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Oil-change chain opens in January

Andrew Livingstone
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, December 2, 2009

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - When the Lube-X oil change franchise opens its doors in January next year, it'll take just 15 minutes for Yellowknife residents to have their oil changed.

NNSL photo/graphic

Lube-X, a Western Canada oil change company, will open its doors in January to offer quick oil changes. From left are Jim Funk, construction foreman for Nahanni Construction; Jim Fraser, owner and president of Lube-X;and Spencer Decorby, construction project manager for Polar Developments. - Andrew Livingstone/NNSL photo

It's been a long time coming for the Western Canadian franchise. Jim Funk, owner and president of Lube-X, said they've been trying to open up shop in Yellowknife for years, but logistics kept them from bringing their oil-change service to vehicle owners in town.

"It's a spot we've wanted to come to for seven years, but we just couldn't get a site," Funk said. "It's a big community and lots of traffic and that's the research. It's all about 10,000-plus people in the town.

What sets Lube-X apart from the rest of the market is their quick service. An oil change takes, on average, 15 minutes to complete in one of their stores and vehicle owners won't be put out by having to make appointments or leave their car for the day.

"You can stay right in your vehicle and drive over the pit," Funk said. "You can stay in your car even while they do the work on the vehicle."

The three-bay building has no hoists in it, so cars just park on the main floor and staff work from the basement. Spencer Decorby, construction project manager for Polar Developments, said the building, built by Nahanni Construction, is similar to others at the company's 44 locations across Alberta, B.C. and Saskatchewan. But the Yellowknife store has been customized to meed Northern needs.

"We've upgraded the insulation package substantially and we have in-slab heat in the basement floor and the main floor as well as forced air recovery," Decorby said.

"We also have a full blown waste oil boiler in this building so we'll be able to reuse all the waste oil to heat the building."

Funk chose to install a waste oil boiler because of the price of oil and the high cost of heating a building in Yellowknife. The option is not common practice for Lube-X, but made sense to go this route.

"If gas is cheap we don't bother, but up here you might as well use it," Funk said.

Jim Fraser, who is heading up construction on the building, said the location is prime for the chain oil-change store to flourish.

"Every vehicle that's in Yellowknife drives by this place at least once a day."

Polar Development owns the property and the building, located on Old Airport Road near Tim Horton's, and will lease the building back to Lube-X. Decorby said Lube-X plans to open the store as a corporate franchise store, but has plans down the road to sell it for local ownership.

"The plan is to open it as a corporate store for now and once it's up and running and all the bugs are worked out they'd like to sell it to a local guy in a year or two," Decorby said.

"I've been approached by people looking to work here and also looking to get into a franchise opportunity," Decorby said, with Frank adding the company plans to hire six to 10 employees to run the business.

The store also plans to sell a line of synthetic products to meet demand in the North.

Decorby said the benefit of getting a regular oil change goes further than just keeping your vehicle healthy.

"A lot of people don't realize it but people that change their oil more regularly run cleaner as a result and reduce their carbon footprint," Decorby said. "And with this building recycling and reusing the waste product we think we're going to do a good thing for the community from that perspective as well."

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