Customer Reviews

The Woman's Fix It Car Care Book: Secrets Women Should Know About Their Cars

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
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Karen has written a wonderful illumination of car basics, focusing on the mechanically-challenged (women like me). From the Five Basic Fluids to showing why you should consider an older car over purchasing a brand new one, Karen's easy-to-read text leads you down the path to new knowledge. I feel I can converse with my car now, rather than just running to the nearest male for help. The world is mine.

Thanks Karen! Now I can have something productive to do when I open the hood. Using the book's 5 fluid checklist gives me more choices. I can either do it myself of let the techs at Jiffy Lube do it for me. Either way, I know a lot more than I did before about the 5 fluids and the systems they monitor.

I was disappointed in this book. It has a condescending tone, constantly comparing a car's engine to the kitchen. I found the assumption that all women must have a good understanding of the kitchen at best frustrating, since am no cook, and at worst, degrading. The author implies that male mechanics are hulking brutes, and that they intentionally invent words just to confuse us, like "viscosity" to describe the thickness of oil. The first time I encountered this word was in geology class, while studying the variety of lava flows. While the book does contain a good deal of useful information for car owners, it is delivered in such a manner as to make any intelligent woman wince, and I'm surprised the author's male colleagues aren't complaining.