Sexism at the Car Dealership

Empowering Women in Car Buying: Overcoming Bias and Gaining Confidence

In this episode of 'Women Buying Cars,' host Meredith Reynolds dives into the biases women face at car dealerships and provides practical advice for combating sexism while car shopping.  She emphasizes the importance of preparation, confidence, and self-education to navigate the car buying process successfully. The episode also features a spotlight on the all-electric Ford Mustang Mach-E and concludes with strategies for handling pressure and ensuring a respectful and fair car buying experience. 

00:00 Introduction: Gender Bias in Car Buying
00:43 Meet Your Host: Meredith Reynolds
01:09 Listener Feedback and Topic Introduction
02:20 Understanding Sexism at Car Dealerships
04:46 Preparation is Power: Research and Planning
07:32 Practical Tips for Car Shopping
10:24 Car Spotlight: Ford Mustang Mach-E
14:10 Empowerment Through Confidence
17:46 Final Thoughts and Encouragement
19:10 Conclusion and Call to Action

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Transcript

Meredith 0:02

A study by two economists in Chicago found that women were quoted a higher price at a car dealership than men, even when those women came in with the same needs as the men and followed the same script. A separate study shows that women on average receive interest rates that are about 1% higher than men. Why in the world is this happening in 2025 and how can you combat it? Buckle up. We will be covering that today on women buying cars.

0:44

You are listening to women buying cars, and I'm your host Meredith Reynolds. I'm a former teacher turned used car dealer, and I'm here to teach and empower women to walk into a car dealership with confidence and walk out with the car that's right for them.

