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

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

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