San Carlos & Valley Springs Auto Repair

Hey Fans!   I get this question asked a lot. What is a Timing Belt, and why do I have to change it? Simply put, the timing belt is a toothed belt that keeps the engine in sync, or as its name mentions, time. There are essentially 2 halves of an engine, an upper half and a lower half. The bottom side of the engine is the crankshaft, it is known as the rotating assembly because the pistons are connected to the crankshaft. As the explosions happen from the fuel ignition in the cylinder, the pistons are forced downward causing the crankshaft to rotate. The crankshaft has a toothed gear on the front that the timing belt rides on. This rotation causes the belt to move and spin the other half of the engine that contains the camshaft, or multiple camshafts. They also have a toothed gear attached. This camshaft pushes on the valves against the springs to make them open. This lets air and fuel ... read more

Why Do Most Drivers Distrust Auto Repair Shops? As a vehicle owner, you may have been in a situation at an auto repair shop where you felt cheated or doubted the honesty of the mechanics. For example, you may have taken your vehicle into an auto repair shop for an oil change and received a recommendation for new brake pads. However, you just had your brake pads replaced a month earlier. Realizing that the recommendation may be a scam to get more money out of you, you may have developed an overall distrust for auto repair shops - and you’re not alone. In a recent survey conducted by AAA, 2 out of 3 drivers reported that they did not trust auto repair shops. Most drivers were scared of shops recommending unnecessary services and repairs as their number one reason for distrust. Among the other reasons were overcharging for services, negative past experiences, and the fear of work not being completed correctly. Many drivers combat this distrust of auto repair shops by choosing a si ... read more

Toole’s Garage is accepting new customers in San Carlos! Bermico Auto has gracefully been serving the Peninsula Area since 1984, when it first opened in San Bruno. We would love to thank Martha and Dan’s commitment to Bermico Auto and their commitment to the community and are proud to follow their example. At Toole’s Garage, we will continue to support our community through various causes and events. Need a new shop to take your vehicle too? Look no further than Toole’s Garage. At Toole’s Garage, we: Use the latest factory approved tools and techniques Offer a 3 year/36,000 mile warranty Offer rental cars for $25/day or FREE local shuttle Toole’s Garage will honor Bermico’s warranty for any new Toole’s customer! Specialize in several makes and models! Acura Buick Honda Jeep Lexus Mitsubishi Saturn Subaru Toyota Here are some of the services that we provide that Bermico Auto did as well: New vehicle scheduled ma ... read more

Hey Fans! I just had a conversation with a customer about the "lifetime transmission fluid" in their Toyota. They have about 40,000 miles on their Prius and the ATF is black and burnt. The transmissions of today are fairly complex inside, and hybrid vehicles typically have high voltage electric motors in them. The goal of fluid maintenance is to keep the quality of the lubricating oil/fluid as clean and debris free as possible.  Most vehicles now DO NOT have a serviceable filter inside the transmission, making it even more crucial to keep the fluid clean. The cost to include fluid servicing in a factory scheduled maintenance is relatively inexpensive. What it does for you is keep the burnt and dirty fluid that is naturally starting to occur to a minimum. It does not all not come out of the transmission at once, it is typically only going to be a slight dilution at each fluid change interval. You can maybe see how if it is allowed to get&nb ... read more

Hello Fans! It has been a bit since I have written anything for you (at least worth reading), but I wanted to tell my story of novice welder to super fabricator (in my own mind)! Sorry for the length, I am chatty today. Those of you who are local or follow us on Facebook know the Toole’s Garage truck. It was a project that started out in 2009 to be just Dave Toole building an old truck to use as a shop vehicle, durable, versatile, and a road rescue machine. Well, I started out by disassembling all the wiring to put in a new multi-circuited harness and instrumentation (nothing worked in there anyway).& This of course led to a new steering column and my first attempt at welding. I bought a welder and started to weld up all the holes on the firewall. Well, needless to say, after melting holes on the firewall and spending hours grinding off the lumps of metal filler used to weld the plugs ... read more

