Buying a used car can be a very daunting experience for many women. Despite our battle for equality (largely successful to date), we still experience occasional bouts of sexism when we’re out shopping for a new car.

Assumptions that we don’t really know what we’re talking about and are easy to walk over are made far too often. This is why we need to do our homework in advance; to know exactly what we want so that the only thing taken for a ride is our lovely new car!

With so many places selling cars these days it can be an overwhelming experience but if you allow yourself the time and take it ‘step by step’ you can make things a lot easier on yourself.

Buying privately or from a used car dealer?

Your first decision might be whether to buy from a dealer or from a private seller and whilst the lower price of the private sale might look very attractive if things go wrong with the car afterwards you have no legal comeback at all. Whereas, professional used car dealers, like McCarthy Cars, will offer you warranties and security just in case something unforeseen goes wrong with your new car after you’ve bought it. Another reassuring factor is that most used car dealers will have thoroughly checked and prepared the car for sale, charging you a fair price based on its condition.

Unless you have a specific car in your mind, buying privately can be a time-wasting nightmare and I write from personal experience. I have spent days looking for a specific car in the past whereas if you contact a Certified Used Car Dealer, either in person or via their website, they will probably have most cars and car types in stock. If you tell the salesperson what you are looking for, chances are they will be able to help you find the right car, whether it’s a zippy hatchback, roomy estate or executive saloon.

Doing your car buying homework

It is very important to know exactly what you require from your new car in advance, even if you don’t have too many specifics in mind. Perhaps you have a large family, so you need lots of space? If it’s your first car you will need to consider tax and the ever rising cost of insurance… If you know exactly what you need, you will not get side-tracked by any sales patter that a salesman might use to sell you a car that isn’t right for you.

A few things to decide before you start your search is whether you want an automatic or a manual car, the number of doors and seats, a petrol or diesel engine and the engine size itself.

Location may be the next thing to consider. Do you want a local dealership or are you prepared to travel for the right car and deal? If you find a car online that you like, make sure that you phone the dealer in advance to check that it’s still available to save a wasted journey.

If you pick a professional used car dealership, like McCarthy Cars, they may offer a pick up and drop off service, to collect you from the nearest train station for example. In most cases and with some advance planning, you should be able to drive away the same day. Another factor is when the dealership is open – we are open 7 days a week, until 7pm for example. So make sure you pick a car dealership that fits your busy schedule.

Dealerships that employ women are also a good sign of course. It’s reassuring to see a friendly face on arrival and it isn’t just women who feel at ease with a female face!

Now that you have your car buying shortlist you can start the exciting bit, looking for the best car, knowing precisely what you want.

Buying advice to check the car is as good as it looks

It’s always good to do your homework in advance, so if you have access to the internet a HPI check on the vehicle will confirm that all is above board. Most reputable dealers will have already done this, so ask to see a copy of this before committing to anything. Have a good check round the car, inside and out, to make sure it is as described. Try out the radio and any onboard technology for example. Take a lengthy test drive and make sure you feel comfortable in it. By all means bring a friend along for moral support. Some used car dealerships may let you drive the car on your own if you feel up to it in an unfamiliar location. But either way, never be afraid to take your time and ask as many questions about the car as you like, even ones you think might sound a bit silly. It’s better to be thorough and ask too many questions than too few then getting the car home and realising that you should have asked this or that at the time.

Finally you’ll get a feel for the dealership when you visit, and the people who work there. Do you feel comfortable there, do you feel like you can trust them, and most importantly, do you feel special and valued? You want to know that you are buying a car from a business you can trust so that, if you need to contact them about the car afterwards, that you’d feel comfortable doing this in the knowledge that they’ll take any concerns seriously and do all they can to resolve the issue for you.

I hope my car buying advice will help you buy the right used car in future AND enjoy the car shopping experience.

