A woman on TikTok says she dressed up as a man—fake beard and all—before heading to the mechanic in hopes of avoiding being taken advantage of.
Taylor (@bright.eyesss) filmed herself stepping out of her car wearing a backward baseball cap and a fake beard. The video doesn’t show her leaving the shop or reveal what work she needed done, so it’s unclear whether her disguise was effective or if the video was just for laughs.
Still, Taylor suggests that the costume felt necessary.
"When you’re a girl taking your car to the mechanic and you don’t want them to take advantage of you," she writes in the overlay.
"Is this a universal experience or just me?" she adds in the caption. As of Sunday, her TikTok had amassed more than 2.4 million views.
There’s no definitive proof that women are routinely scammed at auto shops, but anecdotal evidence and some research suggests it’s not just in their heads.
In a 2022 post on the AskMechanics subreddit, one user claimed they avoided two different shops because coworkers openly bragged about ripping off women. Others chimed in, saying it’s not just a gender issue—it’s opportunism.
"If some ‘nerdy’ guy turns up, I’m sure it would be the same,” one commenter wrote.
Bloggers and auto experts have compiled lists of lies they claim are commonly told to women. These include saying that a part needs replacing when it doesn’t, inflating prices, or claiming the car is due for services when it actually isn’t.
A deep dive from The Atlantic found that women, especially those who seemed less informed, were quoted higher prices than men for the same repairs. But one piece of research cited in the article attributes this not to outright sexism but to something called statistical discrimination.
"Shops believe, rightly or wrongly, that women know less about cars," the researchers wrote. "In the absence of information to the contrary, they will be offered a higher quote."