Car Servicing Advice for Motorists

Cars, just like any other piece of machinery, require maintenance on a regular basis. If neglected a car will become inefficient and eventually will stop working - there's no two ways about it. This is why car servicing is so important - if carried out regularly it will ensure that your vehicle performs at its optimum level for much longer.

DIY Car Maintenance

You shouldn't solely rely on garage and mechanics to look after your car though. There are a few basic checks that every driver should do, no matter how much their mechanical knowledge is or isn't lacking.

You can really save yourself money and increase your safety by checking your engine oil, coolant levels, tyre pressure and tyre tread depth.

Although it might not seem like much, by making sure that these four things are as they should be, you will save yourself a lot of trouble. After all, if any of these components are too low, the knock on effect to the rest of the car can be very dangerous.

Even if they do not cause an accident, they will definitely have an effect on your bank balance. Whether it is through repair costs (that could have been easily avoided) or through an increase in the amount of money you spend of petrol - due to the rolling resistance of your vehicle being much higher than it needs to be - you ignore these checks at your own peril.

Car Service Types

Even the most safety conscious driver should book their car in for a vehicle service at least once a year.

As a general rule, most establishments that offer to service your car have three types to choose from. These are (in order of the number of checks carried out):

Oil Service
Interim Service
Full Service

Depending on your vehicle and how much you use it, it is worth checking what is involved in each kind of service. Especially if you are concerned about money, because although it can never hurt to have everything checked in detail, there is often quite a big price difference between the service types.

The most basic service is the oil service. The general checks that you can expect with an oil service are to your lights, exhaust and tyres. As you would imagine from the name, your old oil will be replaced with new and your old oil filter exchanged for a new one as well.

If you drive a lot throughout the year, you might consider booking your vehicle in for an Interim Service every six months (or in between your annual Full Service).

One step up from an Oil Service, the average Interim will include somewhere in the region of 25-35 safety checks on your car - components such as brake fluid, handbrake travel, steering and suspension will be examined.

The most comprehensive service a dealer offers is usually the Full Service. Recommended by garages as an annual checkup, the Full Service will go through almost everything in a car, checking the levels and testing the condition.

With well over 50 checks, a Full Service will ensure that your car performs to optimum levels for the year following your service.

Not only do these service options act as fantastic preventative measures that help to keep your car safe, but when you have booked your car in for a service the mechanics that carry out the work might spot things which could affect your MOT.

If small issues are found, these can be fixed before they turn into big problems that cost you far more money.

Booking a Service

One problem that some people encounter when it comes time to book a service is choosing exactly who they should book it with. With almost every garage in Britain offering to carry out the work, there is a lot of choice.

If you use a local garage often and are happy with the level of professionalism and expertise from the staff, then the chances are that this section will not apply to you.

However, if you do not use a specific garage on a regular basis, you may be a bit overwhelmed. One of the most important factors in booking a service is trust. You want to know that the people who you are paying to carry out a service are reliable.

Traditionally, finding a good garage to book your service with was done via word of mouth. Today though, there are a whole host of websites that are set up to not only offer you a car service, but who will book you into a garage of your choice.

Making things even easier, these online car service retailers include previous customer reviews, so you can base your choice on feedback from motorists just like yourself.

By simply entering the phrase "Car Servicing" into a search engine such as Google, you will find a large selection of online retailers.

One of the greatest things about booking a car service online is that you can spend as much, or as little, time as you want researching before choosing who you want to use. This gives you a chance to spend your money wisely - something everyone aims to do.

Ken Davids is a keen motoring enthusiast and writes for Blackcircles.com who offer tyres and car servicing for UK motorists at very competitive prices. For more information, please visit the car servicing area at www.blackcircles.com/servicing

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The Family Business - No More Advice, Please

Family businesses have become the talk of the decade. Over 90% of businesses worldwide are family businesses we are told. Only 30% of family businesses make it through the second generation. Less than 10% make it through the third. Who hasn't heard this overused and often misquoted statistic or some other variation of it?

Family businesses underpin the economy of most nations. Some of our the largest businesses are family businesses. I struggle to think of a client in my practice that is not a family business in one way or another.

