in monthly installments. I gave him the last check just before I headed off to college at Lehigh, in the town of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. But you couldn’t take your car with you the first year of school, so it sat parked on the street outside at my mom’s house, until one day I let my boyfriend use it.
Big mistake. Let this be the first lesson of the Girls Auto Clinic Glove Box Guide: Unless he’s a certified mechanic, never assume a man knows more about your car than you do. And don’t let a man drive your car unless you happen to share a bank account or have access to his PIN.
On that particular day, the car started overheating and the engine shut off. Not his fault. But what happened next was avoidable. Instead of calling for help or popping the hood to see what was going on, he waited until the engine cooled down and then turned the car back on. It overheated and shut off again, a cycle that recurred a few more times on the way home. Each time he waited it out and restarted the car.
Turned out a loose hose had caused a large coolant leak. That was maybe a thirty-dollar repair at the time. But because the boyfriend continued to drive, he burned out the engine.
And that was it for my favorite car.
The auto airhead boyfriend didn’t last too much longer after that. But not just because of the car.
My first car out of college was a brand-new, hunter green Ford Explorer that I financed myself. Hunter was her name. At the time I was living and working in West Virginia, which meant I made frequent trips home to Philly and racked up 65,000 miles in no time. Of course, I did absolutely zero maintenance beyond the oil changes I’d put off for months.
After I’d had the car for a couple of years, the O/D light on my dashboard started blinking. I had no idea what that meant, so I rushed to get help from a friend I’d met at the gym who happened to sell cars at the local Ford dealership. The service guys there told me the O/D light had to do with my transmission, and (drumroll) it was going to cost $1,700 to fix, something about a solenoid valve failing. “These things just go,” I was told.
My heart skipped a beat, and not in a good way. I told them that was crazy, particularly since I had a warranty on the car, so as far as I could see the cost of the repair should be somewhere in the range of zero dollars, give or take.
Turned out my warranty expired after 60,000 miles, which I’d already exceeded.
I flew into a rage, then promptly melted down into tears. I was two years out of college, swimming in loans, and definitely not prepared for four-figure surprises.
My friend took pity on me and talked the dealership guys down to $1,200, and I sucked it up and handed over my credit card with a sinking feeling in my gut.
But when I got the car back, wouldn’t you know it—there was a whole new problem. Now the car would shake anytime I was in park or neutral. Damn! These guys had messed up my ride instead of fixing it.
Back to the dealership I went, and one week later I got more frustrating news.
“We didn’t do anything to cause the shaking. It probably has something to do with the way you take care of the car.” Maybe it was related to my using regular gas instead of premium, they suggested.
Now I was pissed. These guys were clearly just trying to pin the problem on me. But maybe they were right? Had my auto airhead ways caused all of Hunter’s problems? I felt defeated.
But I kept on driving the car over the next ten months.
Guess what happened after those ten months passed?
The O/D light came back on.
Yeah.
I took the car back to the dealership in a rage. And here is what they told me: “We only warranty our parts for
ten thousand miles.” I’d gone twelve, so the charge was going to be . . . let’s see here, another $1,200.
There were other issues I’d been ignoring, too, and their origins were less mysterious. I’d driven that thing so hard and done so little maintenance on it that a whole bunch of repairs had accumulated. I’d run the tires ragged, driving more than 65,000 miles without getting a single one changed. Tires last only about 50,000 to 60,000 miles, so it’s pretty amazing that I didn’t catch a flat or skid out on one of those 500-mile drives across state lines. A mechanic had looked the car over and told me that I needed new tires, bad—my tires were bald, the car was unsafe to drive—not to mention new brakes and rotors, for a cost somewhere north of a grand. You’d think a safety warning would have spurred me into action, but nope. I made a mental note to take care of the issue as soon as it was convenient for me to do so, and then of course procrastinated instead. One day my best friend’s dad caught sight of my car just as I was about to head out from DC to Philly. “Oh my god, Patrice,” he cried, “those tires aren’t going to get you back to Philly!”
Part of the reason I neglected all these repairs was the high repair bills. But I also hated the automotive repair experience. . . . I was filled with shame for neglecting my car and had no idea which repairs were really necessary. Was I being talked into something because I was an easy mark, a woman who obviously didn’t know anything about cars? Was the cost fair? I had no idea. To top it off, I’d have to sit in some boring, uncomfortable waiting room watching Maury or CNN while the problems were being diagnosed? I’ll pass, thanks.
One thing I did know was this stuff with the O/D light was total and utter BS.
I was so mad I traded that car in.
I tried another tactic to cure my car ownership blues, leasing a car for the first time, another Ford from that very same dealership.
Don’t judge. They told me they would hook me up in return for all my troubles, and my friend said I seemed like a good candidate for a lease. I would have to cover only minor maintenance costs and wouldn’t have to worry about repairs, and we could even roll over my unfinished payments on the first car. Knowing my auto airhead ways, he thought this might be the best option for me. And he assured me that I could just turn the car in when my lease was up.
Which is exactly what I did. Three years later, a barely maintained Ford in need of new rotors, brakes, tires, and more rolled up to that dealership, and its lessee walked in, dropped the keys off with a salesman, and ghosted past without even stopping by the cashier.
My next car was a Kia Sorento, and despite giving it the usual Patrice treatment, I never had any real problems with it. After the experience I’d had with the Ford, part of the reason I chose the Kia was the fantastic ten-year, 100,000-mile warranty. Of course, the car with the best warranty winds up being the one I never had problems with.
