Car Care

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2017

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INSIDE: ! Leah’s Automotive wins service award ! Dummy in a Drunk Suit

A special feature of the

Leah’s Automotive owner and operator Leah Gillanders blazes a trail for female mechanics.

PHOTO MIKE WAKEFIELD

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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2017

Auto shop owner a leader in the industry ANDY PREST aprest@nsnews.com

While many children go to sleep dreaming of hoisting the Stanley Cup, becoming a movie star or simply just counting sheep, Leah Gillanders always had her mind in a much different place.

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Before she reached deep sleep, the North Vancouver native would travel to the magical land deep inside a growly V-8 engine.

“I remember closing my eyes – I still do this sometimes – I’d close my eyes at night and I would picture stepping on the gas pedal, and then how everything works after that,” she says with a grin.

“That’s my way of counting sheep to go to sleep. I’d work through the whole engine.”

Fast forward to today and Gillanders, age 28, has turned those dreams into reality as the owner and operator of Leah’s Automotive, a repair shop in North Vancouver’s Norgate neighbourhood. And that passion for cars sure seems to be rubbing off on

Leah Gillanders works on a car at her North Vancouver shop, Leah’s Automotive. PHOTO MIKE WAKEFIELD others as well – earlier this month Leah’s Automotive earned the Service Excellence Award at the North Vancouver Chamber of Commerce’s 2017 Business Excellence Awards, beating out 20 other nominees from all corners of the business world.

“There were so many other great businesses involved with it, I didn’t know what to expect,” she says. “It made my heart flutter to get that award.”

If you sit and chat with

Gillanders for just a few minutes – something her customers love to do – you’ll soon recognize the charm that helped her and her shop earn recognition for their service.

“I love my customers,” Gillanders tells the North Shore News as the phone rings off the hook in her cozy little shop. “We just truly care about our customers and their needs, rather than just the sale. We care about their car,

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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2017

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north shore news nsnews.com

Drunk suit demo a sobering experience

ANDY PREST aprest@nsnews.com

I can now quite confidently tell you what it feels like to drive drunk: it is terrifying.

This bit of knowledge was provided to me by the good people at Ford Canada, although it wasn’t a bottle of Bordeaux or growler of strong ale that they plied me with, but rather a Drunk Driving Suit meant to mimic impairment.

The suit was developed as an educational tool for young drivers and is used all over the world in awareness programs. Ford developed the suit with scientists from the Meyer-Hentschel Institute in Germany, a company that specializes in mobility impairment research. It is meant to simulate the physical impact of being impaired, and underscores the dangers of driving in this condition, which includes restricted movements, lack of concentration and vision issues.

On a wretched fall day in North Vancouver I ventured out into a torrential downpour to visit Cam Clark

Ford to try on the suit in a controlled environment.

First came a neck collar to limit my head movement, a bit like the old neck guards I used to wear in pee wee hockey. The ice rink routine continued with the next pieces of equipment, knee and elbow pads that gave me flashbacks to the long lost body checks of my youth. The impairment at this point was minor, a slight buzz as I threw mock cross checks at the head of the North Shore News photographer who came along to document my descent into nonsense. He did not think I was funny.

Next came weights on my ankles and wrists to simulate the sluggishness that alcohol produces in our extremities. Things were getting serious, my balance and movement severely limited by the collective effect of the restraints and weights.

“Whao, things are getting heavy,” I said. No one laughed. Except me, of course.

Finally came the last two knockout blows, the shot and chaser that put me over the edge. First was

Reporter Andy Prest does some horrendous driving while wearing a Drunk Driving Suit at Cam Clark Ford in North Vancouver.

Ford uses the suit as an educational tool for young drivers. PHOTO PAUL MCGRATH a set of industrial strength ear muffs, a noise canceling contraption that proved to be very disorienting. It’s

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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2017

Garage Club helps women feel welcome

From page 26

we care about their family, if they’re going on a long road trip, what they would need for that, what they would need to be safe and what they want to do.”

Beneath that charm, however, there’s a fierce determination to succeed in the maledominated world of automotive repair. It hasn’t always been easy.

Gillanders says she’s always been enthralled by the inner workings of engines, as well as the thrill of being around cars.

“I just loved it,” she says. “I loved cars, I loved going fast, I loved figuring out how things work.”

She earned an automotive scholarship while at Carson Graham Secondary and was on her way, later moving on to study at BCIT and work at North Vancouver’s Jim Pattison Toyota for a couple of years. She then settled in at Brian Jessel BMW where she earned her BMW certificate and became a Red Seal automotive service technician.

She admits that as she worked through her training it was sometimes tough being one of the only females in the room.Things got even tougher when she decided to fulfill a lifelong dream and open her own shop.