Yet family businesses are in trouble, statistics keep reminding us. Most of them are doomed to fail. They cannot handle the unique challenges that they face. They need help. And in business 'need' means 'market'. And this market has been tapped with a vengeance. A simple search for 'family business' on Amazon reveals hundreds of books on the subject packed with well-meaning advice, 'how to' guides and 'dos and don'ts'. We have MBA programmes on family businesses, family business networks, centres and institutes, family business magazines, family business seminars, family business websites and family business consultants. Accountants, lawyers, management consultants, financial advisors, academics and researchers have discovered The Family Business and are rushing to the rescue.

The problems plageuing family businesses have been conveniently sorted and categorised under different headings and a multitude of 'products' have been developed to treat every conceivable situation. These have been neatly packaged in various forms and include succession planning, organisational design, operational effectiveness, strategic planning, leadership and management, remuneration and conflict resolution, amongst a host of others.

So why do so many family businesses keep failing? Why don't they take all this professional advice and just grow and prosper? Why do they wither when they should be blooming? To start with very few family businesses are prepared to accept that they have a problem. Everyone wants to be the perfect family, or at least be seen as one. A family that lives in perfect harmony, where there is little discord, where mum and dad always have time for the family, where everyone meets at the dinner table, where children are brought up to be responsible adults, where all members enjoys open and intimate communication with each other, where spouses are accepted with open arms. We all want the world to know that we are "one big, happy family".

So how do you suddenly own up to the fact that your family business is in difficulty? Saying that your family business is in trouble is like admitting that you have problems in your family, God forbid. Not a very easy thing to do, particularly for the parents. So what usually happens is that the root of the problem is ignored and instead the focus is conveniently shifted onto the 'business' symptoms, the areas where the problems are commonly manifested -cash flow, financial structure, profitability, and employee motivation to name a few. Poor performance in any of the these areas is then blamed on other 'business' causes - lack of financing, increasing competition, inadequate accounting systems, inefficient procurement, the state of the economy. The consultants are called in, reports are drawn up, business plans are prepared, employees are replaced, and IT systems are changed.

The result? Many changes but very little change. The son is still frustrated and angry at his dad's reluctance to let go and let him manage the business. His constant criticism and disapproval is driving him crazy. The daughter resents her brother's attitude, hates having her ideas ignored, and cannot understand why her husband won't be given a job in the business. The consultant said it is better not to have spouses in the business. But its not fair, after all, her sister in law was not asked to leave the business was she? Her brother cannot understand what she's complaining about. After all she gets paid almost as much as him and she hardly does any real work in the business. Dad is sick and tired of all this bickering. Why can't Junior appreciate that his sister has kids to take care of? Doesn't he have any family values? How can they both be so selfish and ungrateful when dad has worked so hard and made so many sacrifices to leave them this business? Mum despises the business. Her husband is rarely ever home. Whenever she invites all the family home for lunch hardly five minutes elapse before the conversation turns to the business and an argument erupts. So they rarely ever get together outside the business these days and she really misses her grandchildren. She wishes he would just sell the damn thing.

The more I work with families in business the more I realise that family business consulting is more about 'families' than it is about 'business' and that issues are always much more complex than they seem. Problems in the business are often deeply rooted in relationship problems between family members, which are rarely apparent at the outset. There are no quick-fix solutions here. is the people relationship issues that present the toughest challenge and which need to be given the greatest attention. The management aspects - organisational design, systems policies and procedures, business planning, financing, cost reduction etc., are in my view, the 'easy bit'. This is not to say that these areas are not important or that they do not present any difficulties. But providing advice solely on the business aspects is superficial if the relationship and emotional issues remain unaddressed.

I recently read a book entitled Keep the Family Baggage out of the Family Business, by Quentin J. Fleming, which is one of the best sellers on the subject. 'Baggage' is a term used by psychologists to describe 'issues' that people carry with them. But how in all fairness can the family baggage be kept out of the business? The family baggage is there whether you like it or not and you cannot just force it out. A business is nothing more than a group of people trying to work together toward a common goal. Forget about 'human resources'. People are people, and people carry with them a complex cocktail of genes, experiences, values, beliefs, strengths, talents, fears, insecurities, likes and dislikes. You cannot ask people to leave their baggage outside when they enter the workplace. The baggage is part and parcel of their being, no less than their finger or toe. Good leadership means being able to bring out the best in people, helping them discover their strengths, helping them direct their passions and motivations toward the good of the business. To do this you need to get to know the people concerned. What are they really good at? What do they really want? What they may need is someone to help them sift through their baggage and sort it out, rather than make them throw it out of the window.