About Our Guest Editor
Criena Davies criena.davies@mccarthycars.co.uk is the Advertising Manager at award winning car dealership McCarthy Cars with busy branches in Croydon and Clapham. Criena is involved in the entire car sales process from the time the new cars arrive until they leave with their new owner. This involves promoting each car via the company website, using customer newsletters, social media channels and YouTube videos where appropriate. Customer feedback is paramount and proof that McCarthy Cars is getting things right for so many customers, including women drivers.

McCarthy Cars also carries out a range of garage services and both Croydon and Clapham locations are members of FOXY Choice’s female friendly approved garage network, the only one of its kind in the UK.

And why wouldn’t insurers do precisely this with the EU to blame, knowing that higher premiums for females mean higher profits for them (because women are the lesser gender risk and therefore cheaper to insure).

But what is our Government doing about this on behalf of women drivers? Not a lot it would appear…

Women bearing the brunt of our double dip recession

As things stand, women are suffering disproportionately in the jobless stakes and the number of female jobseekers has leapt to its highest rate in 23 years with more than a million women registered as unemployed in this country. This is a rise of 91,000 in a year, according to think tank IPPR and based on statistics released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS).

And they are losing their jobs at a much faster rate than men. For example, during the last three months in 2011, the female jobless rate rose by 33,000 compared to 16,000 for males, with 340,000 women having been unemployed for more than a year.

Oh that this would be the bottom of the trough but the situation looks likely to get even worse because women represent 80 per cent of the 710,000 public sector workers who are to be made redundant over the next five years. And one in 10 jobs is also forecast to be cut in local government where 75 per cent of the workforce is female.

And the Labour Party’s Yvette Cooper, the shadow Home Secretary, is already accusing Mr Cameron of having a “blind spot” when it comes to women’s issues: “As long as the Government is pushing women out of work, weakening action on the gender pay gap, reducing childcare and threatening to undermine maternity rights, they are making it harder, not easier, for women to work or to get promoted throughout their lives,” she said.

Could insurance price hikes be the female tipping point?

By allowing the EU to encourage insurers to penalise women drivers under cover of gender equality legislation, there is the real possibility that the Government will alienate previously loyal female voters simply because the cost of their motoring will soar.

Let’s remember that many women put up with poor public transport systems and depend on their cars for family, community and part time work as well as their personal independence.

If insurance premiums for women drivers rise by up to 25% and UK insurers can lay the blame on the EU, what is to stop women drivers from laying the blame in turn on the UK’s Government who seem to have done nothing to fend off this grossly unfair attack on UK females.

Ironically the EU motor insurance Directive calls itself a gender equality ruling and yet it is clearly discriminating against women drivers who have previously been entitled to lower car insurance premiums based on their lower risk.

If you’d like to subscribe to FOXY’s Insurance News, we’ll keep you posted.

Please also LIKE the Club’s Facebook page as we prepare our campaign to give this matter centre stage this summer.

FOXY Steph

We’ve all had times, I’m sure, when someone’s almost run into us and missed us by inches, carved us up or speeded past when they shouldn’t, and we’ve thought of a riposte or a choice word or two might inadvertently have popped out of our mouths. Admit it – it’s happened to you too, hasn’t it?!

And how often are we women patronised when behind the wheel, only for male passengers to tut annoyingly as we take a moment or two extra to park properly or do a six-, I mean a three-point turn? The fact that women are less likely to cause a road traffic accident strangely escapes men at this point.

It is frighteningly easy for the sort of incident I mentioned earlier to boil over into something more serious if we try to take things into our own hands, for example by getting out of the car and shouting, or by following the culprit. And this can be potentially dangerous not only for them and other road users, but for us too.

On the other hand, there are times when somebody has thought I’ve been to blame (as if!) and shaken a rather ominous-looking fist at me. If the person had approached me, how would I have reacted? Would I have been frightened or would I have been able to cope with whatever mood they were in?

