‘Is It Just Because I’m A Girl?’: Woman Gets Loaner Car. Then The Dealership Worker Warns How Pricey Parallel Parking Might Be

Walking into a car dealership as a woman comes with its own set of unwritten rules and anxiety. You try to read the room and figure out whether you're being helped or handled, aka whether you’re being treated differently because of your gender. It’s infuriating, and you just want the same treatment for customers across the board.

Sometimes it's obvious, but sometimes you genuinely can't tell. Here’s what happened to this woman when she picked up her loaner car.

Was This Car Dealer Sexist?

In a video, content creator Rebecca Adam (@rebecky_adam) shares that she was picking up a loaner car from a dealership. She says that as the salesman walked her through the car, he shared a very specific warning that left her wondering whether the talk was genuinely about protecting the car or mistrust because she’s a woman.

"I've never had this conversation picking up a loaner car before,” she says in the text overlay.

Adam explains that dealership staff walked her around the car and made a point of telling her that if she scuffed the rims, each one would run $200. 

"Do men get this, or am I getting this talk because I'm a woman?" she asks.

"To be fair, if I were parallel parking this car, I probably would scuff the rims. So like, they weren't wrong to tell me that,” she continues. 

She adds that she doesn't plan on parallel parking it anyway since the car is so big, but still. 

"Is it just because I'm a girl?" she questions.

In the caption, she says the following: "I was profiled but they were right."

Do Dealerships Actually Treat Women Differently?

The short answer, according to the research, is yes—often. Edmunds sent a male and female editor to three different Los Angeles dealerships shopping for the same car to see how differently they'd be treated. The results were telling. 

At one dealership, the female editor waited ten minutes before a salesman acknowledged her, was given false pricing information, and was eventually walked away from mid-conversation. The male editor arrived an hour later and was approached within two minutes, given a brochure with contact information written in it, and sent off with a handshake. 

Edmunds also notes that women either buy or influence the purchase of 85% of all new cars and trucks sold in the United States, yet a majority of women still find the car-buying experience uncomfortable enough that many turn to no-haggle dealerships or hire brokers to avoid the floor entirely. 

What Does Curb Rash Actually Cost?

Curb rash, the cosmetic damage that happens when a wheel makes contact with a curb or other hard object, is one of the most common and most preventable forms of car damage, and it adds up fast. According to AutoZone, repair costs typically run between $100 and $250 per wheel, depending on the severity of the damage, the size and type of the wheel, and whether you go the DIY or professional route.

Minor scuffs and shallow scratches are on the cheaper end and can sometimes be addressed with a DIY repair kit. Deeper gouges or damage to custom alloy rims push costs significantly higher, and in some cases, replacement is the more practical call. 

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The most common culprit, per AutoZone, is exactly what Adam described: parking mishaps where drivers misjudge the space between their wheel and the curb. At $200 a rim, four wheels of curb rash would run $800. 

Motor1 reached out to Rebecca Adam for comment via Instagram and TikTok direct message. We'll be sure to update this if she responds.

 

 

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