PG Mitchell Motor Engineers is a privately owned and female friendly garage in the west end of Lincoln, within walking distance of the city centre and easily accessed from the Lincoln bypass.

A member of the FOXY Choice approved FEMALE FRIENDLY garage network, PG Mitchell also provides specialist services for members of FOXY Lady Drivers Club and their families. In addition to the usual MoTs, car servicing and general repairs, these include time saving maintenance services such as a free tyre pressure check and free levels check (meaning oils, coolant and brake fluids) to members producing their membership card on arrival.

And during September they have an even better offer for women drivers in Lincoln – pop in and they’ll offer you a gift membership of the Club, worth £23, for free.

This comes with all sorts of reassuring and handholding support services so that women can save time, money and stress levels when it comes to every aspect of their everyday motoring.

You could say we’re the equivalent of a girl’s best motoring friend because we’re totally independent, put women’s best interests first and we know who the good guys are because of the female feedback we receive about cars, garage services, dealerships, road accident services, insurance and finance matters.

If you live in Lincoln and you’d like to try a FEMALE FRIENDLY independent garage in Lincoln, why not call 01522 539137 and speak to Mr Mitchell about this now.

FOXY Steph

Think of it as your car’s motoring fitness check and even though it’s simply a safety snapshot on the day, it’s good to have the MOT milestone done and dusted for the year ahead. And to know that you can have it done a month earlier than its expiry date without the garage altering its 12 month validity.

I’ve just received a reminder from SB Motors in Hove that the Citroen’s MOT is due. I had hoped we’d have exchanged this car for a younger one by now but it has never faltered, has the 2.0HDi engine which gives us 60+ mpg on combined motorway and urban use and so we haven’t got round to it yet. At least it’ll have a fresh MOT when we do. We’ve acquired a second Citroen, an XM, in the meantime but goodness knows what the plan is for that other than a quirky mechanical challenge for the helpdesk team!

We are seeing some fantastic motoring offers for Club members but where these are for garage services, how can non member women drivers tell who the best and therefore safest garages are?

Well I’m likely biased as far as SB Motors is concerned because we’ve been working with them from FOXY’s very early days and they are now a FOXY approved female friendly garage in Hove and listed at FOXY Choice. Another factor that matters is that they are a Unipart Car Care Centre which means a no quibble 12 month parts guarantee should any repair fail and you’re travelling the country or on holiday. You can count on Unipart even if it’s better known in the trade than by women.

But if you want to know what your quality garage choices are, I suggest you read our Good Garage Guide although it’s a far too complicated choice I’m afraid. Or join the Club and we’ll help you on a 1:1 basis.

Just for the record, if you are in Hove, here are SB Motors’ latest offers which all include 20% VAT of course.

• Half price MOT with any service
• MOT for just £35 – RRP £54.85
• Low mileage minor service for £70
• Air con and regas £39
• Free fitting of wiper blades and most bulbs

All in all we’ve a great selection of deals like these, for members of FOXY Lady Drivers Club to share with their family knowing their motoring and female friendly garage choices can be trusted and relied upon.

FOXY Steph

If you are driving a Citroen, Peugeot or Fiat and live or work in Stoke on Trent you should know that there is a female friendly garage that specialises in these makes and where all the mechanics have been awarded Automotive Technician Accreditation (ATA) by the Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI).

Look for Automotive Technician Accreditation

Simon Dean is an ATA registered Master Technician; Terry Barlow is an ATA registered Diagnostic Technician and Ashley Shaw is an ATA registered Service Maintenance Technician

The name of the garage is Simon Dean Motor Services and it is also a FOXY Choice subscriber offering members of FOXY Lady Drivers Club free car checks and £20 off their major car servicing prices (currently £189 before the members discount) which includes a free fuel treatment service for economy.

In an industry where few motorists appreciate that garages don’t have to be licensed or mechanics qualified (and that complaint levels are high as you might expect) ATA is one of the quality signs that FOXY recommends because it means that the workshop individuals who repair your car (and are clearly the most important safety consideration) have been accredited as fit to repair our cars. Even better, they also sign up to a ethical code of conduct so you know they will not rip you off.

Any local women drivers in Stoke on Trent who would like to join the Club are eligible to do so for free – Simon Dean Motor Services has a gift membership offer worth £23 free of charge whilst the offer remains. The Club helps members with their cars, insurance and finance shopping as well as providing a helpdesk, special offers and support services when motoring gets stressful. Put simply, you save £23 on the subscription, then £20 when you need a full car service plus lots of other offers that you can share with your family.

Talk to Mandy Barlow about this – she’s the Female Business Ambassador, she is taking her ATA equivalent test shortly in customer service and she’ll be able to sign you up for free Club membership.

And look out for the ATA logo of course.

