Feasibility Case Study: Underwriting Express Car Wash After the Correction

MMCG Invest, LLC · Feasibility & market analysis · July 2026

Every credit committee that reviews an express car wash deal now opens with the same question: are there not already too many of these? The question is fair. It is also, examined at the level where car washes actually compete, the wrong unit of analysis. The difference between the metro average and the corridor is where this asset class is now won or lost.

Express car wash presents lenders with a paradox that few asset classes can match. On one side sits one of the most durable consumer conversion trends in American services: the share of drivers who wash professionally rather than in the driveway has climbed from roughly half in the mid-1990s to nearly four in five today, and the subscription model has converted a discretionary errand into recurring monthly revenue (1)(2). On the other side sits the most public correction in franchised retail real estate this decade: a Chapter 11 filing by a top-ten chain, a multi-billion-dollar strategic exit, and platform valuations cut roughly in half from their peak (3)(4)(13). Both stories are true. The work of a feasibility study is to explain how they coexist, and to establish which one governs the specific corner, corridor, and borrower in front of the credit committee.

The short version of that explanation: demand never broke; capital discipline did. Consumers kept washing. Vehicles in operation reached 289 million and the average vehicle age set a record at 12.8 years, both of which push maintenance-minded owners toward professional washing (20). The largest operator in the country crossed 2.3 million unlimited members, drawing roughly 76% of its wash sales from subscriptions (2). What failed was a development machine: private equity platforms paying peak multiples in the mid-teens to twenty-plus times EBITDA, building 850 to 900 new tunnels a year at the 2023 peak, and stacking sites into corridors that could not absorb them (13)(14). The correction that followed, ZIPS in bankruptcy with $653.9 million of funded debt, Driven Brands selling its U.S. car wash business for $385 million after deploying roughly $3 billion to assemble it, and Mister Car Wash taken private at $3.1 billion, repriced execution, not demand (2)(3)(4).

This case study works through a representative express car wash feasibility engagement the way MMCG structures the analysis for a lender’s credit file: demand, the correction and what it proved, corridor-level supply, membership economics, the ramp, the operator, capital markets and financing, and a disciplined bear case. The through-line is a single claim. The saturation narrative that now frightens generalist capital is a metro-average error, and the lender equipped to underwrite at the corridor level, with membership quality and sponsor execution in evidence, is buying into the strongest entry conditions this asset class has offered in a decade.

1. The engagement: a representative mandate

The subject of this study is a composite engagement profile, anonymized and assembled from the fact pattern MMCG encounters repeatedly in current car wash mandates. A two-site owner-operator, seven years in express washing with a documented membership book and clean loan performance, has contracted to acquire a third location: a 2021-vintage express exterior tunnel on a signalized hard corner in a mid-density suburban corridor, sold by a de-levering platform divesting sites outside its core geography.

The economics are what make the file interesting. The all-in acquisition basis sits meaningfully below the $7 million-plus that replacing the asset would cost at 2026 land, construction, and equipment pricing (9)(11)(25). The site is past its ramp, carrying an established base of roughly 1,900 unlimited members that generates a majority of revenue, with in-place cash flow rather than a projection. The financing is structured as an SBA 7(a) note combining the business, the real estate, and working capital in a single facility, with a conventional or 504 refinancing preserved as an option once the site seasons under new ownership (15). The hold thesis runs seven to ten years, spanning the window in which the 2024–2026 development pullback suppresses new competition.

The lender’s question is not whether Americans will keep paying to wash their cars. The data settled that. The questions are narrower and harder: whether this corridor already carries, or will soon carry, more tunnels than its traffic can feed; whether the membership base is genuine recurring revenue or a churn spiral wearing a subscription costume; whether this operator can hold conversion, retention, and throughput at the levels the pro forma assumes; and whether the deal survives a stress case built on the sector’s documented failure modes. Those are feasibility questions, and the balance of this study answers them with the data a credit file requires.

2. Demand: the conversion the correction obscured

Start with the demand story the bankruptcy headlines buried. In 1994, roughly 48% of American drivers said they most often washed their vehicle at a professional car wash. Today the figure approaches 80% (1). That is a thirty-year, one-direction migration out of the driveway, driven by time scarcity, water-use awareness, and, in the last decade, a subscription product that made professional washing cheaper per wash than the hose for anyone who washes more than twice a month. Younger consumers wash professionally at higher rates than their parents did, which means the conversion compounds as the driving population turns over (1).

The vehicle base underneath that behavior is growing and aging in the industry’s favor. Vehicles in operation reached a record 289 million, and the average vehicle age set its own record at 12.8 years (20). An aging fleet is a washing fleet: owners protecting a vehicle they intend to keep for years treat washing as maintenance, not indulgence, particularly in road-salt states where corrosion is a resale-value event. Miles traveled recovered past pre-pandemic levels, restoring the dirt, pollen, and salt cycles that drive visit frequency (19).

The membership model then changed the category’s economic character. The largest operator’s disclosure makes the point cleanly: 2.3 million members generating roughly 76% of wash sales, revenue that arrives monthly whether or not it rains (2). Members wash multiples more often than retail customers, and the industry’s recession record, through 2008–2009 and again through the 2022–2025 inflation squeeze, shows professional washing behaving as an affordable-luxury category: households cut restaurant meals before they cut a subscription measured in tens of dollars (1)(25). Demand, in short, is not the risk. Reading demand at the wrong geographic scale is.

EXHIBIT 1: THE DEMAND FOUNDATION

Indicator	Reading	Significance
Professional (DIFM) wash share	~48% (1994) to ~80% (current)	Thirty-year structural conversion out of the driveway
Vehicles in operation	289 million (record)	Expanding washable base
Average vehicle age	12.8 years (record)	Aging fleet treats washing as maintenance
Members, largest operator	2.3 million	Subscription normalization at scale
Member share of wash sales	~76%	Recurring revenue now dominates volume

Source: MMCG database; International Carwash Association; operator filings (1)(2)(20)(25).

Interactive line chart: share of consumers washing professionally rather than at home, 1994 to 2026

3. The correction: what broke and what it proved

Between 2019 and 2022, private equity discovered express car wash and priced it like software. More than a dozen platforms were assembled or expanded by institutional sponsors, and peak transactions cleared multiples in the mid-teens to above twenty times EBITDA (13)(14). The logic was not absurd: recurring membership revenue, high four-wall margins, and a fragmented market invited consolidation. The execution was the problem. Platforms underwrote unit growth as the product, pushed openings to 850 to 900 new tunnels a year at the 2023 peak, and financed the machine with leverage sized to peak multiples (9)(14).

Three transactions now define the reckoning, and a credit file should read each one precisely. ZIPS Car Wash filed Chapter 11 in February 2025 carrying $653.9 million of funded debt against a footprint built through aggressive roll-up acquisition; its own court filings document sites acquired at peak pricing into corridors that competitors were entering simultaneously (3). Driven Brands, having deployed roughly $3 billion to assemble a car wash division, halted development, marked the business down, and exited its U.S. operation in a sale to Whistle Express for $385 million (4)(14). And Mister Car Wash, the sector’s operational benchmark with roughly $1.05 billion in revenue, left the public market in a $3.1 billion take-private led by its longtime sponsor (2)(14), a valuation that says sophisticated capital still wants the asset class, at a disciplined price.

The correction’s diagnostic value is what makes it useful rather than merely cautionary. The casualties shared a signature: leverage sized to peak multiples, site selection subordinated to unit-count targets, and 2022–2023 vintage sites ramping into corridors already claimed by competitors (3)(6)(14). The survivors, and the franchise systems that grew through the downturn, shared the opposite signature: corridor discipline, membership-first operations, and balance sheets that could absorb a slow ramp (5)(18). Nothing in the correction indicts the tunnel, the membership model, or the demand curve. Everything in it indicts underwriting that skipped the corridor math. That is not a warning to lenders. It is an instruction.