In a non-family business one can afford to do without all this 'hassle' and just opt to replace a 'high-maintenance' employee by another who demonstrates a more positive mental attitude and who can just get on with it. Even if this detached approach worked, and I don't believe that it does, in a family business it is a totally different story. The employee in question may well be your father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, spouse or in-law, and you can't just sack these people, can you?

So where does all this lead to? Is it all hopeless then? Certainly not, but the solution as I see it is not simply a question of advice. I have learnt to be wary of giving advice when working with family businesses. Advice is very tempting of course - the family members in the business are yearning for it, they need a solution and they need it yesterday. Advice does wonders for one's ego too. It makes the consultant feel like the expert, the family business guru. You just want to jump in there to the rescue, dispense advice, solve everybody's problems and exit heroically.

Unfortunately advice rarely produces the intended results. Sooner or later the advice is forgotten, the business plan is shelved, the relationship issues re-surface and the old habits kick in. The family members need to uncover the real issues and see the solutions for themselves. This is not something that can be achieved in a week. It is a process, a journey during which the door to communication is opened, fears and expectations are exposed, beliefs and assumptions are challenged, and existing mindsets are changed.

So my advice...er...I mean suggestion is this:

If you are a consultant working with family businesses make sure that you are equipped to handle the emotional as well as the technical, the people as well as the tasks, the 'soft' as well as the 'hard'. You are dealing with peoples' lives and the responsibility is immense. You cannot just bale out if things get messy.

If you are a member of a family in business don't expect the consultant to come in and whitewash over your problems. Don't expect him to implement your master plan for the business. Have an open mind and expect to be challenged. Demand a process not a solution. What you may discover along the way may well save your business.

Kenneth A Bonnici is a business consultant who works with family businesses. He has also undertaken research on business alliances and examined the hypothesis that family businesses tend to be less inclined to form strategic alliances. For more information please visit http://www.propatalliance.com

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The Business Legal Checkup - Preventive Advice For the Legal Health of Your Business

More than 250 years ago, Benjamin Franklin famously said, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". He was advising Philadelphia homeowners to insure their homes against fire to avoid catastrophic losses. Franklin's advice is just as applicable today to the legal issues of your business.

In this article, we explain a new legal service, Canadian Business Legal Checkup, an audit of legal matters affecting your business. Business Legal Checkup is a diagnostic tool most small and medium size businesses could use to verify if legal aspects of their operation comply with the law and to minimize risk, litigation and expense. When the Business Legal Checkup is completed, the business owner receives a lawyer's report red-flagging matters which need correction, improvement or further legal advice.

A closer look at the Business Legal Checkup

Your business is built on a foundation of laws and legal procedures. As a prudent business owner, you have probably considered the following legal matters:

o You had to incorporate your business. The corporation has been properly set up. All shares are properly issued. Directors and officers have been appointed. The corporate minutes and register are up-to-date.

o You and other directors of the corporation know exactly what your duties and liabilities are. All directors are protected from liability by sufficient insurance coverage.

o You have a shareholders' agreement so that all shareholders know their roles. All partners are treated fairly. There is an orderly method for valuation and termination of the corporation. You understand the minority shareholders rights requirements of the Business Corporations Act.

o You filed a business registration and have a system to renew it before expiry and you have registered any business names that you are using.

o You filed trademark, patent and copyright applications to protect the intellectual property of your business.

o Your URL (web address) is trademarked. You have audited your website to check for breaches of privacy law, defamation and technology law issues. Your online sales portal is set up to avoid legal problems with privacy law, identity theft and contract issues.

o Your licencing and registrations are up-to-date. If your salespeople have to be registered or licenced, you have a system to ensure that their registrations are up-to-date and that their regulatory requirements are being monitored.

o You have a long term lease for your plant or office. You had your lease vetted by a lawyer. You know what it says, including the extra rent the landlord can demand. You know the deadline for your right to renew.

o You use several legal standard forms and contracts in your business. These have all been vetted by a lawyer to comply with applicable laws including the PPSA, the Interest Act, the Consumer Protection Act, the Sale of Goods Act, the Mercantile Law Amendment Act and the Bills of Exchange Act and contract law.

o If you extend credit, you know that your service charges don't exceed the "criminal rate of interest".

o You know prohibitions against misleading advertising and unfair competition in the Competition Act.

