Growing up a feminist in Omaha in the 1970s made Sherry Bale an anomaly. High school officials barred her from taking an auto-shop class on the grounds that tinkering with cars was a guy`s thing.
No exceptions.
Bale held that thought for about a decade-until four years ago, when she was put on the Jiffy Lube account, along with colleague Richard Brill, at Aaron D. Cushman, a public relations firm.
The Cushman team and the oil-changing chain came up with an idea that puts the status quo in reverse.
Their PR strategy began two summers ago, with Women`s Car Care Month, a promotion that included 70,000 free brochures packed with car-care tips and an essay contest soliciting customers` best-and worst-automotive experiences. Both sexes wrote in, but of the 100 received, most were from women.
Based on the essays, Cushman and Jiffy Lube found that auto ignorance ejects from the driver`s seat those who get stranded or confront a shifty mechanic. Respondents admitted that a modicum of car savvy would have lessened their vulnerability.
That sparked the idea for Jiffy Lube Car Care Seminars, which would teach the basics in car maintenance and be geared mostly toward women.
Last summer 3,500 people age 20 to 80 registered for the free classes at 17 Jiffy Lube locations throughout the Chicago area. Ninety-nine percent of the participants were women.
Surprisingly, the company kept no records on how much new business the courses generated; the intent was more a public service than a marketing tool, says Bale.
However, Jiffy Lube does know that last year women made up more than half of 1.2 million customers who had their car`s oil changed at the company`s 68 area locations.
The program`s high turnout convinced Jiffy Lube it should expand the number of seminars this year to 20 from 17. Demand has been significantly lower than expected, barely reaching a third of last year`s numbers to date.
One way to spark interest next year might be to tap men who were not born with wrenches in hand and an innate car-jock sensibility.
One Chicago man, in his 30s, assumed the courses were for women only, and became ecstatic when told otherwise.
”Oh, what a good idea,” said the artist, who never took auto-shop in high school and who grew up without a father figure to teach him about cars.
For a certain generation, virtually all boys were required to take shop classes, while the girls were funneled into home economics. Such courses now are mostly optional, and not part of the standard college-prep curriculum.
”When it comes to car care, I`m `the woman` Jiffy Lube caters to,” said the artist, who prefers anonymity.
Three men who felt the same way recently joined about 120 women for a Tuesday night seminar at the Jiffy Lube at Pratt and Western Avenues in Chicago. While the seminars are marketed to women, men are welcome.
Judging from the scene this night, you`d never guess attendance at the seminars is down.
Perched atop a plastic chair, Bale, 32, presented her spiel in true Helen ”I Am Women” Reddy spirit.
”Women buy more than half of the cars in America. We are responsible for 84 percent of new-vehicle purchases. We`re doctors, we`re lawyers, we`re salespersons, we also do the household errands,” she roared, looking beyond her audience, most of whom are old enough to be her grandmother.
Bale offered to ”empower” them with ”the know-how in dealing with service technicians” and maintaining their own cars.
That`s what drew Pearl Ragins, a 70-year-old retired teacher. Since her husband`s death in September, she has driven her 1991 Honda Civic DX fewer than 1,000 miles. Throughout their marriage, her husband serviced the car. She now fears driving, because if something goes wrong, she won`t be able to fix it.
”All I had to do was get in the car and drive. Now, all of a sudden, I`ve got to put gas in the car myself,” laughed Ragins nervously in the waiting room a few minutes before the session began. ”I want to know when the car is functioning properly, how to maintain the engine and diagnose the noises. Just general maintenance.”
Bale saud Ragins is the typical seminar attendee. But, unlike many of her peers, Ragins came prepared.
In the 45-minute introduction to what fluids make which parts of the engine run, Ragins asked Gary Machonga, the mechanic assigned to her and 35 other women (mostly her age), a slew of questions about motor oil.
Her Honda dealer recently changed her car`s oil. Ragins wanted to know when to get the next oil change and what oil to use in the meantime.
”It doesn`t make any difference whether it`s Quaker State or Pennzoil, as long as they`re `SE,` ” explained Machonga. Machonga defined ”SE” as a grade of oil used with recent makes such as Ragins` 1991 Honda. For older cars, lower grades suffice, he said.
Oils have changed in other ways as well. Before polymers were added to oil, varied weights would be used in different seasons. Summer oils would be heavier than those used in the winter. But now, the polymers can adapt to different temperatures and have led to multigrade oils, such as 10W30 and 5W20.
