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General manager and owner Derek Dubie, left, and service manager Norm Haskins in front of a lifted truck in their expanded service center.

North Adams' K-M Toyota Expands Service Center

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
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The service center is located next to the main building at 51 West Main St. 
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — K-M Toyota has revamped its old body shop on West Main Street to better accommodate the service needs of its customers.
 
The body shop was closed down a few years ago, and has been used intermittently since, said Dennis Dubie, owner of K-M Toyota.
 
He decided it would be a great service area because it has enough room to be able to work on bigger vehicles. That took some investment and renovation.
 
"We had to take and change everything in the body shop to make it desirable for a service area," Dubie said.
 
He explained that Toyota had historically manufactured smaller automobiles but models and the brand have changed during the 62 years K-M Toyota has been in business in the county.
 
"Years ago Toyota was all small cars and now they've grown to very large cars so we knew that we had to make a change," he said. "We decided rather than just have it as a regular area to go in and service your Corolla, so to speak, we had a lot of room in there and the thing to do was to probably set it up for full-size vehicles."
 
A new heavy duty lift, new compressor, and two cranes have been installed. It also has more space for technicians to work around trucks and sport utility vehicles.
 
"With the equipment that we put in there, it is designed right now where we not only can do big engine and transmission repairs we can replace engines, we can replace transmissions," Dubie said.
 
The new equipment and space will help technicians work on bigger-sized trucks and SUVs regardless of the make or model whereas before the service area was limited. 
 
The space also has new scan tools to diagnose vehicles, new tire machines to accommodate bigger tires, and upgraded garage doors.
 
With these upgrades and the expansion, said Dubie, K-M will be able to help more customers and service more vehicles.
 
"We want to hang around for a while, we want to be here and we want to continue to service cars," he said. 
 
The service center is located at 51 West Main St. and the dealership is located at 1300 Curran Highway. Contact the service center at 413-663-7406 or schedule an appointment online. Contact the sales office at 413-663-5731.
 

Tags: automotive,   

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McCann Preparing for MSBA Roof, Windows Project

By Tammy Daniels iBerkshires Staff
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — McCann Technical School is preparing for a major overhaul of its 30-year-old roof and 60-year-old single-pane windows and will be shifting the school calendar to accommodate the project.
 
The vocational school was invited into the Massachusetts School Building Authority's accelerated repair program last fall. 
 
Superintendent James Brosnan told the School Committee on Thursday that 16 designers and engineers from Gale Associates spent three days in the school during April vacation assessing the project. 
 
"We did roof cuts, we did masonry cuts. We did all the examinations," he said. "We had sent them a tremendous amount of material ahead of time, electronically. I want to thank both [facilities manager] Gary Pierce and [CAD instructor] Greg King for having the files we could send electronically."
 
Staff also pulled the original drawings 1961-2 and from 1969 and 1974 additions, which were so brittle the crew had to take cameral images of them. 
 
"They did an awful lot of that research and an awful lot of physical evaluation to build up the recommendations," said Brosnan, who added that he and staff will go through the incoming reports and the facilities subcommittee will meet with owner's project manager LiRo-Hill, appointed by the MSBA, and Gale representatives in early June.
 
"They're going to make a presentation to the facilities group about here's where we are on the project. Here are the recommendation points. Here are the items that we can ask questions, make designs, make decisions, which way do you want to go?" said Brosnan. "At that point, they'll also have some dollar amounts, because right now we don't know, and I'm not going to guess, because that's just going to send everybody over the wrong edge."
 
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