Auto Repair for Mattawa Drivers
AutoNorth Auto Repair is a licensed auto repair shop at 1520 Cholette St in North Bay, 60 km west of Mattawa on Highway 17, open Monday to Friday from 8:00am to 5:00pm. Sixty kilometres is a real distance and there is no honest way to write around it. What makes the trip work is that North Bay is already Mattawa's regional hospital centre, so the run west happens regularly for reasons that have nothing to do with a vehicle. Book service into a day you were already coming in, or leave the vehicle at the after-hours key drop the night before, and the repair costs no extra driving.
Last updated August 10, 2026
How Far Is AutoNorth From Mattawa?
About 60 km, west on Highway 17. AutoNorth Auto Repair is at 1520 Cholette St in North Bay, open Monday to Friday from 8:00am to 5:00pm, and there is no point dressing that distance up as a quick hop. It is the furthest community this shop writes a page for. What makes it workable is that most Mattawa drivers are already coming into North Bay for other reasons, and a vehicle can be booked around one of those trips instead of costing a trip of its own.
- Highway 17 is the entire route. Heading west out of Mattawa, Highway 17 leaves the confluence of the Mattawa and Ottawa Rivers, runs alongside the Mattawa River, meets Highway 94 and carries on into North Bay. One road, and almost none of it is town driving.
- The Highway 533 roundabout is the downtown landmark. Highway 533 ends at Highway 17 in Mattawa at a roundabout next to the Ottawa River shore. North of there it runs 53.2 km through isolated Canadian Shield terrain with boreal forest on both sides, meets Highway 656 in Mattawan Township, passes Alexander Lake Forest Provincial Park near its midpoint, and finishes at Highway 63 near Eldee.
- Highway 63 is the other way into North Bay. It runs 63.5 km from Highway 11 and Highway 17 in North Bay out to the Ontario and Quebec boundary, where Route 101 continues into Temiscaming, passing Feronia, Redbridge, Balsam Creek, Eldee and Thorne and running along the northern shores of Trout Lake. Coming up 533 and then west on 63 puts a driver into North Bay from the north rather than the east.
- The town itself is 3.67 km² of land. Town of Mattawa sits in Nipissing District at the point where the Mattawa River meets the Ottawa, and the Ottawa is the Ontario and Quebec border there. A footprint that tight means the 60 km is highway from one end to the other.
- The honest version of this page. Mattawa recorded a population of 1,881 in the 2021 Census, down from 1,993 in 2016, and it is a town with its own service options. Nothing here claims otherwise, and nothing here claims to be anyone's nearest garage. The case is built entirely on the trip you were already making.
- North Bay is already the regional hospital centre for Mattawa. That is the single fact this whole page turns on. Appointments, tests and visits bring people west along Highway 17 on a regular basis, and a vehicle booked for the same day rides along instead of costing a separate 120 km round trip.
AutoNorth Auto Repair. 1520 Cholette St, North Bay, Ontario P1A 0A9. Monday to Friday, 8:00am to 5:00pm, closed weekends. Call (705) 472-6060 or text (705) 571-4391.
DirectionsDriving Directions From Mattawa to AutoNorth
AutoNorth Auto Repair is at 1520 Cholette St, North Bay, Ontario P1A 0A9. Tap the button and Google Maps opens the route from Mattawa on your phone, ready to navigate.
Parking is on the gravel lot out front. If the shop is closed when you arrive, the after-hours key drop is at the building and the work starts first thing in the morning.