I’m going to a special women’s evening this month where we’re going to be taught how to beat road rage – and if that fails, what weapons we can find in our cars to defend ourselves if the worst happens. This is part of a range of courses across Sussex to help female drivers deal with motoring aggression.

We’ll be given advice on staying calm behind the wheel and making sure everything is ticking along nicely under the bonnet.

I’m looking forward to hearing what the experts say about women and road rage. I shall try to remain calm if anyone says “Don’t get out of the car and hit them with your handbag”… grrr…

FOXY Steph

PS: Interesting statistic – A recent survey by the RAC* found that 87% of drivers said they had been a victim of road rage and 71% admitted they had indulged in road rage themselves.
(*Source: The Argus 20.2.12)

Meet FOXY Lady Sophie on our right.

Through a series of different introductions I’d met Jo at Pixie Doodle whose artistic talents were just what I was looking for to bring the FOXY brand (female, shrewd, canny and discerning) to life. But it wasn’t a straightforward brief and we started with the fox… but there is a limit to the situations where a pretty fox might be appropriate or sufficiently memorable in a motoring context.

So we then changed direction and concentrated on the FOXY Lady herself with all the potential she has to offer us in future. I am very pleased with the end result and hope it hits the spot for our lady drivers too.

The website was then built for us by Streets Ahead, a specialist website and internet consultancy on the South Coast. We have worked with Graham and Liz here for 7 years now and we couldn’t ask for a more professional, flexible, tolerant and supportive business partner here.

The plan had been to link the new look launch with the Club becoming a not for profit organisation. But this has taken much longer than we appreciated and it isn’t all tidied up yet. Actually FOXY Lady Drivers Club Limited was incorporated as a private/limited by guarantee/no shares business on 24 April but it’ll be a while before we have the bank account and VAT registration we need before we can formally move the Club from its present company status.

The whole point of doing this is to attract sponsors so we can help more women drivers with their motoring, knowing that women are bearing the brunt of much hardship. We can then continue to do what we do whilst charging a one-off and low lifetime subscription rate of just £23 (for services she can share with her family too). Ar present, the Club is funded by FOXY Choice, we take no salaries from it, and we think that it’s only right and proper that the motor industry should pay to raise its image in the minds of female motorists in future.

Who better to do this for women drivers and the motor industry than an independent and female industry outsider like FOXY Lady Drivers Club. Using Sophie as our spokesperson in future!

Anyway, more about that later.

In the meantime you can see FOXY Lady Sophie in person at the Club website, please like her at our Facebook page of course and she’ll be increasingly more evident in this FOXY Lady blog of course.

FOXY Steph

This was our first introduction to Wool & Bovington Motors, a Ford dealership based in Wool in Dorset. As you might expect, they easily met our standards in terms of quality with ATA accreditation, OFT and manufacturer approval.

They also employ females in customer facing roles and, as was proven last Friday, they also organise excellent Ladies evenings in the heart of their community. So off we set to sample their hospitality and to take FOXY off the beaten track in Dorset…

The main dealership showroom had been emptied of its usual cars (no mean feat this) and given a pink makeover including balloons, tablecloths and distinctive cocktail glasses.

All ladies were given a gift bag on arrival and could then wander around the various stands. FOXY Lady Drivers Club was the only motoring-related one but we were in good company with a local Wedding Planner, hair straightening sessions thanks to Mary at Snippets hair salon, an aquatics centre and a local jeweller.

Casual and friendly at all times, the evening programme included a trip round the neat and tidy service and repair garage area with the opportunity to see the chassis and underside workings of a car up on a ramp as well as some examples of typical car parts we’re likely to have paid for without necessarily knowing what they look like – such as car springs and plugs.

All this whilst Paul and a team from Purbeck KungFu were showing ladies in the dealership how to defend themselves, using hairbrushes and perfume sprays as deterrents, should the worst ever come to the worst…

After two hours the crowd started to thin out and by 9pm the displays were being dismantled. Everyone agreed it had been a good night and as I left I heard a mention that Ladies Evenings are likely to be a regular occurrence.