The Story of How I Became an Auto Mechanic
I couldn’t find a female mechanic near me, so I decided to become one. That’s the short version of the story, but the longer version begins six years ago, with an entrepreneurial itch.
I’d just moved from the Delaware suburbs to Philly, where I began meeting all these smart, independent women who were out there doing their thing—riding and racing motorcycles, building their own businesses, starting catering companies, creating real estate empires, and more. Being exposed to this wider social network gave me a jolt, made me realize that I wanted to create something, too. After ten years at DuPont I was ready for the next step in my career, or maybe a 180-degree flip. I wasn’t quite sure which direction to turn, but I knew from the start that I wanted to do something empowering for women.
I’d gotten a lot of satisfaction out of leading DuPont’s Explore Engineering program, an initiative designed to get high school girls interested in fields related to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). At my high school in Phoenixville, I’d been the only minority on the AP track. Most of the other students of color wound up in trade schools, and there was little to no financial or practical support in my less-than-stable household. My mother was on and off welfare, with a string of sometimes abusive boyfriends drifting through the house. Let’s just say that without the support of my grandfather and a few high school teachers and counselors who took an interest in me, my life would have turned out very differently. By my early thirties, I was a college-educated homeowner (both firsts in my immediate family) with a career. It was time to give back.
I started toying with the notion of founding an informal women’s university, a book club alternative where a group of women would meet once a month to learn the skills we’d typically pay men to take care of—anything from fixing leaking toilets to using automatic tools, from unclogging a drain to investing money or playing poker. Because I’d been meeting some women who were finding success online, the book club idea morphed into a blog.
I’d heard Tyra Banks tell this story about how, when she was developing her first talk show, she wanted to build up a log of a hundred ideas to make sure her concept had longevity. I decided that I’d do the same. I began cataloging topics for my blog. And I started asking women what they wished they knew more about. Anytime I’d meet a woman—over cocktails at a networking function, paying a cashier for my daily latte, or making small talk at the gym—I’d ask her: “What do you wish you knew about that you usually have to pay a man to take care of?”
Overwhelmingly, women’s responses revolved around cars.
Without prompting, they’d say they wanted to learn more about their cars and feel better about the car-related decisions they made. They didn’t feel good when they left the shop. They never knew if they’d made the right decision and didn’t like the fact that they didn’t know what to do in the event of an emergency. One high-ranking engineering colleague told me that when the mechanic called, she’d say, “Let me give you my husband’s number so you can speak to him directly.” Not exactly a recipe for empowerment.
The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. Cars were such a pain point in so many of our lives. And the stakes were pretty high, given the expense of purchasing and maintaining a vehicle. My own history was telling. If a science- and math-loving engineer who’d been trained to understand complex manufacturing equipment was so uncomfortable around the subject of her car that she’d rather avoid a much-needed oil change than face her mechanic, other women had to be feeling the same way. More and more it started to feel fated, like my ridiculous car history was some kind of a sign about what I was meant to do.
Looking around to see what resources already existed, I asked the hive whether anyone knew of a female mechanic in the area. Would the stats I’d been reading about the auto industry check out? Sure enough, not a single one of my fifteen hundred friends was able to recommend someone. I looked online and found a grand total of five searchable female mechanics in the United States, but none, as far as I could see, who worked in Philly.
That settled things. At the age of thirty-two, I enrolled as a student in automotive technology at Delaware Technical Community College.
On top of being the only woman, I was the oldest kid in the class, putting in a full day at my desk job at DuPont and then driving over to the school for night classes. There were a couple of people starting second careers, but mostly it was eighteen- and nineteen-year-old guys just out of high school. I didn’t care. If anything, being the lone woman in the environment just underscored my motivation for being there.
The fact that I loved the material didn’t hurt. Surprise, surprise. Once I turned my attention to it, my engineer brain took to the subject like a fish to water.
Despite my complete and total disregard for every car I’d ever owned, now that I had access to real information about cars, I was that kid in the front row with her hand raised. The auto airhead had become an auto fiend. A lot of my classmates had been working around cars their whole lives, and some of the material was so rote to them that they didn’t really question it. But I alw
ays wanted to break down the why, trying to grasp the mechanics at the simplest, most elemental level.
I was still living my double life, getting dressed up for my job in corporate America, then changing into sweats and work boots to work on cars in the school’s garage, the “lab” where we’d put our classroom knowledge into practice. One day I showed up to school without my change of clothes. I wasn’t going to let a footwear issue come between me and a night’s work, so I just threw on a sweatshirt over my blouse and got down under the car in my heels to pull out the starter. A fellow student snapped a pic of my heels sticking out from under the car, and a logo was born. A designer and I eventually turned the shoes red, for a bright pop of color. And the rest is history, laced with a little bit of regret from my toes.
For the record: I do not perform nor do I recommend performing extensive car repairs in high heels! But a girl boss does what she needs to do to get the job done. In heels, flats, or boots. This budding entrepreneur is looking out for her brand, and the red heels have become my signature.
While still in auto tech school, I started looking around for a shop that would let me work for free, to give me the experience I’d need in order to run a shop of my own. I cold-called dealerships and shops and asked advisers, friends, and co-workers for suggestions of places where I could barter my skills as a business-minded engineer for the chance to gain some real-world experience. I got turned down three times before finding someone who was open to the idea.
Some shop owners were afraid I’d steal customers. One owner’s wife was threatened by the notion of another woman being around her man all day. But finally Edwin Regis, the owner of a place called Guy’s Auto Clinic, gave me a yes.
Girls Auto Clinic Glove Box Guide Page 2