A woman's guide to the rude mechanicals

Lynne Wallis suffered the pin-ups and masculine slicks of her local garage with only one change of clothes.

You might think spray on tight jeans and platform boots aren't the correct attire for a lone woman to wear to a garage in search of a quote for repairs, and I agree with you. But I hadn't planned a garage visit when I got dressed on Saturday, and I didn't hear the dreadful screeching noise that loose tappets make (they are part of the camshaft, you know) until after I'd left home. I met a friend for breakfast who listened to my car and wrongly assured me it was the fan belt. He recommended a local garage, so off I went to Alan's Motors.

Alan's walls were covered in posters of naked young women on motorbikes, but they were the nearest BMW shop, so I gritted my teeth and waited for someone to show up. A 20-stone mechanic, with a couple of loo chains round his neck, rolled his eyeballs skywards and said "You're blockin' someone in, so park it over here luv". I obliged. Without even examining my car he then told me it was the camshaft, and that you couldn't adjust BM tappets so they'd have to replace the whole thing. The whole job was going to be - queue the inevitable sharp intake of breath - a lot of dough.

I asked to see the manager (shirt open to waist, lots of chest hair and a medallion) who leafed through a few books to find parts prices. "Can someone move that BM again, it's blockin the drive now," shouted another mechanic. Feeling a bit of a dippy cow as I bodged the parking, I waddled back into the shop, my demeanour not helped by over tight jeans and the fact that I hadn't yet learned to walk in these damned boots. Was I getting paranoid or were they sniggering?

"It's going to be pounds 420 quid love" said medallion man. How could they quote on a job when they hadn't even bothered to look under the bonnet? I dared to put this to the manager, who leant forward, head cupped in his hands, and started to speak to me as if I were a large deaf child: "You can tell it's the tappets from the noise love". God how I wished I had a sensible frock and flat shoes on, and that I'd started that car maintenance for women course. "Fan belt don't make a noise like that. It's the camshaft. I know what I quoted sounds like a lot, but BMWs are expensive cars to run." Getaway. And there's me thinking that Ladas were top of the range maintenance-wise.

I told medallion man politely that I was going to get quotes from some other garages because his sounded rather expensive. Besides, I didn't like the cut of his jib. "Up to you luv," came the reply. I'd had enough of this. I flicked my hair out of my face snootily, preparing for a stylish departure, and as I bent down to pick up my bag, I heard a loud rip. It was my jeans, bursting like a sausage skin from knee to bum, exposing my gratefully liberated but cold white flesh. I didn't even have a coat on to pull over myself. As the three mechanics tittered, and one said "Whoops", I sidled out of the shop. I could have died. Totally flustered, I took the wrong direction to my car and then had to walk, exposed thigh and half a bum cheek in the direction of the jeering oily rags, past the glass fronted shop again. They were laughing openly by this stage, one leaning forward hands on hip. I was very red in the face and utterly furious.

I've thrown the ripped jeans out of my wardrobe, and I'm enrolling for that car maintenance course in the new year, so the next time something goes wrong with my car, I can floor the mechanics with my technical knowledge instead of providing the afternoon's entertainment. I did manage to get the whole job done elsewhere for pounds 250, so my instincts were right. Clearly, the lessons to be learned are: don't wear anything remotely sexy to a garage if you want a car mechanic to take you seriously; don't try to squeeze into jeans you haven't worn in three years just because you've lost a stone at Weightwatchers; and if you buy platforms and you're not used to them, have walking lessons inside your home before venturing out onto the streets.