Class is in session in the parking lot of SoCo Smog Test, where a group of women with furrowed brows watch Angie Hernandez demonstrate her command of car basics. Sporting a high ponytail, gray t-shirt, and a well-worn pair of jeans, Hernandez is replacing a tire on a Toyota Camry, easily lifting it out of the wheel well.
“What we want to do, instead of struggling to get it off, we kick the bottom,” Hernandez instructs her audience, who quickly jot down the tip in their notes apps. “A little kick will loosen everything up, you know?”
“That was easy. I would’ve struggled,” says one onlooker.
Women with Wrenches is a free workshop that teaches the basics of car maintenance: how to check your fluids and filters, use jumper cables the right way, and of course, change a tire.
Hernandez started the course to demystify the often male-dominated field of auto repair and upkeep. To her, it’s a way to show women how easy it can be to work on cars — and how much fun they can have in the process.
Attendee Alexa Barajas jumped at the chance to learn more about her 2022 Prius. “I'm not educated enough,” she says. So that's why I'm actually here. I'm like, ‘What don't I know about my car?’”
Barajas and the other half-dozen women at a recent workshop all say they learned about Women with Wrenches from TikTok. Back in May, Hernandez posted a video about it that went viral. In the comments, users gush over how they yearn for a similar course in their areas, including Las Vegas, Houston, and Canada.
The automotive industry is often a boy’s club where women go underrepresented, which can lead to a lack of trust. A 2023 Consumer Affairs survey found that men were twice as likely as women to say they fully trust their mechanics.
Angie Hernandez shows attendees how to check coolant levels during a recent Women with Wrenches workshop. Photo by Danielle Chiriguayo.
Sometimes, that gender gap means women rely on the men in their lives for backup. For Stacey Homs, it’s her dad.
“I tend to get better care when I bring a man with me, like my dad, my boyfriend, my brother,” Homs explains. “If I go to get work done on my car, I often times don't know if they're ripping me off. So if I do go by myself, I'll talk to whoever the mechanic is [and] give my dad a call and say, ‘Hey, does this seem reasonable?’”
Homs says she’s not leaning on her dad because he’s a car whiz.
“I don't think my dad knows a lot a lot about cars,” she says. “I just think that he's been able to have more conversations with mechanics that are honest with him.”
Some evidence supports that idea of gender-based honesty. A 2013 study from Northwestern University found that mechanics quoted women higher prices if they appeared to be uninformed about their cars.
Women with Workshop attendees take a closer look at a lug nut. Photo by Danielle Chiriguayo.
Dealing with mechanics can also lead to concerns over sexual harassment.
Barajas recalls the day she bought her Prius: “It was my first time buying a car. The car salesman actually also hit on me. My parents were right there with me too. So there was no shame.”
She dreaded the days she had to return to the dealership, resorting to covering her body up for an oil change or tire rotation appointment.
Brandy Chico, who brought her car to the same Women with Wrenches workshop, can relate.
“I don't tend to feel safe. I always even tend to dress up a certain way because I'm like, ‘Let me hide my body. Let me hide my face. Let me try to look like a man,’ so they don't come onto me strong,” Chico says.
Creating a safe space
Hernandez got into cars at a young age.
“My dad just fixed all the family cars. That was a thing I thought everybody did. Like, if your car broke down, your dad fixes it,” she says.
She got bitten by the auto repair bug — thanks to one little oil change.
Her brother taught her because she didn’t have the money to pay someone else to do it.
“ I think I felt that love of fixing and getting in there and figuring things out,” she recalls. “That feeling of empowerment and like, ‘Hey, I can do this myself’ — I got addicted to that. And I was like, ‘Dude, if I can do this, what else can I do?’”
After graduating high school, Hernandez got her degree not in cars, but a more traditionally feminine field: early education. She worked as a preschool teacher throughout her early 20s, but left the profession due to pay.
So she went off to trade school, got her smogging license, and started working in different shops. After saving up enough money, Hernandez made the decision to go into business herself.
When looking at properties for her new smog shop, she says she was often outbid or sometimes outright turned away: “I think they just saw me as a young female who doesn’t really know much about business and who doesn’t have a lot of capital to start with.”
After months of searching, and while on the verge of giving up, Hernandez found a shop in Costa Mesa.
“This place? I didn't even want it at first. It was such a mess. The sign was falling apart,” she explains. “But literally, it was that or nothing.”
After a few months of cleaning and repairs, Hernandez made the spot her own, painted the walls forest green, and lined the walls with plants and art — all with the goal of making the space welcoming, especially to women.
The workshop soon followed.
“It's that fear that people have,” she says. “They're not confident enough. [They think]. they’re gonna break something, make things worse, I don't know what. So doing that workshop is my way of showing women how easy things can be to repair your car.”
Hernandez is hosting the next Women with Wrenches workshop in August.
