In the last 20 years or so, my mother, a licensed driver since 1973, had noticed that gas stations and garages tend to take advantage of women drivers. I don’t know how accurate her appraisal is; she almost never ventures out of the South Bay area. Anyway, she claims that station attendants and garage mechanics, some of whom, I believe, are from the Orient or the Middle East, had such a strong prejudice against women by dint of their native culture, that a woman driver could never get a fair deal there. Is my Mom right? (I used to tell her that if she needed some potentially costly work done on her car it’d be a good idea for me or my brother to come along to discourage such an exploiting attitude.)
Yes, I have this problem too. Not as gas stations so much as at garages and such. I get it mostly at Les Schwab tire stores, I don’t know why. Napa is bad, too. I call it the Ignorant Girl routine. Oh look! A girl! Must be ignorant! Get that cash register ready!
I solve this problem by bribing my ex to accompany me on all trips to these places. He’s about 6’3", weighs around 325, and can bench-press two of me. He just stands behind me and nods a lot, and the transactions go much more smoothly.
I live in a very small town, and there aren’t a lot of options, but I do make an effort to avoid places that have given me problems. I’d much rather spend my money with someone who respects me as a customer.
As a sidenote, I’m an avid shooter and hunter, and I have this problem in sporting goods stores, too. I get a lot of “Are you here alone, honey?” and “Did somebody tell you what you’re supposed to buy?”
I’ll stop typing now before this turns into a rant. One, two, three…
Neenah: Do you dare to bring your rifle into the store? 
Seriously, I know a woman–we went to high school together–who seems to have the right vibes. She was (and is!) a knockout, and seems to be dripping with money, but nobody tries to cheat her. Right away they get the unspoken message, “Don’t even [think of trying to take advantage of me!” No one does. 
It’s hard to tell for sure. My sister spent almost three grand, because her head gasket needed to be replaced. It should have been about a grand for the car she had. Your guess?
What kind of car, and what year? I shelled out about $400 a few months ago to get that gasket on my '84 T-bird replaced. (Luckily I know a mechanic, whose shop is half a block away, who could and did do the work.)
dougie_monty: Around here the stores all have signs that say, “No shirt, no shoes, and no shooting!” But I am tempted.
When we bought our last car, the salesman caught me alone when the sale was complete, put his arm on my shoulder, and said that this particular car had a very large trunk. In fact, he pointed out that, “You could have sex in that trunk!”
Radio Shack is bad. They often refuse to acknowledge me. I have been told they will not sell me component unless i tell them exactly why I need them.
I have had bad experiences as I browsed at other car dealers but, Saturn always treated me right.
As a matter of fact … last month I blew a wheel cylinder. Took it to the shop and they told me it wasn’t safe to drive and would run 600 to fix. Next day, I mentioned it to a guy that owns a transmission shop on my route. He said they were ripping me off, and he would check on it for me. Funny thing happened when I went to pick it up … the price had dropped by half. There were several excuses that went along with it, and I just nodded my head, but I won’t go back there.
It was about ten years ago with the head gasket, and I don’t remember the car make. The town she lives in, I would say a grand to have the head gasket replaced. Tow the car fifty miles down the road, and she could have done it for five hundred.
I told her next time pay me three grand and I’ll get the vehicle fixed for her.
Well, I did 100% of the negotiating when we bought our last two cars. My husband didn’t participate at all. Yet I did the wifey thing and let him do the test drive. I didn’t even drive the car. I sat there chatting away like the blonde I am… then when we decided to buy, I got down to brass tacks.
It wouldn’t surprise me if they tried to take me for a ride in a repair shop, however.
I’ve had the same thing happen at garages. I also learned to bring along any “manly” male friend I could find.
/hijack/
On the other side, my hubby and I own a mostly male oriented retail business. I run the store, and when guys come in they almost always ask the male employee questions. I’m standing behind the counter, I greet them & ask what they need, they smile vaugely and ask whomever else is in the shop that happens to have a penis. Or even better- they ask me the question and then repeat it as soon as someone with external genitalia enters the room. I’m just a girl, what do I know?? Ggrrrrrr :mad:
While in the D.C. area I had at least three mechanics (of the Jiffy Lube type) at three different factilities tell me I needed a new distributor cap. All three of them were quite surprised when I took the pen out of their shirt pocket and scrape the “potential fire hazard” off of the plastic
I will admit, I really am ignorant when it comes to vehicle repair. But thankfully, I have managed to maintain an excellent relationship with my ex-boyfriend, who is a licensed auto mechanic. He still fixes my cars, and advises me on the best places to get various things done. Since we broke up, what I’ve tried to do (if he’s not available to do the work I need) is get him to explain to me in great detail exactly what I need done and how much a regular shop will charge me (he only charges me for parts). That way, I can walk in to the shop with some confidence, and not let them screw me over.
My mom once had a bad experience like that. She needed her brakes replaced, and the shop she took her car to tried to talk her in to a whole bunch of other stuff as well. She left, went to the public library, checked out a Chilton’s, and replaced them herself. Never had a problem with them, either! Go Mom!
What “potential fire hazard” was on the cap? You’ve got my curiosity in overdrive!
I actually think I’ve had pretty good mechanics. I used to have a Ford Escort that I brought to a mechanic regularly (y’know, FORD = fix or repair daily? My car was the origin of that phrase) and when it finally died for the last time, I had it towed to my mechanic on a Friday. He took a look at it, and said the timing belt had broken. He could have it fixed by Monday. Over the weekend, I bought a new car, and traded in the Escort. I told the dealer the timing belt was being fixed, and I’d bring it by on Monday. All the paperwork was completed, titles handed over, etc. etc.