o You understand the privacy legislation and you have a system to ensure that you comply each time you collect, use, or disclose personal information.

o Your employees have signed agreements which spell out the length of notice they are entitled to receive if you terminate their employment. You know who is entitled to how much and what to do if you decide to terminate an employee, whatever the reason. You understand your obligations under the Employment Standards Act.

o Your employees have all signed non-competition covenants and non-solicitation agreements to prevent them from taking away your best clients, business procedures, best employees and trade secrets if they leave to set up shop on their own.

o You have a procedure to prevent violation of the Human Rights Code and you know the protected grounds of discrimination. You also understand all of the elements of sexual harassment and you know how to deal with it.

o You know your company's rights and obligations under the Workplace Safety Insurance Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

o You have liability and multi-peril insurance and you know what it covers.

o Your manufacturing and distribution processes are set up to avoid potentially devastating product liability and class action lawsuits. You have minimized risks.

o You keep up-to-date with changes in the law which affect the corporate, contractual, insurance and employment law issues in your industry.

o You have complied with the filing requirements for income taxes, sales taxes and GST. You have had your business and municipal tax assessment vetted.

o You know what precautions to take to help prevent litigation.

o If you are about to get involved in litigation, you have an action plan to maximize your chances of success and to keep the cost in check. When hiring a lawyer, you know what you need and what to expect.

Stop the presses - before we continue - do we hear you saying there are many items on this list that you haven't looked after, that you haven't thought of or which could be updated?

We're not surprised. In our experience, small and medium-sized business owners don't get around to dealing with many important legal issues involved in organizing their business relationships with partners, shareholders, customers, employees and government and in preventing or managing the risk of expensive litigation. Often, agreements are not fully thought through.

Small business owners tend to do only what they absolutely have to do to comply with the law and are reluctant to spend money for top drawer legal services when an inexpensive shortcut appears to do the trick. Your focus is getting your business up and running, getting your product to market, making sales and keeping costs down. You could be lucky and run your business for years without anything going wrong.

Fair enough, but if you disregard preventive legal measures like the ones mentioned, your business is like a driver without a seatbelt in a car that has never been serviced ---in other words, a catastrophic accident waiting to happen.

Here are two examples of business legal nightmares that could have been easily avoided with a program of preventive law such as the Business Legal Checkup. These are actual cases, decided in Ontario courts:

o A Toronto RV dealer sold a motor home to a customer. After using it for a couple of weeks, the customer complained that the salesperson had misled him about a "rental program" and brought the motor home back and refused to make any payments. The dealer sold the motor home as a used vehicle and suffered a $25,000 loss for which it sued the customer.

The Ontario Court of Appeal decided that customer was entitled to return the RV and cancel the contract because the salesman's Motor Vehicle Dealers Act registration expired and was not renewed. This made the contract illegal. The RV dealer didn't have a system to check if all their salespersons' registrations were current. The dealer not only lost $25,000 but also had to pay about $30,000 to their own lawyer and almost that much in legal costs to the customer's lawyer. A Business Legal Checkup could have saved this business most of the $100,000 and a lot of aggravation.

o A southwestern Ontario company was a wholesale distributor of car alarm systems, which started as a basement operation and developed into a successful business. The owner used contract forms he found on the internet. Why pay a lawyer when forms were right there for the taking? His standard form contracts had statements that he didn't fully understand but if they were on the internet, they must be OK. He didn't have a lawyer check them. The standard form agreements didn't create a problem for several years.

The distributor extended credit to CAG, a company owned by a Mr. Don for more than $90,000 worth of car alarms. He wasn't worried about payment because Mr. Don signed the standard form contract --- the one he found on the internet for free --- which stated that Mr. Don was personally liable for everything CAG ordered. When CAG went out of business, the distributor sued Mr. Don. The Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed the claim against Mr. Don because the personal liability clause in the standard form agreement was unclear and was capable of two meanings. The distributor didn't recover his $90,000 and had to pay legal fees to his own lawyer and costs to Mr. Don's lawyer. A Business Legal Checkup could have saved him almost $150,000 and possible financial ruin.

These examples are the tip of the iceberg. As you read this article, you can probably think of other examples that affected your business. In each case, it's more than the legal expenses that are at stake. The business owner has to devote time and sleepless nights to the legal dispute and loses time from running the business.

