‘He tried to rip me off ’cause I was a girl’: Woman gets quoted $1,000 for new tires she replaced last year

Reality star Jessica Losurdo, who appeared on Love Island Australia, recently shared a frustrating experience at a mechanic shop. She took her car in for a pink slip renewal, which is needed for registration. The mechanic told her she needed to replace all four tires because they were “balding,” and the bill would be over $1,000.

According to Motor1, Losurdo was immediately suspicious. She had replaced all four tires just last year, so something didn’t add up. She went online to share what happened and made a serious claim about why she thinks the mechanic tried to charge her so much.

“The f— over there just tried to rip me off ’cause he saw that I was a girl,” Losurdo said on her TikTok clip. She believed the mechanic saw her as an easy target and tried to sell her services she didn’t actually need. Losurdo decided to get a second opinion from another expert. That mechanic confirmed what she suspected: nothing was wrong with her tires.

Gender bias in auto repair shops remains a costly problem for women drivers

According to Consumer Reports, a good set of average tires should last about 70,000 miles. The average driver travels between 12,000 and 15,000 miles each year, so it was very unlikely her year-old tires were already worn out.

Despite the second opinion, Losurdo posted a video of her tires online and asked her followers if the tread looked okay. People in the comments had different opinions. Some pointed out that tire wear depends on how much you drive and how well you maintain them, not just how old they are. Stories of mechanics making repeated mistakes have become increasingly common online.

One commenter noted that cheaper tires wear out faster. Problems like bad alignment or not rotating the tires regularly can cause uneven wear, even on newer tires. Another user identified Losurdo’s tire as a Potenza Adrenalin RE003, which is a high-performance summer tire. These types of tires wear down faster than regular all-season tires because they’re designed for better grip, which leaves more rubber on the road.

However, the same commenter said that based on the video, Losurdo still had plenty of tread left. Someone who claimed to be a mechanic disagreed and said the tires would “def going to need to be changed soon,” saying that wear depends on driving habits, not time. This isn’t the first time someone has questioned expensive quotes from auto shops.

All the conflicting advice stressed Losurdo out. She decided to do a simple DIY test called the coin test. Since she’s in Australia, she used a 20-cent coin to check if her tread met the legal minimum of 1.6 millimeters. You put the coin in the tire’s central tread, and if the tread doesn’t reach the platypus bill on the coin, you need new tires. Her tires passed the test just fine, proving she didn’t need replacements and saving herself $1,000.