Meredith 1:01

Thanks for joining me. I'm Meredith Reynolds, owner of Reynolds Automotive in the Kansas City Metro. I appreciate you tuning in. I wanna thank all of you who have sent me a text. The text link is at the top of the show notes and I love hearing from you. I want to thank my listener in Fayetteville, Arkansas who left me the nicest text that absolutely made my day she wrote. Meredith, I am delighted to have found your podcast. The combination of your teaching skills and knowledge is just what I need. You explain clearly. Your episodes are enjoyable, and if I were in the Kansas City area, I would be headed to your dealership. It is overwhelming to shop for cars and thank you for helping me think through budget, understand all wheel drive, and learn lots about other topics. Keep up the great work. Thank you so much, miss Fayetteville, Arkansas. It is so nice to know that I am helping someone because that is my goal and it makes me feel so good to know that you went in and bought a Subaru Outback great choice, and you feel confident that it will meet your needs. I also would like to thank a listener from St. Louis who suggested today's topic, women being dismissed at the car dealership, and what we can do about it. It is not your imagination. Sexism at the car dealership is real. Women often report feeling that they've been talked down to ignored or straight up dismissed while shopping for a car, leading many of us to hate going car shopping, even though women. Purchase 62% of all new cars and are involved in 85% of all car sales, meaning they probably bought with a partner. So women are perhaps more involved in car buying than men. We should be having the red carpet rolled out for us. So imagine you walk into a car dealership with your notes, your budget, your financing lined up, ready to talk about the car you want, and within minutes, someone's asking if your husband will be joining you today. Or they say something like this one's got great trunk space. Perfect for groceries, because that's what you are, right, A grocery hauler. Meanwhile, the guy two feet away is asking about horsepower and torque, and they're practically rolling out the red carpet for him. It's frustrating, it's exhausting, and it happens way more often than it should. Why is this still happening? Well, here's the thing. The car buying world has historically been male dominated on both sides of the desk. A lot of the culture and dealerships hasn't caught up with the fact that it's no longer 1957 and that women are smart in formed buyers. Many of us do our homework. We come prepared, we listen to this podcast, we ask the right questions and still. A lot of people are gonna default to those outdated gendered assumptions. I know several men who have been selling cars for 40 years, and so that's where their mind is kind of stuck. I'm sure there are people out there who are exhibiting just plain bad behavior, but I'm gonna give the benefit of the doubt and say a lot of it is unconscious bias. I think these are not mean people, they just. Are clueless. They don't get it. They don't understand that a woman deserves the same amount of respect when it comes to shopping for a car. They don't need to be talked down to. So what can you do about this? How do you handle it? Well, number one is to be educated. Preparation is power. You want to walk in with power, and the way you can do that is to know what you're talking about. That doesn't mean I need you to take a crash course on torque, but do a lot of research before you walk in. Don't walk in blind. I have been a homeowner for 20 years in a couple of different houses, and somehow, and this is a big knock on wood, somehow I have never had to purchase a furnace. Someday I'll need to, unless I move again and get lucky with another newish furnace into the house I move into. But if I went into a store that sold furnaces where the salespeople worked on commission. Uh, knowing what I know now, which is zero, there's no telling what I would walk out with. I know nothing about furnaces. I don't know what to look for in efficiency. I don't know what size to get. I don't know what brands are reliable. I absolutely know nothing about furnaces because I've never needed to think about it really. So I could get steered in a direction that is not at all what's best for me. If I needed a furnace, I would start researching online immediately so that I had a clue what features my furnace needed to have. How large it needs to be for my size of home, how much I can afford, which brands to stay away from. I would need to do all of that frontloading before I walked into the furnace store and got completely misdirected and completely confused. To start this process for yourself. Start by looking around while you're driving. what do you see that you like on the road? pay attention. Think about. What size of car you need? Do you need all wheel drive? How important is it to you that you have heated leather seats? Really think about all your wants and then you need to start narrowing that down to your needs and what you can afford. Research car models. Look at pricing online line. Listen to this podcast. I have so many episodes on. What your credit score means for you, how to set your budget, how to figure out what your needs are. If you land on a car that's way out of your budget. Start looking into more affordable cars that have the features that you like in that extremely expensive car so that you can still feel good in your vehicle, but land on one that is right for your budget. I suggest you go to your own bank and get pre-approved for a loan. That way you have that in your back pocket and you don't have to use the dealerships. Financing. However, you can have them go ahead and give you a quote so that you can compare it to what the bank gave you and see if it is better. It's possible, but if not, you can fall back on your own financing and not deal with that aspect of the car dealership at all. Take notes and don't be afraid to bring those notes in. I highly recommend you really narrow down the makes and models that you're interested in. I've had customers come in and want to try out five or six completely different types of cars. All that happens is they get overwhelmed and confused. They drive a Subaru, then they drive a three row Honda pilot. Then they decide to drive a two row RAV4. And on and on and on. And by the end, they don't know what they've driven, what they liked, what they didn't like, and they leave feeling more confused than ever. So really think about your needs, narrow it down, and then go in and maybe there's a couple of different ones you'd like to try. You'd like to try a Honda CRV and a Toyota RAV4, which makes sense because those are comparable in size and reputation. And so do your homework. If you come in prepared, you will feel more confident and that will radiate from you. People will react differently to you if you're radiating confidence. I don't mean bitchy, I don't mean over the top. I don't mean arrogant, but confident that you know what you're talking about and you know what you want. I would set the tone early. I've done a lot of research and I know exactly what I'm looking for. That tells 'em I'm not here for you to sell me on something. I'm here to make a decision. If you are not wanting to make a decision today, I would be upfront about that too. I'm not buying today, but I'd like to get some ideas of what works for me. I'm interested in Honda CRVs and Rav fours. The end, you don't have to say anything else. Being upfront about that can help alleviate some of the pushiness that you might receive from a salesperson that day. It also lets them know you are the decision maker, and you will be doing what's best for you If someone is being pushy with you, you can always make a statement like, I don't make financial decisions on the spot. I'll take your offer and get back to you. For me, that's very true. I am not an impulsive buyer. I would never walk in and that day walk out with a car. That's a major decision. My husband would, I would not. So. I would be upfront about all of that, and it will help alleviate some pressure. it's now time for a segment. I like to call cars. I love the car. I love. Today is the. All electric Ford Mustang Mock E. This is such a good looking car. It is not what you would think of when you think of a Ford Mustang. I'll admit that. It is more of a crossover and a lot of true Mustang aficionados. Do not like that. This is using the Mustang name, this doesn't look like a Mustang. But if you think about the Mustang of the 1960s, the 1980s, today, the Mustang has evolved. It has looked many different ways, and this is just the latest. So it is all electric. It is an EV crossover with a sporty feel. We just got one for my dad. I've been wanting one, but I'm not ready to pull any triggers yet. He kind of had a whim that he might want an ev. I said, oh, you should look at the Ford Mustang, and within about 10 days. He was buying one, so I got to drive it. I got to ride in it. I really liked it. It's so smooth and it has three different driving modes. There is a huge touchscreen right up front where the radio would be, where you can control pretty much anything on the car, including what color ambient lights you'd like to have inside in the evening and. Heated seats, air conditioned seats, heated steering wheel, a huge backup camera navigation. These came out in 2021, so they're very up to date and have a lot of great features. It's a Mustang. So the driving features are sporty, responsive. There's three different drive modes from smooth and kind of calm to a more sporty, what they call unbridled. It even has faux revving engine sound. It comes in all wheel drive.

