A lady phoned into an automotive advice expert recently and said that she had taken her car in to be serviced, and the mechanic showed her some rust on her brake parts. He informed her that this rust should be removed to prevent corrosion and they could do that for $225. She was asking if this was necessary.
The expert tactfully advised her that because of the location of the brakes there was always going to be surface rust and they were designed to work in those conditions. She didn’t need to pay to have them cleaned.
He went on to say that sometimes, unfortunately, some shops took advantage of women and that you should always get advice if you thought a quote was too high. He should have taken the name of the garage and mechanic and displayed it on the screen.
I spent a few years in the automotive business and I learned that honest customer service is what brings in repeat business. Your satisfied customers are your best advertising. But a few stories stick out in my mind.
One day in the tire shop, a very cute young lady in blue jean cut-offs pulled in. She wanted the tires checked on her sports car as she was headed for Penticton. The two young men put the car on the hoist and told her the tires were fine. Fifteen minutes later, I noticed the car was still up in the air and the boys were having a chat with the driver.
The car came down and she waved and drove off. I asked them what the problem was. They looked sheepishly at each other and said that they told her they should let the winter air out of her tires and put summer air in.
She was a nice diversion to their day but I gave them a lecture a on customer service and told them I hoped she had a six foot, four inch boyfriend who was going to come back and thump the daylights out of them.
A lady came into the Chrysler dealership I was working at and told us her prindel had disappeared and she didn`t know what gear she was in. After some confusion, we realized the tab that had the letters PRNDL on it had slid out of sight in her dashboard. We fixed it under warranty, but I`m sure a less reputable mechanic could have made a lot of money.
Automotive history records that a woman invented the first windshield wiper in 1902 and a woman came up with the idea for the first exterior signalling arm in 1912.
The rear view mirror’s earliest known use and mention was by Dorothy Levitt, in her 1906 book The Woman and the Car. She noted that women should “carry a little hand-mirror in a convenient place when driving” so they may “hold the mirror aloft from time to time in order to see behind while driving in traffic,” thereby inventing the rear view mirror before it was introduced by manufacturers in 1914.
It is best that we don’t stereotype the female driver or customer. Levitt also suggested women carry a small calibre handgun should they run into nefarious characters while driving alone in 1906.
That may be still be good advice. Maybe unscrupulous mechanics would think twice today if they knew their female customers were carrying handguns. At least that’s what McGregor says.