EXHIBIT 2: THE CORRECTION SCOREBOARD

Event	Figure	Reading
ZIPS Car Wash Chapter 11 (Feb 2025)	$653.9M funded debt	Roll-up leverage meets corridor saturation
Driven Brands U.S. car wash exit	$385M sale vs. ~$3B deployed	Growth-machine model marked to market
Mister Car Wash take-private	$3.1B	Quality operations still command institutional capital
Platform EBITDA multiples	Mid-teens to 20x+ peak, 7-12x now	Roughly half the peak; execution repriced
Annual new tunnel openings	~850-900 (2023) to ~550 (2025)	Development machine throttled ~35-40%

Source: MMCG database; Chapter 11 filings; operator and transaction disclosures (2)(3)(4)(13)(14)(25).

4. Supply: the corridor, not the metro

The saturation question deserves a serious answer, because in some places the answer is yes. The 2021–2023 building wave concentrated in a handful of Sun Belt metros, and certain corridors in Phoenix, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Atlanta, and central Florida now carry more tunnels than their traffic counts can feed at stabilized volumes (9)(24). Industry benchmarking documents the mechanics with unusual clarity: an incumbent site typically absorbs the first nearby competitor with a manageable volume loss, weathers the second, and hits a material step-down when the third enters the trade area (1). Saturation is real. It is also radically local: two miles away, on a corridor no platform contested, an established site can operate with the economics of a small monopoly.

This is why the national and even metro-level averages that dominate the “too many car washes” narrative are analytically useless for a credit decision. A wash competes for the traffic on its corridor, within a trade area a few minutes wide. The feasibility discipline is to count the actual competitors: every tunnel within the drive-time radius, their vintages, their membership pricing, their throughput capacity, and, critically, every permitted or announced site that has not yet opened. A corridor with two established washes and no pipeline is a different asset class from a corridor with two established washes and three permits pending, and no metro statistic distinguishes them.

The forward supply picture then turns the correction into the incumbent’s advantage. Annual openings fell from the 850 to 900 peak to roughly 550 in 2025, as platform pipelines halted, a major strategic exited development entirely, and construction lenders pulled back from the category (4)(9)(14). Greenfield economics enforce the freeze independently: all-in development cost climbed from roughly $5 million per site in 2022 to $7 to $8 million and above in 2025–2026, against membership pricing that has not risen proportionally, which pushes required volumes beyond what most contested corridors can deliver (9)(11)(25). Municipal friction compounds it, as a growing list of cities adopted moratoriums or conditional-use restrictions on new washes, converting local politics into a barrier protecting existing sites (21). With development timelines running roughly two years from site control to opening, the competitive field most existing sites will face through 2028 is substantially the field that exists today (7)(9). For the owner of a stabilized site on a defensible corridor, the correction did not create risk. It suspended the arrival of new risk.

EXHIBIT 3: THE SUPPLY RESET IN FIVE INDICATORS

Indicator	Reading	Context
New tunnel openings	~550 (2025) vs. ~850-900 (2023)	Development pace cut roughly 35-40%
Greenfield all-in cost	$7-8M+ (2025-26) vs. ~$5M (2022)	New competition uneconomic on most corridors
Competitive absorption pattern	Material step-down at third entrant	Saturation is corridor-level, not metro-level
Municipal posture	Moratoriums and conditional-use limits spreading	Permitting friction now shields incumbents
Development timeline	Roughly two years, site control to opening	2026 starts cannot compete before 2028

Source: MMCG database; International Carwash Association; brokerage and permitting research (1)(7)(9)(11)(21)(25).

Interactive bar chart: new express tunnel openings per year, 2018 to 2026, marking the peak and the correction

5. Unit economics: membership is the revenue balance sheet

An express tunnel’s income statement is best read as two businesses sharing a conveyor. The retail business sells single washes to drive-by traffic and lives at the mercy of weather, pollen, and payday cycles. The membership business sells a flat monthly subscription and converts that volatility into something close to contracted revenue. At mature, well-run sites the membership side dominates, generating a majority of revenue and, at the sector’s operational benchmark, roughly 76% of wash volume (2)(6). The credit implication is direct: a lender underwriting a car wash is underwriting a subscription book with real estate attached, and the book’s quality is measurable.