Come Monday, my mechanic called me and said “We didn’t realize it on Friday, but the reason the timing belt broke is because the water pump is trashed and you need a new water pump. You can drive the car, but I guarantee in 2 miles it’ll break the timing belt again.” I told him I had traded the car in, and he said “Well, I’ll attest to the fact that you did not know this on Friday. If you signed the title over to them, it’s their car, and they have to deal with this.” Made sense to me - had my new car broken on Monday, I doubt the dealer would have done a damn thing. So I call the dealer and tell them this. The dealer freaks, threatens not to release the title on my new car, says I have to fix the water pump, etc. etc. etc.
I call the mechanic. He says he’s dealt with this dealer before, and that it was their own stupid fault for signing the papers without seeing the trade in. He really stuck his neck out and called the dealership and hassled them for me. The dealership was nothing but pricks. I had to call an ombudsman agency to deal with them. I finally ended up splitting the cost of the repair with them. All the while, my mechanic was wonderful. He even gave me beers to drink when I came by after work to clean out the old car.
So… I guess in this case, the dealership was screwing with me but the mechanic was great.
To add to this ramble, I’ve had this problem with computer shops as well. Used to be back in the days of 3.5" floppies that I could “test drive” any piece of software I wanted because the computer shops just assumed I was an idiot woman. I’d buy the software, take it home, and if I didn’t like it I’d bring it back and say “I didn’t realize that it came on those little hard disks… I don’t have a hard disk on my computer, I only have the floppy kind.” They’d try to explain that “hard disk” did not refer to 3.5" floppies, and I’d just act stupid and they’d finally just take the software back. I figured after being ignored time and time again in the shops, I might as well bank on them assuming I was an idiot when it came to computers.
Ya know those little contact-thingys on distributor caps? They collect…um…carbon? or something like that - the plastic gets a build up around the contacts. The mechanics told me that the buildup could cause a fire in my engine.
Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. I and I could win the lottery tomorrow. 
Ditto on Radio Shack. They are the most offensive bastards around. I am not a total techie, but I am smart enough to talk electronic talk with a professional. My older sister bought a walkman at Radio Shack (her first mistake,) got it home, and it didn’t work. She boxed it back up, and made me go in with her. She handed the box back, said “This is defective. I got it Friday, here’s the reciept, and it didn’t work when I attempted to use it Saturday.” She was clear, direct, and didn’t sound dumb in the least. The sales guy took the walkman out of the box, turned it over, opened the battery cavity, and said “I don’t mean to sound offensive, but did you put batteries in it?” She glared at him and said “Of course I did.” I then chimed in with “Listen, she didn’t come in here for a dose of condesention. You’re selling defective merchanidise, and unless you refund her money completely, my voice will rise steadily in volume…” That’s when he stopped me, and opened the register.
As for my car, I have a good mechanic, a coworker who knows a crap load about cars, and is a woman. She points me to repair places that are reputable, and aren’t assholes.
I would have done the same thing (scraped the crud off). If it was hot enough to start a fire, you would think that the carbon would burn off- plus, how much oxygen is in the cap anyway? Geez- I hope you mocked them too!
Coming from the other side of this issue, (please don’t crucify me here) I was in Home Depot looking at tools (manly thing to do you know) and I could not find a black and decker dremel-esque tool, but they did sell the accessories. So being a man (and men never ask directions unless absolutely neccesary) I looked around some more. Finally, I gave up and was looking for help, and I saw this nice woman working in the tool dept. My first instinct was to look for a man (the whole guys know more about tools bit), then my brain went from stimulus/response mode to thinking mode. This was the thought "If she works in the tool department (she was stocking a display at the time) she probably knows a hell of a lot about tools, and probably more than me. She asked me if I needed help, and showed me exactly where the thing I was looking for was. It was about 200 meters away in the paint department (why I don’t know), and I never would have found it without her help.
I have found that women salespeople sometimes know more stuff because they don’t have that “I’m a MAN and I know everything” macho thing that keeps people from listening to new (and probably accurate) info.
I have found that male shop assistants disappear into the back of the shop or stand around chatting while the women get the work done…and that the managers will stand there watching while a huge queue forms and do nothing to make the other guys actually work.
having said that - they’re paying me to work at the moment, so better get back to it!
My husband always takes the car in for repairs. The one time I had to, I had him tell me exactly what needed to be done and how much it should be in advance - and he picked it up. Mechanics are bad for it, dealerships, especially used car dealerships, are worse.
But as for computers… I have soooooo much fun with the computer shops. So, so much fun. For one thing, I’m a certified Network Engineer. I’m also a certified hardware technician. I’ve been working with computers full time for about 4 years now. I know computers very well - but I do not look as if I do,
http://www.geocities.com/sdpeoplepages/kimkatt.html
do I?[/img] (Told my SO - the day I start to look like a computer geek, I quit.) Anyhow, whenever I go in for computer stuff, they immediately assume I know nothing. The look on their faces when I make it clear that I know exactly what I am talking about (and frequently know more than the salesperson does) is pricesless. Whenever friends have computer repairs needed, if I can’t do it for them, I will take their stuff into the shop for them, so they don’t get ripped off, which has happened on more than one occasion. Radio Shack - ugh. I never deal with them anymore. The Future Shop - I only deal with them because of their prices. Based on the way they treat me - :shudder: