Cutting customers a deal on oil changes does more than lure new clientele for R&B Total Performance — it heats the business’s building.
The Niles auto repair shop purchased a waste oil furnace about five years ago to cut its heating bill, and it has certainly served its purpose.
The average bill for R&B is about $15, “even in the dead of winter,” co-owner Roger Ibbotson said.
Bruce Boyd, of Dowagiac, and Ibbotson, of Niles, own the shop on North Fifth Street, which services regular, classic and race cars. R&B services vehicles from hundreds of miles away; it had a Chevy Camaro from Fort Wayne, Ind., and a Pontiac Catalina from Detroit in its shop this week.
Before gas prices skyrocketed about five years ago, and before they bought their Energy Logic furnace, their average heating bill was about $300 to $350. Since then, they have also added onto their shop, making it even more costly to heat.
The Energy Logic furnace “is one of the most-efficient and cleanest-burning,” Ibbotson said.  “It’s basically just a furnace.”
Located in one of R&B’s service bays, the furnace can burn waste oil as well as transmission and break fluid, and it is stored in drums.
R&B often runs a $14.99 oil change special; its standard price is $19.99.
“The $14.99 oil change covers the fluid … it gives them a good deal,” Ibbotson said of the customers.
Last winter, which was colder than average, they used 1,000 gallons of waste oil to heat the building.
But R&B is not 100 percent dependent on its own waste fluids to fuel its furnace — it also receives donations of waste oil from an oil change shop in Benton Harbor, farmers and a lawn care service.
“We have a lot of people bring it in,” Ibbotson said.
R&B has had few problems with its waste oil furnace, and it requires maintenance just once a year.
The furnace cost $6,000 when it was purchased five years ago; the same model costs about $10,000 today.
“It’s probably the best investment we’ve ever done,” Ibbotson said. “It saves to have it. I hate to think what it would cost now.”

R&B Total Performance is located at 2513 N. Fifth St., Niles. It can be reached at 694-5015.