27 January 2024 , 14:35
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An entrepreneur has hit out at "shameful sexism " she claims to have experienced after a mechanic charged her £700 for a new car battery - when her original one was actually fine.
Soraya Easterbrook thought her Fiat 500 stopped working in Hackney, east London, some 14 miles from her home. The 33-year-old woman managed to reach a garage, where she saw mechanics "smirking a little bit" at her arrival, and was told the battery needed replacing.
Soraya, who runs an digital marketing company, trusted the professionals and, at the cost of £700, had the lithium switched. Her car, though, broke down again on her way home to Cuffley, Hertfordshire. Soraya took the old battery home and, suspicious about her "uneasy" time at the garage, showed the item to a family members and a local mechanic she's used before, only to be told it was fine. They believe the Fiat suffered a minor problem, which could have been fixed with less time and at a smaller cost. Nevertheless, a standard new battery for a Fiat 500 typically retails for less than £100.
Speaking to the Mirror, Soraya said: "It's just shameful to get that when you're just a woman going in by yourself. I just really highly feel like that would not have happened if it was a bloke alone. It just felt really strange but I had no choice and I was on my own, they knew that.
"Now I'm anxious every time I visit a mechanic and always take a male friend or male family member with me, and you can see the different impression the mechanics give off... On my own, I arrived and straight away and saw them smirking a little bit and it went from there."
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The entrepreneur believes the workplace culture won't change (Supplied)Soraya is one of around 10 million female drivers who, a survey shows, face feelings of anxiety and stress about going to see a mechanic. Nearly half of female drivers in the UK experience sexism when visiting the mechanic and, motoring experts say, this can lead to motorists foregoing crucial car maintenance checks.
The damning statistics don't surprise Soraya, who has no children, who says female friends and family members have also been exploited at garages. The business owner continued: "Even when I bring male family members with me now, I've seen the way they are with women who go in by themselves, and you can see it happening. They're like 'well this is also wrong' and 'actually other things are wrong' and then they (women) end up they probably paying a lot more than a guy because it's just so different. It is so transparent and I wish it was not like that basically.
Eight million (48 per cent) of the female drivers in the UK have reported encountering casual sexism from garage staff, such as being referred to as "darling," "love," or "sweetheart". While this wasn't the case in Soraya's experience, she is appalled at the behaviour.
"It's like the male workplace culture, though, isn't it? They are surrounding themselves with the same people as well, the same mindsets, so it's not going to change I don't think."
The recent study has uncovered the disturbing experiences women risk facing when visiting the mechanic (file image) (Getty Images/iStockphoto)When any driver avoids visiting the mechanic, crucial car services and maintenance checks are shunned, which can lead to critical issues being missed and, ultimately, cost drivers money which could easily have been avoided had they visited the mechanic more frequently.
In response to these worrying figures, car service comparison site Fixter is on a mission to empower female drivers. It aims to create a positive and empowering experience for all drivers, offering a convenient valet service that picks up and returns the car to the driver and transparent and surprise-free cost estimates. It says 12.5 million (75 per cent) female drivers believe mechanics take them less seriously than male drivers. It's also created a cheat sheet of key motoring acronyms, every driver should know:
- MOT – Ministry of Transport: refers to the annual test that ensures vehicles meet legal road safety and environmental standards.
- VIN – Vehicle Identification Number: the unique identification number given to all allowing them to be tracked easily by the police, or to establish ownership of a vehicle.
- TPMS – Tyre Pressure Monitoring System: in-built safety feature alerting drivers if a tyre is under-inflated.
- RPM – Revolutions Per Minute: measure how many ‘rotations’ the engine makes within one minute.
- OBD – On-Board Diagnostics: the built-in system which monitors the overall health of the vehicle through a network of sensors, alerting the driver of any issues as they arise.
- ICE – Internal Combustion Engine: the standard vehicle engine that powers diesel and petrol cars.