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Don’t forget to bring in your Toys for Tots toy donations into our shop by Monday, December 12th! We are especially looking for gifts for children ages 12-16, who are often forgotten this time of year.
How Can You Help?
- Drop off your Toy Donations at Mark’s Auto Service now through Monday, December 12th!
- Donate your existing Mark’s Auto Service Rewards Card Dollars towards purchasing toys. We will use your Rewards Card Dollars to purchase toys for underprivileged children this Christmas through Toys For Tots. Call or come into our shop for details. 905-844-1111
Learn more online at the Toys For Tots website.
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Some insurance companies are offering discounts for using Winter Tires – Ask Yours!
Mark’s Auto Service offers these great services:
The facts about winter tires and why all-season tires just won’t do.
Ever since the introduction of the all-season tire, Canadian drivers have slid and spun their tires through the coldest months of the year. Here’s the kicker: it doesn’t seem to matter whether there’s snow on the ground or not.
Unlike all-season tires, winter tires (identified by mountain and snowflake symbols on their sides) have tread patterns and softer rubber compounds that are tailored for colder conditions. And that helps them perform better once temperatures plummet, whether or not they have to dig through the white stuff.
All-season tires can turn into four round black rocks when the cold hits. Even on dry pavement, this starts at about 7c. So have them installed at Mark’s anytime after Labour Day. Don’t wait until November, it may be to late for black ice. And a study conducted by the Quebec Ministry of Transport showed that a proper winter tire can improve braking by up to 25 percent over an all-season radial and CAN IMPROVE COLLISION AVOIDANCE BY ABOUT 38 PERCENT!
Just add 2? No, it’s not your grand dad’s old Buick any more, where 2 snow tires were on the back to get moving . Today’s cars are lighter and use low profile all-season tires and in Winter you need 4 Winter tires. To maintain control in turns and to Stop. Have you ever tried to walk in snow with 1 running shoe and 1 winter boot? Well you car wouldn’t like it either.
One last note, the temperature can easily slide from 5 degrees to -15 degrees overnight, dropping tire pressure as much as 4 p.s.i. If you have an under-inflated tire, that could put you into the danger zone. Tires should be checked monthly. This is why we check the tires with every service.
Cheers Mark
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Mark’s Auto Service has teamed up with seven other automotive repair facilities to support the Toys For Tots campaign this holiday season. Each one of these seven participating facilities will be donating $500 in cash along with all the presents collected for Toys For Tots.
With your help, we are collecting toy donations at our shop now through December 12th! We are especially looking for gifts for children ages 12-16, who are often forgotten this time of year.
How Can You Help?
- Drop off your Toy Donations at Mark’s Auto Service now through Monday, December 12th!
- Donate your existing Mark’s Auto Service Rewards Card Dollars towards purchasing toys.
We will use your Rewards Card Dollars to purchase toys for underprivileged children this Christmas through Toys For Tots. Call or come into our shop for details. 905-844-1111
Toys for Tots’ initial objective, which remains the hallmark of the program today, is to ‘bring the joy of Christmas to needy children’. Its goal is to deliver a message of hope that will build self-esteem and motivate children to grow into responsible, productive, patriotic citizens and community leaders. Learn more on the Toys For Tots website.
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Be Car Care Aware!
Celebrate May – Canadian Car Care Month by bringing your vehicle into Mark’s Auto Service Today! Book your appointment online!
Learn more a www.carcarecanada.ca.
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Record Gas Prices Make it Perfect Time to “Be Car Care Aware.”
With gas prices soaring, Car Care Canada is offering gas-saving maintenance and driving tips that really work.
“Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gasoline is wasted every day by motorists, because simple and inexpensive vehicle maintenance is neglected,” says Car Care Canada’s Marc Brazeau. “Loose or missing gas caps, under-inflated tires, worn spark plugs and dirty air filters all contribute to poor fuel economy.”
Car Care Canada offers these fuel-saving tips:
- Vehicle gas caps – In Canada, the provinces with emissions testing programs suggest that this is a common cause for failing an emissions test – yet it is simple and inexpensive to fix. According to US studies, about 17 percent of the vehicles on the roads have gas caps that are either damaged, loose or are missing altogether.
- Under inflated tires - When tires aren’t inflated properly it’s like driving with the parking brake.
- Worn spark plugs - A vehicle can have either four, six or eight spark plugs, which fire as many as 3 million times every 1,500 km, resulting in a lot of heat and electrical and chemical erosion. A dirty spark plug causes misfiring, which wastes fuel. Spark plugs need to be replaced regularly.
- Dirty air filters – An air filter that is clogged with dirt, dust and bugs chokes off the air and creates a “rich” mixture – too much gas being burned for the amount of air, which wastes gas and causes the engine to lose power. Replacing a clogged air filter can improve gas mileage by as much as 10 percent.
Other fuel-saving driving tips include:
- Don’t be an aggressive driver - Aggressive driving can lower gas mileage by as much as 33 percent on the highway and 5 percent on city streets, which results in 2 to 15 cents per litre. Avoid excessive idling – Sitting idle gets zero miles per litre. Letting the vehicle warm up for one to two minutes is sufficient.
- Observe the speed limit - Gas mileage decreases rapidly at speeds above 100kph. Each kph driven over 100 will result in an additional 3 cents per litre. To maintain a constant speed on the highway, cruise control is recommended.
Not only will maintaining your vehicle save you money, it will also help you to protect the environment by reducing emissions.
Article by carcarecanada.ca
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Independent Service Is More Satisfying
More customers are satisfied with the work of independent mechanics than with that of dealership mechanics.
People who took their car to an independent mechanic for maintenance were generally more satisfied than those who went to a dealership, according to a Consumer Reports survey involving 349,000 vehicles.
Eighty-four percent of owners reported being very satisfied with maintenance performed at independent shops compared with 77 percent at dealerships.
Most customers agreed that their independent shop was “very thorough and thoughtful, and always gives a good sense of how important something is to fix.”
Among owners whose cars needed repairs and maintenance, the difference in satisfaction with dealers and independent shops was even more pronounced: 75 percent were very satisfied with independents vs. just 57 percent with dealerships.
Bring your vehicle into Mark’s Auto Service next time you need service!
Schedule your next appointment online!
By the Editors of Consumer Reports
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Mark’s Auto Service helped the Rotary Club of Oakville Trafalgar’s 2010 Online Auction raise $35,000 this past November.
Did anyone see the two $100.00 Gift Cards we donated?
One hundred percent of the funds raised by the Rotary Club are going towards local and international charities that we support!
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We have added “Mark’s Truck Centre” a full service Truck and Trailer repair facility, to our Car division, so now we can take care of our larger fleet’s that would normally take ther 18 wheelers to a diffent location for servicing, I would like to introduce to you Pete Naughton as my manager, Pete comes from the trucking industry and brings with him alot of experience from Canada as well as the UK.
We started Mark’s Truck Centre in October 2010 and have been growing ever since. We can be reached at Mark’s Truck Centre 905-844-2389
Thanks Mark
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