Female Friendly mechanics

Well now you don't have to. A new Adelaide business called Female Friendly is working to ensure that from now on, your mechanic will not only be on his best behaviour but explain everything to you in terminology you can actually understand.

Female Friendly was the brainchild of Kylie Jacobs who has been helped by her sister, Caroline Davis.

The Adelaide women, who have seven children between them, were looking for a way to provide for their kids while being able to juggle the demands of being mothers.

Plus they reckoned they had a great idea. Kylie's husband, Grant, had already been outed by a local radio show as a `female friendly' mechanic; he explained what he was doing to customers' cars and treated them with respect.

Kylie said the idea was born to create a company, which would provide an accreditation system whereby mechanics could be certified female friendly.

The first step was no dirty pictures in the workshop, but there is more to earning the Female Friendly `Pink Tick.'

Mechanics have to provide comfortable waiting rooms, clean rest rooms and a minimum quote, with any further work only done after consultation. Mechanics also must explain whether work is cosmetic, ongoing maintenance or a pressing safety issue such as brake problems.

“We also have mystery shoppers who are female mechanics, so they'll know full well what is wrong with their cars,” Kylie said.

“They'll go under cover and hear what these boys say.”

Kylie said, funnily enough, most mechanics they had spoken to said the majority of their customers were women.

“But when you look at their waiting rooms, the magazines are all about cars and fishing,” she said.

Female Friendly is recruiting mechanics to the cause before launching formally early next year.