FOXY Steph

Female car drivers don’t DIY car maintenance as often as men according to research by Autoquake.com.

Which could be because the research is carried out by men (only having a laugh guys…), women are more honest in our survey responses (although this does us no credit), because our foxy feller does all this for us or because we are members of FOXY Lady Drivers Club and get free seasonal car checks and associated services carried out by female friendly garage professionals. Sounds plausible to me.

And because women are FOXY by nature of course, as in female, feisty and fussy that is.

Here’s the survey detail if you’re interested.

• More than one-in-ten female drivers (12%) never check their car’s oil level whereas just under 8% of men admit to this
• Twice as many women (14%) as men (7%) admit to never checking their tyre pressures while almost one-in-five say they never check the tread-depth. (If true, there’s no excuse here girls – join the Club and we’ll explain why this is really serious and how to stay safer in future)
• Women drivers are also more likely than men to pay someone else to carry out basic maintenance for them
• Just over 14% of women pay to have coolant levels checked compared with 5% of men
• A staggering 9% of women pay someone else to check their washer fluid level compared to 3% of men

And apparently drivers in Northern Ireland are more diligent about all this than we in the South East.

Moi? FOXY, female, feisty and fussy, living in the South East? I get my husband to do my car maintenance for me but I wouldn’t dream of paying him. Not sure if there was a survey category for that!

FOXY Steph

More than 5 million motorists are driving dangerous cars says Britannia Rescue (2010)

Sometimes you get a lot more for your money than you might realise at first glance. When looking for a garage in Cheadle for example. To begin with, you might think that AA Silencers was a fairly standard garage in Staffordshire selling and fitting silencers only, but you’d be wrong. For starters it’s listed as a female friendly garage in Cheadle and is part of the FOXY Choice UK network.

It is also an Automotive Technician Accreditation (ATA) registered employer, qualified to carry out MOTs, car servicing and most vehicle repairs too.

And if you’re female, members of FOXY Lady Drivers Club can ask AA Silencers for the latest discounts and local foxy ladies in Cheadle who aren’t members yet may well be able to claim gift membership (worth £23) – just pop in and ask Adam if that offer still stands .

But we were surprised to find that they also run a company called Matrix Ice in Cheadle, adding sales and fitting services of all sorts of car entertainment, safety devices, hands free Bluetooth enabled mobile gadgets, parking aids, towbars and satnavs.

All in all a great convenience for local women drivers who’d like the job done without any fear of being overcharged, patronised or sold products and services they didn’t want to buy.

That’s what the female friendly FOXY Promise stands for and after the recent Kwik-Fit mauling by BBC Watchdog, that is a reassuring reason for women to shop at AA Silencers as a FOXY Choice listed business.

FOXY Steph

“When one door closes, another door opens.”
Alexander Graham Bell

Yes there is a choice of garage, they aren’t all the same, some are better than others and it isn’t always as simple a choice as you might think.

For some females a dealership provides the peace of mind and service levels they expect for their car and money. For others looking for cheaper garage services perhaps, a good independent is likely to save them money. A bit like choosing M&S and Waitrose versus Asda and Tesco, we veer towards the one that we like the look of and which represents the best value for money for our car, the occasion and the budget.

I’d add that in an industry like the UK garage one where businesses don’t have to be regulated or mechanics qualified, it is extremely important to pick one that is measurably better than the rest; not just one that says it is. Your safety might depend on it.

If you want to do your homework about garage choices, measurable signs of quality and the criteria that makes one garage or dealership more female friendly than another, you want to read what an independent advisory service says – the following links will help you here.

A Good Garage Guide for women with advice and tips about buying MOT’s, car servicing and repairs.

Measurable signs of quality in UK garages today – confusing yes, when what we motorists need is just one ambitious standard

A new network of female friendly garages in the UK – if you know one that isn’t listed there, you are invited to pass on the contact so they can be invited to join and fill in the gaps.

The female friendly standard for garages and dealerships – so women can avoid being overcharged, patronised and sold products and services they don’t need.

Businesses that employ women in customer facing roles in garages and dealerships

When women know what to look for they can then cherry pick the businesses that commit to being the best and most female friendly; and steer clear of those that haven’t bothered to make that effort.

FOXY Steph

“Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.”
Henry Ford

Female friendly independent garage in Oxfordshire, Thame Service Station in Thame has collected two prestigious motor industry awards which we have only just spotted…

Both are for the title ‘Used Car Retailer of the Year’ and the first was awarded by MotorTrader magazine in 2009. The second is more recent and for the same award category at the Automotive Management (AM) Awards ceremony held in Birmingham in February 2010.

