Total Canada opens branded facility in Waterloo, Ont.

From left, Gary Williams, Ashani Missier, and Sajiv Kumarasamy watch as Total Canada President Franck Bagouet cuts the ribbon on the Total Quartz Can Auto Care facility in Waterloo, Ont.

In the last week, Total Canada has tripled the number of Total Quartz Auto Shops in Canada.

In addition to the one in Quebec, there are now two in Waterloo, Ont.

The Total team was on-hand on Saturday for the ribbon cutting at Total Quartz Can Auto Care on University Street in Waterloo. The nine bay shop is owned by Ashani Missier, her husband Sajiv Kumarasamy, and Gary Williams, a franchising expert who will help them build the business into a multi-shop operation.

They already own the eight-bay Total Quartz Can Auto Care on nearby Westmount Road West (at Highland Road), and have plans to expand throughout Southern Ontario.

Along with highly trained staff and friendly service, Missier says their differentiation point will be cleanliness.

“These facilities will be very woman friendly,” she says. “I’ve been in too many repair shops where I wouldn’t even want to sit down!”

Kumarasamy has been in auto service business for 15 years, mostly at quick lube shops, but also some full-service shops. He says one of the big challenges will be staffing.

“It is extremely difficult to get technicians these days,” he admits, “but we have been working very closely with the Conestoga College to talk to their brightest students, and bring them in to the business. We’re developing our own talent.”

So far it’s working great. They are fully staffed with 16 employees, which includes two service advisors at each location, two licensed technicians, and four apprentices.

At the University Avenue location, there have three quick lube bays, an emissions bay, three mechanical bays, an alignment bay, and a heavy duty (diesel) bay.

“This is what people expect when they go for an oil change,” said Gregory Perez, Total Canada’s national key account manager, based in Montreal. “It’s clean, it’s efficient, and it’s friendly.”

For opening day, the shop was offering half-price oil changes. By noon they’d already done more than 40 oil changes.

“If the whole city shows up, I’ll change their oil!” said Kumarasamy.

Franck Bagouet, president of Total Canada, says that just as Ashani and Sajiv plan to expand their operation, Total has ambitious plans for its Total Quartz auto repair concept.

“It will grow,” he told CARS magazine. “I have a target. I’d like to see 50 Quartz locations in Canada by the end of 2020.”

Bagouet said Total wants to be increasingly visible in the market.

“We’re relative newcomers to Canada,” he said. “We’ve only been operating here for 10 years, but we want to be more and more present. This is one example of how we’re doing that.”

BACK ROW (from left): Gregory Perez, Total Canada’s national key account manager; Gary Williams; Alex Garcia; Premtim Ajvazi; Mark Shteinberg; Ryan Shantz; Alex Wilson; Greg Griffith; Dave Scherrer; Arvin Adibifar; Mike Habib; Ashani Missier; Sajiv Kumarasamy; Total Canada president Franck Bagouet; and Qaiser Qureshi, Total Canada’s regional manager for Ontario. FRONT ROW (from left): Harinder Singh; Joel Braden; Alex Cerda; Mirza Muratovic; Bhanu Samarasinghe; and Tony Gutierrez-Lazo.