Undoubtedly this will have been good for business for Wool & Bovington Motors because, as was all too evident on the night, women talk and they will tell their family and friends about this afterwards.

From FOXY Lady Drivers Club’s point of view it’s always good to attend these sort of evenings, to tell women about our specialist services and to add this experience to our review of the Female Friendly garages on our network.

Full marks and special thanks are due to Bob Flint (representing the bodyshop team) and Amanda Pyne who made us all very welcome on the night.

FOXY Steph

Classic car insurance broker Footman James recommends that women drivers check to see if their cars are classed as classics in case they qualify for a reduced motor insurance premium.

Apparently some specialist motor insurance policies cover cars that are just five years old; but they do seem to be prestige brands so the Bentley in the photo would probably qualify (sadly not mine) but not the more mundane models most of us drive…

For example, Mercedes-Benz and Jaguar car club members who have a model as their second family car (and only use it for limited miles each year) seem to qualify for special policy rates when the car is five years old and more.

And anyone with an American car which is five years old or more also qualifies for a specialist insurance policy.

But the important thing is that women looking to insure what may be a classic car under 15 years or a classic American car under 20 years old must be a member of a related car club.

Andy Fairchild, Footman James’ managing director, said: “The industry recognises that, on the whole, owners who cherish their vehicles usually drive fewer miles and generally avoid taking their car out in adverse weather conditions, therefore reducing the likelihood of a claim.”

Which makes sense and rings true, if you can avoid using your car in bad weather.

Needless to say, FOXY is not a ‘related’ car club to any one brand, but it could well be that FOXY Lady Drivers Club services (free seasonal car checks and so on) mean that our members will qualify when it comes to insuring a special and much loved model providing the car is more than 5 years old, is a second family car and is used for limited annual mileage. Which is often the case for the cars women drive of course.

Please let us know about your classic car insurance experiences so we can share relevant female feedback with members of the Club and their family.

FOXY Steph

No we’re not romantically involved, nor neighbours even.

It’s just that his voice is the one I chose to be my TomTom satnav motoring companion and we are forever travelling across the UK together to all sorts of previously unknown places.

I’ve heard some people say they prefer to take instructions from a female voice but not me. John’s clipped, supercilious and usually downright bossy instructions are spot on. Because I don’t feel at all out of order being rude back to him, especially when he is so obviously wrong.

‘Take the next turning’ he says… but it’s more than a mile away and we pass two or three exits before his appears.

‘Take the right turn’ he says but that isn’t the case – it’s simply a pronounced right hand bend in the road…and so on.

No wonder people end up in tight spots when they haven’t looked at a map first and they simply do what they’re told.

On balance John keeps me on my motoring toes, because I have to check that he’s right…’Oh no it isn’t, you silly man’ allows me to vent my gender superiority without causing offence.

All the same I chuckle at his pompous jokes about Napoleon, the inanity of ‘bearing’ vs ‘beavering’ left and his refusal to carry my bags at ‘our’ destination.

But I wouldn’t change him for another because he is, quite frankly, the perfect male motoring companion. He doesn’t criticise my driving, he’s only there because I say so and I can switch him off as soon as I know better or when he gets on my nerves.

FOXY Steph

Do you ever arrive at work and realise you can’t remember anything about your drive there?

Driving on auto pilot is a dangerous thing, but there are plenty of things you can do to make your daily commute safer.

Keep the car maintained. You may be driving with the low sun in your eyes, so make sure your windscreen washer fluid is topped up and that your windscreen and windows are clean. Check and adjust your tyre pressure regularly, and keep an eye on tread depth – this must be at least 1.6 millimetres – and their condition. You should also keep the oil at the right level and check all of your lights work.

The biggest problem with commuting is that everyone travels at the same time. People get frustrated and tired and will be inclined to behave unpredictably – watch out for people changing lanes suddenly as they try and get ahead of the traffic. Be wary and anticipate the actions of road users around you.