Three metrics carry that measurement. Penetration first: the size of the member base against the site’s trade area and traffic, with mature sites accumulating member counts in the four figures and top-quartile operators converting retail visits to memberships at the pay station at documented, benchmarked rates (2)(6). Churn second: industry CRM benchmarking places monthly membership churn near 7.6% across the field, with disciplined operators running materially lower and distressed or price-war sites running well higher (6). The difference compounds brutally; a few points of monthly churn separate a book that grows from one that must replace nearly its entire membership annually just to stand still. Pricing third: base unlimited plans cluster in the twenties per month with premium ceramic and graphene tiers well above, but saturated corridors have seen documented $10-and-under promotional wars that destroy revenue per member for every site in the radius (6)(14)(24).

The cost side rewards volume with unusual leverage. An express exterior site runs on a thin crew, and once labor, chemicals, utilities, and card fees are covered, incremental washes arrive at very high contribution margins; mature four-wall margins at quality sites are among the strongest in consumer services, which is precisely what attracted institutional capital in the first place (2)(6)(25). The same leverage cuts downward: a site that loses volume to a new competitor or a churn event sheds margin faster than a fixed-cost analysis suggests. The feasibility prescription follows: underwrite the membership book like a portfolio, with penetration, churn, revenue per member, and conversion rate each benchmarked against the corridor’s competitive pricing, and treat any pro forma that presents membership revenue as automatically recurring, without a churn stress, as unfinished work.

Interactive stacked-area chart: revenue build at a representative express site from opening through month 36, membership versus retail mix

6. The ramp: thirty-six months that decide the loan

Nearly every express car wash credit failure on record is, at bottom, a ramp failure. A greenfield site opens with zero members and must build its subscription book one pay-station conversion at a time; the industry’s own experience puts stabilization at 24 to 36 months, with breakeven typically arriving somewhere in the middle of that window (3)(6)(25). The 2021–2023 vintage problem was that hundreds of sites entered that fragile ramp period simultaneously, often on the same corridors, so that sites competed for members before any of them had built a defensive base. ZIPS’s court filings read as a catalog of ramps that never finished (3).

For the lender, the ramp defines the structural difference between a greenfield loan and an acquisition loan. A greenfield credit is a projection: it requires an interest reserve, an injection sized to survive a slow build, and, under SBA convention for projection-based deals of this kind, an independent feasibility study testing whether the corridor’s traffic, demographics, and competitive set can plausibly deliver the modeled member count (15)(16). An acquisition of a stabilized site inverts the risk: the membership book exists, the churn history is observable, and coverage is calculated on cash flow that has already happened. The representative engagement in this study is deliberately the second kind. In a post-correction market where stabilized sites trade below replacement cost, paying for a completed ramp instead of financing a hoped-for one is not conservatism. It is arbitrage.

Seasonality deserves its own line in the model rather than a footnote. Salt-belt sites peak in winter thaw cycles, pollen-belt sites in spring, and rain suppresses retail volume everywhere; membership exists precisely to flatten this, and the degree to which it does, measurable as the revenue share that arrives from subscriptions in the worst weather months, is itself a quality metric for the book (1)(6). A site whose winter trough still clears debt service on membership revenue alone is a fundamentally different credit from one that needs sunshine to cover its coupon.

7. The operator: execution is the underwritten asset

The correction’s clearest lesson is that in this asset class, the operator is not a management detail. It is the asset. The same tunnel, on the same corner, produces materially different economics depending on whether the crew at the pay station converts retail visitors into members, whether the loading line keeps throughput at capacity on peak days, and whether equipment downtime steals the sunny Saturdays that carry the month. Sector benchmarking and lender commentary converge on the point: sponsor execution now outranks the real estate in car wash credit evaluation (6)(16)(18).

The execution variables are concrete and observable, which is what makes them underwritable. Membership conversion is a trained, incentivized, staffed activity; the operators that grew through the correction run dedicated conversion programs with per-membership incentives, while failed platforms let automated pay stations do the selling (6)(18). Frontline labor turnover in the industry runs above 100% annually, and the operators who beat that number keep loading speed, damage rates, and member service intact while their competitors churn staff and members together (17)(18). Maintenance economics are equally stark: a tunnel down on a peak day forfeits revenue that never returns, so preventive maintenance spending and equipment reserves are credit inputs, not housekeeping (17). And site-selection discipline is the master variable; the documented failure pattern of the PE era was vintage decay, in which each successive year’s sites underperformed the last as growth targets overwhelmed corridor standards (3)(6)(14).