Machonga suggested Ragins use 10W30 in her Honda, and she wrote down his suggestions.
Despite the three blue flags declaring, ”Be Cool,” which drooped listlessly from the ceiling above Machonga and his class, the garage was anything but. The women used Jiffy Lube flyers to fan themselves.
Machonga`s car was between two others with comparable crowds gathered around their open hoods, where registered mechanics like Machonga answered similar questions. All three men were supplied by the American Automobile Association, a co-sponsor of the seminars.
But not all women pressed in as close to their mechanics and rattled off as many questions as Ragins did.
”It was really difficult to get to the car and see what`s going on,”
Mara Warner complained as Bale announced that 45 minutes are up. ”I wish that we had more time and there weren`t so many people here.”
It was time to switch places with three other groups, which had spent the first part of the session downstairs learning about the underside of cars.
Bale reminded the ”ladies” that leaning against metal stairwells and catwalks, on the lower level, could leave oil stains on clothes. After all, this is a garage, he noted.
Warner, 28, brought her boyfriend Thomas Judge along so he could review the tips with her on their car at home. She had expected to get hands-on experience changing engine oils and a tire. Instead, she got lectures on how a car works.
”The mechanic just pointed to the holes and tubes and where you would insert the fluids theoretically,” Warner said. ”If I had to really change the oil myself, I also would have to take one of those continuing education classes you pay for.”
All was not lost, though. Warner said she was shopping for a new car, so she jotted down the mechanics` suggestions for preventive maintenance.
Judge, 25, found the demonstration below the car most beneficial. He stood with his hands on Warner`s shoulders, intent on the presentation given by Therese Bartholemew, Jiffy Lube International`s director of training.
Squatting on a catwalk two feet from the ground, Bartholemew pointed to the transaxle of the front-wheel-drive car above her, comparing it with a nearby rear-wheel-drive car.
Lillian Sinay, a bespectacled older woman, asked what a muffler does. She just had the one in her `87 Pontiac Bonneville changed for the first time.
”An exhaust system without a muffler makes a big booming noise that wakes you up at night,” Bartholemew explained.
Sinay said her new muffler still makes that ”putt-putt noise.” So Bartholemew suggested Sinay return the car to the mechanic, because there may be an exhaust leak. Bartholemew then segued into a three-minute, rapid-fire description of the path oil takes through the car, and concluded that Sinay`s exhaust system may be rusting from the inside out.
Though Bartholemew was dressed in grease-monkey threads and black motorcycle boots, she is no ordinary mechanic. With a bachelor`s degree in romance languages from the University of Chicago, she uses her academic training to cleverly present an organized presentation, covering a lot of territory in a short time.
She knows how to reach the women, because she has done this countless times before, and even has made her widowed mother and older sister car-literate.
”I hate to say this, but the women at a lot of these seminars that I`ve done will (preface questions to) the men instructors with scared looks, and say, `Gee, this is going to be a real stupid question . . . ` ” said Bartholemew before the session began. ”But when they talk to me, they look me right in the face. I`m not intimidating and I`m another female.”
So it was no wonder that Warner and Ragins were among the eight women who lingered up to 15 minutes after Bale signaled that it was time to go upstairs and receive door prizes.
They were eager to find out about Ragins` squeaky brake pedal and the rusting tail pipe on Warner`s boyfriend`s car and get advice on what kind of car she should buy.
Xu Yi, a recent emigre from China, wondered if a leaking tire and dilapidated spare are safety risks. Having grown up in a town where only
”work units” had cars, Yi said she had no idea where to buy a tire, let alone how to change one.
Unlike Warner, the seminar suited her needs just fine.
”The car is so new to me, I have to learn everything from the beginning, like what is the transmission oil and the battery,” Yi said.
Nancy Wilson, a former bus driver and avid Harley rider, knew the answers to most of her classmates` questions. But the presentation tied her knowledge together.
Though the seminar won points with Wilson, it did not snag her business. The next day, she took her Toyota to the dealer for an oil change, rather than use the $3 coupon she had received the night before from the site`s manager, Zoran Podunavac.
However, Wilson did recommend the class to her aunt, who learned to drive at age 50.
Wilson is not alone. Three weeks after the seminar, none of the 125 coupons that Podunavac passed out had been cashed in.
He did receive a nice letter, though.
”You are providing a very important service to the community. . . . I hope you reap the rewards with a lot of new customers. Count me in. I`d give you my business any day of the week,” wrote one of the participants on sky blue stationery.