Stay calm. Being stuck in traffic and late for work is stressful, so allow a lot more time than you’re likely to need for the journey. I recently spent two hours on the M4 and covered only three miles. If you’re going to be late and need to let a colleague know, pull over into a safe place not obstructing other traffic, switch the engine off and make the call before carrying on.

Avoid rushing the rest of the journey to make up time. Better late than never, especially where your life’s concerned. And please, don’t be tempted to use your smartphone to check your work emails while you drive.

Check the weather forecast before you travel, especially when making a long journey. Heavy rain always slows traffic down, and in very severe weather conditions you need to consider if it’s safe to travel. When you are on the road, listen out for traffic updates on the radio in case your route is affected, but never look for updates on your mobile phone or satnav while on the move. The Highways Agency has a useful app with up to date traffic information for incidents on its roads, but remember you are breaking the law if you access it on a hand-held device, while moving. Knowing an alternative route in case of an accident or road closures is also useful.

Does your insurance cover you? Many policies will include commuting, but make sure they do, and if you start a job which involves commuting further remember to increase the mileage on your insurance premium. If you are expected to drive for work, you need to make sure your insurer covers you for business mileage too. If you have an accident driving for work, you won’t be covered if you don’t have this.

Many employers will have driver risk assessment schemes in place, and company insurance, but they are not legally obliged to do so, so don’t leave this to chance.

Caroline Holmes

www.iamdriveandsurvive.co.uk

The majority of the vacancies are to book cars in for car servicing, MOTs, mechanical and accident repair work via their contact centre but there are also two roles for receptionists.

Vertu Motors was the first Top Ten UK Dealer Group to sign up to FOXY Choice’s female friendly garage network in 2011. They commit to ATA, Kitemark and OFT quality schemes so they instantly ticked our criteria for measurable quality standards. They also seem to employ more than the industry average of female managers and service staff. So it wasn’t at all surprising that they wanted to display our FEMALE FRIENDLY logo to reassure local women and promote their time saving and stress busting services both inside and outside FOXY Lady Drivers Club.

Joining the FOXY Choice female friendly garage network was therefore a shrewd tactic to grow its car servicing, MOT and repair work and profits by marketing these more effectively to women and through them to their family and friends.

During the early part of the recession Vertu had specifically targeted older vehicles through lower pricing; a foxy strategy that recognised that many motorists driving older cars suspect that they cannot afford dealer prices.

As an aside – this is no longer always the case. At least if you go to a dealership you can be sure that the mechanics looking after your car have been trained to manufacturer standards whereas this isn’t necessarily the case with independent garages because anyone can set up a garage business without a license, the industry isn’t regulated and mechanics don’t have to be qualified. Which is why the industry makes so much of its complaints procedures I suppose.

Vertu has 83 dealerships and passed the £1 billion turnover mark recently.

Even Robert Forrester, Vertu’s Chief Executive Officer (seen in the photo), has been surprised by the extent of the Group’s continuing progress in such tough trading times.
“When four of us founded the Group from a single office in Newcastle in late 2006, it was difficult to imagine that we would quickly employ nearly 3,000 people across the UK.”

Undoubtedly Vertu is doing better than many in bucking the trend. In my experience, businesses that are lean and flexible are quicker to spot sales opportunities and respond to demand.

Assuming that Vertu employs more women than men in these customer service positions, this proves they are both a female friendly employer and entitled to their place in our female friendly garage network because of this. I say this because women (customers) tend to trust women (staff) more than men in a male dominated industry like the UK’s garage industry.

It therefore makes sound business sense for car dealerships’ MOT, car servicing and repair work to be trusted by women, knowing they are the gender spenders and that the aftersales side of the business is the one that makes the lion share of the profit, not the car sales side as it once was…

FOXY Steph

Don’t we all know that a business with a happy male and female workforce is a healthier one?