Same-Day Visit vs Overnight Key Drop
At 60 km each way, the question stops being what the repair costs and starts being how many times the highway gets driven. There are two workable shapes for it. One books the vehicle into a day you are already spending in North Bay. The other leaves the vehicle the night before and collects it on a later trip. Both are booked by phone or text, Monday to Friday, 8:00am to 5:00pm.
| Same-day visit vs overnight key drop | Same-day visit | Overnight key drop |
|---|---|---|
| Trips down Highway 17 | One round trip, in and back on the same day | One drop on a trip you were already making, then collection on a later one |
| When the work starts | At the appointment you booked, inside the Monday to Friday 8:00am to 5:00pm day | First thing in the morning, because the vehicle is already on the lot |
| What you do while it happens | Wait at the shop, or take the customer shuttle, which includes rides home | Whatever brought you into North Bay, on whichever day suits you |
| How you see the work | Digital inspection report by text and email, with photos and video of your own vehicle grouped by priority | The same report through the same two channels, read at home in Mattawa |
| How you approve or decline | From your phone, wherever you are that day, without waiting for a phone call | From a phone or a computer, 60 km away, with no second drive to understand a quote |
| Suits | A shorter job booked ahead, where the vehicle is going home with you | A longer job, or anything where the vehicle may need to stay |
| Say this when you book | Ask about the shuttle so it can be arranged rather than sorted out on the day | Say you are using the after-hours key drop |
Neither column promises a completion time, and nobody at the shop will invent one over the phone. What both columns do promise is that the distance never has to be driven twice just to find out what is wrong. Call (705) 472-6060 or text (705) 571-4391 and say which shape suits the week.
How Do You Approve a Repair From 60 km Away?
From a phone or a computer, without calling and without driving back in. Every vehicle gets a digital inspection report: photographs and video of that vehicle, sent by both text and email, with the findings grouped by priority so the urgent items are separated from the ones that can wait. Each item is approved or declined individually.
- Photographs of your vehicle, not a stock diagram. A worn pad, a leaking seal or a torn boot is shown on the vehicle it came off. Distance stops mattering once you can see the part. That is the whole reason the digital inspection report exists.
- Video as well as stills. Some faults only make sense moving. Play sits in the same report, on the same phone, wherever you happen to be reading it.
- Sent by text and by email, both. Not one or the other. If the first one is buried, the second one is not.
- Grouped by priority. Safety now, wearing but not yet due, and noted for later are three different answers. A report that treats them as one long list is a sales sheet.
- Approved or declined item by item. Nothing proceeds without a yes on that specific line. From Mattawa that matters more than it does for a driver across town, because the alternative is a second 120 km round trip to look at a part in person.
- Two-way text messaging. The shop runs AutoLeap, which handles the reports and the messaging, so a follow-up question is a text rather than a phone call caught between other things.
- Nobody earns more by finding extra work. Technicians are paid straight time, not flat rate. There is no bonus for a longer list and no penalty for a short one, which is what makes a report worth reading from 60 km away.
Does the Distance Change the Price?
AutoNorth quotes the price before the work is done. An oil change covers gas and diesel, with a new filter, a 120-point visual inspection and a wash, and is quoted for your vehicle before you book. Everything beyond that is quoted before it is done.
- Oil changes are quoted before you book. Gas and diesel, a new filter, the 120-point visual inspection and a wash included. Diesels and larger-capacity engines hold more oil, so give the year, make and model when booking the oil change and the number comes back before the drive, not after it.
- The 120-point inspection is why a combined trip is worth booking. One visit surveys the whole vehicle rather than only the thing that brought it in. Anything found is photographed and lands in the report, so a 60 km trip does the work of two.
- Diagnosis is quoted before the vehicle comes in. You are told what it costs to find the fault. The repair is a separate number, quoted once there is something real to quote. Nothing about that changes with the length of the drive.
- Third-party financing is available through AT Clarke Enterprises. A repair that lands at the wrong time does not have to be decided in one payment. Ask when booking.
- Approved repair facility for Canada General and Global Warranty. If a vehicle is covered, the claim can be handled at the shop rather than adding another appointment somewhere else. Warranty work is worth mentioning when you call, because it changes how the visit is written up.
- The answer is allowed to be no. A report saying a set of pads has another season left is the same report that says when they do not. That only works when both answers are genuinely on the table.