12:27

It has two rows, so there is a lot of space in the hatchback for suitcases, sports bags, whatever you need to put back there. Plus as an electric car, it doesn't have a big motor in the front, so there's actually some storage space under the hood. That area is referred to as a franc, a front. Trunk. So you have storage in both the back trunk as always, and in your smaller Fr.

Meredith 12:59

Electric vehicles, if you've never driven one, they take off quickly because the engine doesn't have to rev up. You just instantly are in drive mode. The Mustang goes zero to 60 in three and a half seconds. How much battery life you get, depends on the trim level. We got my dad, the gt, which is about 260 miles to a charge. There is a trim level called California and actually goes 320 miles. So it just varies, but these are all longer. Than batteries of the first generation, which is more like what I'm driving in my Chevy Bolt. It is really versatile. It's practical. It's comfortable. You're helping the earth. You're not paying for gas. I mean, once you start not paying for gas, you'll never want to go back to a combustion engine again. And then if you wanna be driving it like it's a sports car, you can.

13:57

So if you are considering going all electric, I recommend you look at the Ford Mustang Mock E. Now let's talk more about sexism at the car dealership.

Meredith 14:10

So besides being prepared and being upfront, how else can you feel confident when you walk in there? You've educated yourself. You know what you're after, but you're still just really nervous. How can you build up that confidence? For me, what I am wearing affects how I feel. That may sound shallow, but it's the truth. If I'm wearing a shirt that's too tight or too short, or is too revealing and I'm messing with it, I'm not feeling confident. If I'm wearing my best jeans, I'm feeling pretty good. Personally. If I have a very small heel, it does something to me mentally. It makes me feel strong and in control. Uh, not five inch stilettos while test driving a car, but there's something about the right shoe with a little bit of a heel that makes me feel powerful. So what makes you feel like that? Do your clothes affect you? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. What about the music you're listening to on the way over there? Can you pump yourself up? I recommend. Since you've been gone by Kelly Clarkson, it's a female empowerment song. It has nothing to do with buying a car, but it is upbeat and it is one you wanna just sing really loud to, and it's all about female empowerment. So pick a song like that for you. Practice a confident tone. You don't wanna sound meek, you don't wanna sound bitchy. That won't help you either. But practice sounding confident, even keel, calm in control. You don't have to explain yourself. If you're not interested in a car, you don't have to go into an explanation. They'll wanna know why and you can tell them, but you don't need to go into a long explanation. No, thank you is powerful. Silence is powerful. But remember the salespeople can also be. Your friend, they can be helpful. So if you really like this car, but you can't stand the cloth interior, then tell them that because they might be able to redirect you to something that has more of what you need. They might have another model that's not ready yet, but will be ready next week, and it does have leather seats, don't be so standoffish. That you don't get the help that you really could use. What are the red flags you should look for that would make you turn, tail and leave? Well, anything that makes you feel uncomfortable or disrespected or pressured. If you're asking a direct question and they will not give you a direct answer, that's a red flag. If you are signing paperwork and they're rushing you through it, or new fees are popping up that were not discussed, you can pump the brakes right then. And finally, you wanna trust your instincts. If you just don't have a good feeling, there's nothing wrong with walking away, even if this car is the one you want. There will be other cars or you can ask to speak with someone else if the salesperson is just not working for you. You deserve to be treated like an informed adult making a big financial decision because that's exactly what you are. It is not just about cars, it's about dignity. And trust me, when you hold your ground, ask tough questions and insist on being treated fairly, you are changing the conversation, not just for you, but for every woman walking in after you. Should you bring a man with you. Well, my short answer is no, not unless this is your husband, partner, and he will be buying this car with you. I know a lot of people want to bring their dad or a male friend, and I understand that to an extent, but when you do that, there's a good chance the sales person is going to start talking to him and not you, whether the salesperson realizes they're doing it or not. Okay. If you bring someone, it needs to be really clear that they are your wingman and you are the one in charge. You are the one making the decision they need to hang back so that it is very clear that your the main customer. So trust yourself. You've done the work. Don't let anyone shake your confidence, bring your notes, your research, your numbers. You do know what you're talking about. And if you feel like you need a second opinion, I would take it to a mechanic for a pre-purchase inspection to alleviate any worries you might have. So the next time you walk into a dealership, remember you are capable. You are prepared and you are entitled to be respected in that space. Don't let anyone make you feel otherwise. So whether you drive off in a hybrid, an SUV or a used minivan with heated seats and a mystery stain, you deserve to feel good about the way you got there. Thanks for spending time with me today. If this episode resonated with you or reminded you of your own car buying saga, share it with a friend. Leave of a review and keep showing up with confidence. thank you so much for listening and happy driving.