Nairobi, Feb. 17 -- She became a mechanic out of owning a jalopy. "With an old car, you have to learn how to fix things because old cars can be demanding," she says, remembering how breakdowns transformed her into a car expert.

She loves 4x4 vehicles and, at the time, she was simply trying to get from one place to another in hers without drama. In that period, she learned that cars, like people, communicate constantly, and that ignoring those signals can be expensive.

Her breaking point, and perhaps her eureka moment, was an episode that still irritates her years later. She recalls paying Sh30,000 to a technician who promised to fix her car, only for it to stall less than a kilometre from the repair site.

"He hadn't repaired anything,"...