Call (705) 472-6060 or text (705) 571-4391 with what the vehicle is doing and the year, make and model. A price before the drive is the point.
What Is Worth Booking Into One Trip?
The jobs that come around on a schedule. Seasonal tire changeovers, storage, safety certificates and trailer inspections can all be planned, which means they can all be pinned to a day you were already driving west on Highway 17 rather than a day the vehicle forces on you.
- Winter tire compound stays flexible below roughly 7 degrees Celsius. All-season compounds stiffen around the same temperature. That threshold, not the first snowfall, is what decides when a winter tire set earns its keep, and it is knowable weeks ahead, which makes it easy to book around another trip.
- 21 tire brands stocked. Mounting, balancing, puncture repair and seasonal changeovers all happen at Cholette St. Having the brand on the shelf is what keeps a tire job from turning into a second appointment.
- Seasonal tire storage runs $50 a season, or free with a set of four, and close to 200 customer tire sets are racked at the shop between seasons. Seasonal tire storage means the off-season set is already in North Bay when the changeover comes due. Nothing has to be loaded into a vehicle in Mattawa and hauled 60 km, and nothing takes up a corner of a garage for six months.
- Ontario's annual trailer safety inspection starts at 4,500 kg. It applies to trucks, trailers and converter dollies rated over 4,500 kg by total gross weight, registered gross weight or manufacturer's GVWR, and the certificate is valid 12 months. Most boat trailers and small utility trailers are well under that figure and need no annual inspection at all. If yours might cross the line, AutoNorth is a licensed inspection station and can go through it properly.
- Summer traffic already runs this way. Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park sits just west of town on the Mattawa River at 6905 Highway 17 East, on the historic Mattawa River fur trade route, with three boat launches and canoe, kayak and stand-up paddleboard rentals. Anything towed toward the park is already pointed down the road that leads to Cholette St.
- Planned work is the work that fits a long drive. Logging remains an important industry in this region alongside camping, hunting and fishing tourism, and rail has run through Mattawa since 1881. None of that changes a service interval, but it does mean the calendar, not the weather, is what should decide when a vehicle gets booked.
Why Put This Shop On the Trip?
Because of how it is set up rather than what is on the sign. AutoNorth Auto Repair opened on Cholette St in September 2025 and is rated 5.0 across 24 Google reviews. For a driver weighing a 60 km run, the useful questions are what the shop can finish in one visit and whether the report can be trusted from a distance.
- One building covers the whole vehicle. Maintenance, mechanical repair, tires, safety certificates and commercial work all happen at 1520 Cholette St, on all makes and models, gas, diesel and hybrid. A trip that covers everything is a very different proposition from a trip that covers one item.
- Licensed MTO Motor Vehicle Inspection Station. Ontario Vehicle Safety Certificates are issued at the shop, so a safety inspection and whatever it turns up can be handled without splitting the job across two places and two drives.
- Dealership training without the dealership. Ryan Christadler is a Toyota-certified Master Technician with hybrid certification, trained at Centennial College, working in an independent shop at an independent shop's overhead. Hybrid service is not an outside referral here.
- Certified Holman service shop. The shop is set up for government and municipal fleet work, which is the kind of account that runs on documentation and scheduling rather than on walk-in luck.
- Straight time, not flat rate. Worth repeating in the context of a long drive: nobody at AutoNorth earns more by rushing a vehicle or by finding extra work on it. The pay structure is the reason the report reads the way it does.
- Five point zero across 24 Google reviews. A small, recent shop with a short review history and a clean one. That is a modest number stated plainly rather than a big number stated vaguely.
- Parking is on the gravel lot out front. Practical detail for anyone arriving after hours to use the key drop: there is room to leave a vehicle without blocking a bay door.
None of that makes AutoNorth closer to Mattawa. It makes the trip that already exists worth more.