We are now told that it is a wealthier one too in terms of profits.

As you might expect, the EU has something to say about all this. In a move to influence businesses that aren’t employing enough women in senior roles (for economic reasons), MEPS are calling for an increase in female representation at management level. From a challenging 30% by 2015 to 40% by 2020. This is a welcome initiative says EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding.

The gender balance business case

Apparently ‘gender balance’ (ie where there is a fair balance of men and women) in top positions contributes to improved business performance, competitiveness and economic gains. A report by McKinsey found that gender-balanced companies have a 56% higher operating profit compared to male-only companies. This is supported by Ernst & Young research. They looked at the 290 largest publicly-listed companies and found that the earnings at companies with at least one woman on the board were significantly higher than in those that had no female board member.

It seems that a lack of women in top business jobs can therefore hamper a company’s performance, an industry in turn, then the country and now, we are told, Europe’s competitiveness and economic growth. Which is why several EU member states – notably Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain – have started to address the situation by adopting legislation that introduces gender quotas for company boards. And why others including Denmark, Finland, Greece, Austria and Slovenia, have adopted rules on gender balance for the boards of state-owned companies.

But who would want to be the token female to make up the quota? Much better to set targets and report (compare and contrast) on performance levels by industry I believe.

Gender balance in the UK

The UK government appointed Lord Davies to lead a review into the reasons why there aren’t more women on UK company boards. In 2011 he recommended that UK listed companies in the FTSE 100 should aim for a minimum of 25% female board members by 2015.

He suggested sensible targets for 2013 and 2015 to ensure that more talented women can get into the top jobs in UK companies.

On the basis of these recommendations the government is now encouraging all FTSE 350 companies to set out the percentage of women they aim to have on their boards in 2013 and by 2015.

Just for the record women now make up 14% of FTSE 100 directors, up from 12.5 % in 2010. There’s a long way to go.

Gender balance in the UK motor industry

The UK motor industry is a case in point. How wonderful it would be if Lord Davies’ recommendations would be adopted and exceeded here. Very few of the leading dealership groups have one let alone more than one female Executive Director on the Board and we certainly don’t want to see a spread of a few professional Non Executive Directors tolerated simply to tick the ‘gender balance’ token book at Board level. NEDs may have the right experience and may say the right thing but, regardless of gender, they cannot ‘feel’ a Group culture in the way that employees can, nor can they influence it from within.

Interestingly when I speak to leading motor group CEOs they invariably tell me they are a female friendly business, usually justifying this because they employ female managers. When I then talk to these female managers (in strict confidence) very few agree that the business is genuinely female friendly. I am left to deduce that these (always feisty) females have got where they are because they are not just the best ‘man’ for the job but also because they have been prepared to fight to prove it throughout their careers. Which few women are, given a more female friendly industry choice…
________________________________________________

The solution may be the ‘coming soon’ Female Friendly Approved website and service. We will be offering consultancy advice, a holistic FEMALE FRIENDLY audit, training programme and an accreditation programme for motor industry groups that genuinely want to
+ recruit and retain more females
+ deliver female friendly service levels for their customers in future (and delighting men in the process).

Providing the industry and its individual businesses have a strategic commitment to getting service levels right for female staff and customers in future, the necessary steps to change an all-male business culture can then begin in earnest. This will involve a training programme which should start at the very top of each and every organisation, recognising that not all women want to compete with men on male terms.

The opportunity cost for the motor industry is a high one at present. It is losing the best qualified (female) talent to other more female friendly industries simply because of its male-oriented culture and image. This is illustrated by Cranfield School of Management’s recent research findings that many more women than men report they have dealt with gender-based barriers by leaving employers or changing careers.

There is an urgent need to address the lacklustre male-dominated image of the motor industry so that it is seen to welcome women as employees for their natural talents; not just to promote the determined few who are willing to outbloke men and become too like them (in my opinion) as they move on up the ladder.

FOXY Steph