How does a Business Legal Checkup work?

o You will be asked to complete some forms to provide confidential information about your business.

o You will have a discussion with the lawyer to assess the scope of the Business Legal Checkup. For example, it doesn't cover tax law, environmental law or succession planning unless special arrangements are made.

o A basic Business Legal Checkup will provide a diagnostic review of the legal status of the following issues in your business: (1) Set up and governance of your corporation; (2) Relationships among the owners of the business; (3) Relationships with employees; (4) the contracts and forms used in the business; (5) Competition Law and Illegal Advertising; (6) Intellectual Property, Trade Secrets, Confidentiality and Privacy; (7) Safety and risk management; (8) Risk analysis and efficient management of existing litigation; (9) Internet Issues; (10) Regulatory licencing issues.

o A Business Legal Checkup can also be customized to meet the business owner's specific requirements. This may require consultation with outside legal experts.

o In preparation for the Business Legal Checkup, you will be asked to provide documents and information concerning each category of the analysis.

o After the documents have been reviewed by a lawyer, consultation may be required with other lawyers. Further clarifications may be required from you and other senior officers of your business.

o A report will be prepared explaining the status of each topic and red-flagging issues which require attention and indicating their level of urgency.

o When the Business Legal Checkup report is ready, the business owner may prefer to have the Business Legal Checkup lawyer or legal team present the findings orally. An oral presentation followed by a Q&A session can assist the business owner to plan the next steps efficiently.

o The Business Legal Checkup legal team will facilitate referrals to lawyers who are specialized in resolving the legal problems identified by the Business Legal Checkup.

How much will a Business Legal Checkup cost?

For a small startup business with less than five employees, operating out of a single location and having only one business entity, a Business Legal Checkup can usually be completed for about $5,000 to $7,500 if there are no unusual problems.

Who needs a Business Legal Checkup?

Every business needs to know whether its legal processes are efficiently compliant with the law. Public corporations are obliged to provide certain levels of legal compliance to government and regulatory bodies. A small private corporation does not have the same levels of mandatory compliance but failure to do so voluntarily is like the proverbial ostrich with its head in the sand.

A Business Legal Checkup is also useful for a business owner who is considering the sale of his business or for a prospective purchaser of a business. Minority shareholders could insist on a Business Legal Checkup annually or bi-annually to ensure that management and the majority shareholders are meeting their obligations to the corporation.

A Business Legal Checkup may also be a credibility tool for a business seeking financing or government contracts. Unlike a financial audit, ISO9001 and ISO 14400 compliance standards, the Business Legal Checkup is a confidential report to management only and expressly excludes reliance by outside parties. If an outside party, such as a lender or investor, will receive a copy of the report, the Business Legal Checkup legal team must be informed in advance so that concerns relevant to these outside parties can be taken into account.

Where can my business get a Business Legal Checkup?

So far as we know, the Business Legal Checkup, as a fixed-price legal diagnostic tool for private small and medium-sized businesses is a new legal service in Canada. Interested business owners are invited to contact us for information.

Benjamin Franklin's famous advice has evolved. A Business Legal Checkup can be much weightier than an "ounce of prevention". It could provide "tons" of preventive advice to save your business from damaging or catastrophic expense. The Business Legal Checkup will also provide the business owner with peace of mind which, as another saying goes, is "worth its weight in gold".

October 2008. © Igor Ellyn and Orie Niedzviecki

This article is for information only and not legal advice.

Igor Ellyn, QC, CS and Orie Niedzviecki, Partners

Ellyn Law LLP, Business Litigation Lawyers, Toronto

http://www.ellynlaw.com

Igor Ellyn, QC, CS and Orie Niedzviecki are partners of ELLYN LAW LLP Business Litigation and Arbitration Lawyers, a Toronto law firm, established specializing in dispute resolution for small and medium businesses and their shareholders.

The firm is a member of INBLF (http://www.inblf.com) and its designated Toronto firm for shareholder disputes. Igor Ellyn is a Specialist in Civil Litigation and a past president of the Ontario Bar Association. He is a chartered arbitrator and mediator and the author of many legal articles, some of which may be downloaded from the firm's website.

Orie Niedzviecki is a business litigation lawyer, whose practice includes commercial disputes, employment law, libel and slander, construction litigation and estate litigation. He is also admitted in the District of Columbia, USA.

For more information about the authors and their litigation services, please visit http://www.ellynlaw.com

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