These are reassuring awards for women drivers, bearing in mind that the OFT recently found that one in five used car sale ends in a complaint which is yet another indictment of the poor level of customer service in the UK motor industry today. To make sure they are seen to do things better than many others, Thame Service Station states that it is committed to providing high quality used vehicles at affordable prices. They also come with a service, valet and 7 day insurance policy so you can drive your chosen car away on the same day.

Thame Service Station has also signed the female friendly FOXY Promise which you can see at the FOXY Choice garage website to ‘never overcharge, patronise or sell customers services they don’t need or want.’

And they’re modest, otherwise they’d have been on to tell us before we found this out for ourselves…

Congratulations from FOXY, even if we’re a little late!

FOXY Steph

Find out about other female friendly garages in and about Oxfordshire here…



Our family bus, the wonderful long suffering Citroen Picasso, needed its MOT doing this week. The nearest FOXY Choice subscriber was female friendly SB Motors garage in Hove run by foxy lady Caroline Baxter so off I trotted for a chat whilst the job was being done.

Caroline told me that despite trading better during the recession than in 2008 (in which she is bucking the industry trend) the Bank says she is in a high risk area (garages presumably are discretional income?) so she can’t expect to borrow from them and must fund business growth herself. Whilst I am waiting for my car in the nice and warm reception area there is a steady flow of MOT, car servicing and repair business coming and going which certainly looks healthy to me.

My car then fails its MOT (I seem to recall a recent ‘grounding’ that may have caused this which my husband is unaware of until he reads this…) and needs a central exhaust part <not discretional income in any way Mr Bank Manager> so off I trotted again yesterday to get the job finished.

Whilst I was there I finalised a special offer for local members of FOXY Lady Drivers Club and talked Caroline into being FOXY’s first Female Business Ambassador; a new network to recognise female friendly garages who employ and/or are run by women, giving them the opportunity to describe a typical day for the benefit of other females who might want to know what is involved.

In my experience this means they are more likely to understand and appreciate what women want and many women see this as a sign of reassurance BUT it is by no means compulsory to employ women to be a female friendly business so this is not sexist thing and in fact most of the men I have spoken to quite like the idea too .

More about this later as the Female Business Ambassador network is under wraps and not quite ready to launch yet… hopefully by early February.

FOXY Steph

Bushey Hall Garage is the female friendly FOXY Choice garage subscriber in Watford that we have received foxy feedback from women drivers about.

Before we approve any garage and promote it to foxy lady drivers we first check it out and then identify it as a good garage by virtue of its quality credentials, value for money and investment in facilities.

For quality starters Bushey Hall Garage is a member of the Bosch Car Service network which means it is one of the few to have achieved full OFT approval for the Code of Practice, Service and Repair – this is one of the highest quality standards in the UK garage industry and means the garage is visited regularly. Bushey Hall has always achieved some of the top marks within the Bosch network too.

Then you can expect to save c30% on car servicing, repairs and MOTs compared to car dealership prices.

And perhaps just as important for a women driver, if you play golf or like shopping you are within walking distance of Bushey Hall Golf Club and Watford’s Harlequin Shopping centre. This means you can book your car into Bushey Hall Garage and either play golf or shop until it’s repaired or serviced.

Sounds a foxy arrangement to me. And if you are a member of FOXY Lady Drivers Club this female friendly garage has signed up to provide women drivers and their family with free quarterly car fitness checks and 10% off servicing MOTs and tyres  – all part of the life assistance support services FOXY offers its members alongside motoring and legal advice, offers and accident assist.

FOXY Steph

PS: I run FOXY Lady Drivers Club – a life assistance motoring association for women and FOXY Choice – a unique female friendly marketing service for garages and dealerships that sign the female friendly FOXY Promise to ‘never overcharge, patronise or sell women services they don’t need or want.’ By all means contact me via either website.

Yet another novel idea to make women drivers feel welcome – this time in Fife in Scotland.

If you are a female motorist near Eastfield Industrial Estate in Glenrothes you can have your car serviced whilst you work out at the nearby Millennium Fitness Centre (or the other way round, depending on how you see this…).

Not only is the Leisure Centre free but they have a creche too and you can use their beauty studio if you aren’t feeling all that energetic on the day!

Even better if you are a member of FOXY Lady Drivers Club and qualify for free car fitness checks and moneysaving garage discounts throughout the year.

All courtesy of female friendly garage, Falkland Performance Centre, in Glenrothes who are a Bosch Car Service member which means that they can display the OFT code of practice logo which is only reserved for the best.

To be listed by FOXY Choice in the first place, Falkland Performance Centre garage needed to sign the female friendly FOXY Promise to never overcharge, patronise or sell women services they do not need or want. Over and above the leisure centre offer they provide a local car collection service, courtesy car (subject to availability) and employ female staff.

Scottish FOXY Ladies like them.

FOXY Steph

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