Services Worth Booking Into One Visit
These are the jobs that reward planning, which is exactly what a 60 km drive asks for. All of it happens at 1520 Cholette St, on all makes and models, gas, diesel and hybrid.
Oil Changes
Gas and diesel, with a new filter, a 120-point visual inspection and a wash.
Read moreSafety Inspections
Ontario Vehicle Safety Certificates from a licensed MTO inspection station.
Read moreWinter Tires
What separates a winter compound from an all-season, and when the swap is due.
Read moreTire Storage
The off-season set racked in North Bay instead of hauled back and forth.
Read moreBrake Repair
Pads, rotors, calipers and lines, photographed in the report before anything is approved.
Read moreCheck Engine Light
Diagnosis quoted before the vehicle comes in, so the drive is not a guess.
Read moreEverything else is on the full services list, and the contact page has the map, the hours and the booking form. Mention the shuttle or the after-hours key drop when you book so the drive from Mattawa is planned rather than improvised.
Mattawa: Common Questions
How far is AutoNorth from Mattawa, and what is the route?
About 60 km. AutoNorth Auto Repair is at 1520 Cholette St in North Bay, and Mattawa sits 60 km east of North Bay on Highway 17. Heading west, Highway 17 leaves the confluence of the Mattawa and Ottawa Rivers, follows the Mattawa River, meets Highway 94 and continues into North Bay. No drive time is quoted here on purpose. Google works that out live and it changes with the season and the day.
Sixty kilometres is a long way. Why would a Mattawa driver come to North Bay for service at all?
Only because the trip already exists. North Bay is the regional hospital centre for Mattawa, so people make the run west regularly for reasons that have nothing to do with a vehicle. Booking service into a day you were already spending in North Bay costs no extra driving. Mattawa has its own service options and nothing on this page suggests otherwise. The case is the combined trip, not proximity.
Can I drop the vehicle off and collect it on a later trip instead of waiting?
Yes, and this is the option that suits the distance best. There is an after-hours key drop at Cholette St, so a vehicle can be left the night before and the work starts first thing in the morning. Collection can then be folded into whatever brings you back into North Bay. No completion window is promised over the phone, so if the timing has to be tight, say so when booking and it can be discussed honestly.
I come into North Bay up Highway 533 and along Highway 63 rather than on Highway 17. Does that change anything?
Not for the booking. Highway 533 runs 53.2 km north from the roundabout at Highway 17 in downtown Mattawa, through Canadian Shield and boreal forest, meeting Highway 656 in Mattawan Township before ending at Highway 63 near Eldee. Highway 63 then runs into North Bay along the northern shores of Trout Lake, past Thorne, Balsam Creek, Redbridge and Feronia, finishing at Highway 11 and Highway 17. Either approach reaches the same shop. The directions button on this page will route from wherever you actually start.
How do I approve or decline a repair without driving back into North Bay?
From your phone or a computer. Every vehicle gets a digital inspection report with photographs and video of that specific vehicle, sent by both text and email, with findings grouped by priority. Each item is approved or declined individually without a phone call. The shop runs AutoLeap, which also does two-way text messaging, so follow-up questions do not need a call either. At 60 km, that is the difference between one trip and two.
Does a boat trailer or small utility trailer need a yearly safety inspection?
Almost certainly not. Ontario's annual inspection applies to trucks, trailers and converter dollies rated over 4,500 kg by total gross weight, registered gross weight or manufacturer's gross vehicle weight rating, and the certificate is valid 12 months. Most boat trailers and small utility trailers are well under that. What they actually need is bearings, lights, wiring, couplers and tires looked at, which is maintenance rather than paperwork. Call with the rating and axle count and you will be told which one you are dealing with.
Book Service Into a Trip You Are Already Making
Call or text AutoNorth with the year, make and model and what the vehicle is doing. Ask about the customer shuttle or the after-hours key drop when you book, and 60 km stops being two drives.