“100 per cent honest: finding someone to lease to a girl who was into cars was really hard,” she says. “A lot of the shop owners wouldn’t even talk to me. They’d hang up the phone. I had one guy screaming at me saying he wants to talk to my boss. And I’m like, ‘I am the boss.’”

There was very limited space available in North Vancouver, making her search even harder.

“I was in tears after talking to some of these people,” she says. “I almost didn’t want to start my shop. But as I am, as I always was – being picked on when I first started as an apprentice – you just keep going, keep looking until you find the right thing.”

The right thing arrived when Gillanders

met another woman in the business, a building owner who was more than happy to lease garage space to her.

“Her and I jived right away when we met,” says Gillanders, who opened the doors to her new shop in 2015, specializing in high-end European cars. Now that she has busted into the industry, Gillanders is hoping to bring some more women with her for the ride. When she worked with Jessel he opened up the shop so that Gillanders could offer introductory automotive classes for women, something she has carried over to her new space with the All Girls Garage Club.

“I had this vision to help women learn about cars,” she says. “It’s an intimidating place for anybody, man or women, but especially women, because I think they feel like they get taken advantage of. That might not be the case, but they feel that way. So when they come here we relate to them a little bit better.”

It doesn’t take the women long to jump in and get their hands greasy, says Gillanders.

“I find that girls in small groups, when we’re doing the classes – they have so much fun,” she says. “It’s a blast. And I really respect them for coming in. It takes a lot out of your day to come in, ‘I’m going to go down to a garage, take off my high heels, put on some boots and learn about cars.’ Most women don’t want to do that. But once they’re here, it’s so much fun. They love it, they want more of it.”

The next goal for Gillanders is to take that hospitality one step further. She’s currently tinkering with the idea of adding a spa- or lounge-like area to the shop.

“I have some more ideas coming for Leah’s Auto, super secret stuff,” she says with a laugh. “We want to extend our comfortable atmosphere for people. … People love hanging out here. At Christmastime last year I swear we needed to knock down this wall and have another sofa here, because people just loved coming here. That’s exactly what I wanted when I opened up the shop, just a place where people aren’t scared to bring their car.”

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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2017

| A29

north shore news nsnews.com

Warning bells blare during drive

From page 27

of a crowded bar can leave you unable to process the sounds around you.

The drunk suit’s snazziest and most obvious accessory was a fitting final touch, a pair of visiondistorting goggles. As soon as they went on it was game over for me – I was left standing in the middle of a bustling car dealership feeling like a complete idiot, unable to follow conversations or even walk around without a guide.

My host instructed me to walk to a line of tape they had placed on the ground a few metres away from us, and I had taken only a few steps before I slammed into a truck that had been parked there the whole time.

“Watch it, truck!” I said, only half joking. I then navigated the line-walking demo, using all of my concentration to do a half-decent job of keeping myself moving in a straight line. Impressed by my own prowess, I casually slammed into the front desk and started chatting up the receptionist. She was politely non-receptive.

The whole ordeal was undeniably weird. I had my wits about me mostly, but my brain was constantly being tricked by the various constraints, and even when I did think things through correctly my body was having a hard time obeying its instructions.

Enough of this staggering

about though – it was time to get behind the wheel. I was guided into the driver’s seat of a car parked beside the dealership. I moved the car about three inches before slamming on the brakes in terror, worried that I was about to send it careening into a row of vintage Mustangs waiting for service. I laughed, I yelled, I cringed. I slammed on the brakes about 45 more times over the next two minutes.

Eventually I found myself about 20 feet ahead of my initial position, wallowing in the middle of the entrance to the lot. Oh no, another car is trying to come into the lot, a real person! Oh no, maybe they can’t get by me!!

Oh no, they’re somewhere between 12 inches and half a mile away from me and closing in fast!!! Or slow!!!!

I froze, stuck completely still in the driveway until the sober citizen was well past me. Then I put it in reverse, backed up about five inches and called it a day.

It was an eye-opening experience, and it was not fun. I’ve never driven drunk before but I have on the rare occasion enjoyed the odd snifter of brandy in the confines of my own home. I must say this suit does provide a decent approximation of what it’s like to be full of Christmas cheer, and that is what is truly terrifying here: while in this artificially impaired state I did not trust myself to drive more than a few cautious feet at a time.

What I had going for me

in this demonstration that real drunk drivers lack is inhibition, the brain function that was self-aware enough to know that there was no way in hell I should be piloting this massive hunk of metal anywhere near other humans.

When you’re drunk, you have all the same impairments without the warning bells going off. It’s not like I wasn’t convinced before, but going through this exercise provided yet more

Ford spokeswoman Chantal Cassar helps reporter Andy Prest gear up in the Drunk Driving Suit. PHOTO PAUL MCGRATH

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