This is something that we are starting to hear more often. The great news is that we, as The Hybrid Shop Bay Area, are able to bring your existing battery back to life. If caught early enough, we may not even have to replace any cells within that battery. Be careful to all who are looking to find a replacement battery. There are a lot of places selling used batteries, or remanufactured batteries. The process to condition a single battery is fairly simple, but to condition a complete hybrid battery takes the proper equipment and scientific process to keep them balanced. There are but a handful of shops that have this capability. We have performed our battery conditioning process on many of these “other” batteries, as the failure rate is very high. Don’t pay twice, take your vehicle to The Hybrid Pro’s to have it done right, the first time. So if your Prius Hybrid Battery is dying, The Hybrid Shop has the necessary skill and equipment to effectively p ... read more

In your day to day dealings with companies, do you ever find yourself asking in your head, "Wow, were did customer courtesy go?" Well, it is alive and well at our San Carlos Auto Repair, Toole's Garage. We know that your day to day can be filled with errands, school, shopping, school sports, commuting, cooking, going to the gym, and oh yeah....work! Well, at Toole's Garage, we have very low cost rental cars, shuttle, and even concierge service! That's right! Concierge service! Many of our clients have so much on their plate, that we will come and pick up their vehicle from the home or office, perform the work they need, and return the vehicle back to them! This is a service that we have been doing for some time, but have accumulated more demand for. All you have to do is give us a phone call, email, online appointment, text, Tweet, or Facebook post! Whether you drive a Honda, Acura, Nissan, Infiniti, Toyota, Scion, Lexus, Hyundai, Mazda, Subaru, Prius, or any Hybrid, when you are ... read more

With all the cars of today coming out with a Hybrid version and some manufacturers coming out with all electric cars, we wanted to help clear the air in regards to the longevity of the HEV batteries. These Hybrid vehicles have been out since year 2000. They have now been starting to experience the joy of "Battery Module Deterioration". Well, the truth is, there is no battery that lasts forever. If there is, the cost to manufacture it must be astronomical. The HEV batteries from most manufacturers are under warranty for 10 years 150,000 miles in California, so there is some sweat off the brow, and they seem to survive that long before the trouble light comes on. The concern is, that well before that time, the battery is deteriorating, thus causing some performance loss and MPG loss. Our philosophy is that we should be able to service, or "condition" the pack before it goes "bad", which you will understand in a bit. You can now purchase replacement "remanufactured" HEV batteries wh ... read more

Hello all! This is our first Blog post. We just wanted to touch up on our theory/opinions on true maintenance of a vehicle. Since we are Honda vehicle specialists, our view on maintenance goes back a long way. When most vehicles were taken into the shop to be "fixed", certain manufacturers had a "maintenance schedule" for their vehicles. This brought about statements like.."Wow, they last forever".. and "It has how many miles on it?" To say that fluid maintenance and adjustments are important is an understatement. The cleaner you can keep a fluid, the less wear will occur, period. It cost approximately 10 cents less per mile to drive a maintained vehicle as opposed to the exact vehicle non maintained due to premature repairs. If you let your quality repair shop maintain your vehicle on average 3 to 4 days out of the 365 days in a year, you should have a vehicle that runs well with a high reliability factor. A simple approach that we take to help maintain our own cars is setting up a ... read more

We are asked this question quite a bit, so we decided to write down our OPINION on this subject. Firstly, a dealer is a great option if you do not have a solid "independent specialist" within reasonable distance of convenience. The dealer offers all high quality OEM (original equipment parts). Their skill set is generally good. There is however a big curve of skill set at a dealership. There are "just started today" low dollar apprentices all the way to high caliber/paid diagnosticians or Masters of their trade. When you take a car in for routine maintenance at a dealership, the odds that your vehicle lands in the "masters" or high cost bay is usually pretty slim. They are working on more complex work. Everyone needs to start somewhere, but at a solid independent specialist, the owner is usually one of those "masters" that went out on their own, so if they are training a newbie, you still have the "masters" eyes on your vehicle when even the simplest of tasks (oil changes, etc.) are ... read more