A feasibility study converts these observations into an evidence file. For the representative engagement, that file documents the sponsor’s existing sites: their membership penetration and churn history against benchmark, their staffing model and turnover, their maintenance record, and their performance through the 2024–2026 price-war period. A two-site operator with a demonstrated book and clean debt service clears the bar that lender commentary now sets, direct industry experience over adjacent-retail enthusiasm (16)(18). The study’s job is to document that clearance, not assert it. In this asset class, a strong corner with a weak operator is a slow liquidation, and a modest corner with a strong operator is a compounding machine.

8. Capital markets: repricing, replacement cost, and the debt menu

The capital markets have finished repricing the sector, and the new prices favor the disciplined buyer. Platform multiples that reached the mid-teens to above twenty times EBITDA at the peak now clear at 7 to 12 times for quality portfolios; single sites trade across a wide quality spread, from distressed situations changing hands near 3 to 4 times site EBITDA to high-single-digit multiples for stabilized, membership-anchored locations (11)(12)(13)(14). Net-lease pricing tells the same story from the real estate side: car wash cap rates compressed to roughly 5.8% at the 2022 peak of the sale-leaseback boom and have decompressed toward 6.9%, with buyers now pricing operator credit and dark-store risk rather than treating every tunnel as a bond (7)(8)(9). Meanwhile replacement cost climbed past $7 million per site, so stabilized assets in many markets now trade below what a competitor would pay to build against them, the same below-replacement entry condition that defines attractive vintages in every operating real estate class (9)(11)(25).

The financing menu has narrowed to structures that respect the operating business, which is how it should be read. The SBA programs carry the small-operator end of the market: a 7(a) facility can combine business value, real estate, equipment, and working capital in a single note up to program limits, while a 504 structure pairs a bank first mortgage with a long-term fixed-rate debenture for larger projects; both now arrive with meaningful injection requirements, coverage floors, and, for projection-based credits, the independent feasibility study the SBA’s own standard operating procedures contemplate (15)(16). Conventional bank appetite survived the correction selectively, at conservative leverage, with in-place rather than projected coverage, and with sponsor experience as a gating item (16). Equipment finance funds the tunnel systems themselves, and the sale-leaseback market, chastened by operator bankruptcies, still exists for strong credits at honest rent coverage (7)(8). Across every channel, the underwriting conversation now starts where it should have started in 2021: with the corridor, the membership book, and the sponsor, in that order.

The SBA layer deserves a proprietary lens rather than a secondhand one. Because the 7(a) and 504 programs are the financing spine of single-site car wash ownership, the credit performance of the category is not a matter of anecdote: it is recorded, loan by loan, in federal data. MMCG maintains that record internally, more than one million loan-level 7(a) and 504 observations, which allows car wash approval volumes, cohort seasoning, and charge-off behavior to be computed directly and tested against the narrative running through the trade press (15)(16)(25). Published lender commentary already signals tightened scrutiny of the category after the correction; the loan-level view disciplines that signal into vintages, geographies, and structures, and it accompanies every MMCG car wash engagement as context the credit file cannot obtain elsewhere (16)(25).

EXHIBIT 4: THE EXPRESS CAR WASH FINANCING MENU, 2026

Channel	Typical structure	Discipline	Notes
SBA 7(a)	Business + real estate + working capital, one note	Injection ~10%+; feasibility study on projection-based deals	Primary channel for single-site owner-operators
SBA 504	Bank first mortgage + fixed-rate CDC debenture	Coverage-first sizing	Larger projects; long-term fixed on debenture portion
Conventional bank	Lower leverage, recourse common	In-place DSCR, not projections	Selective post-correction appetite
Equipment finance	Tunnel systems and technology	Advance rates on equipment value	Pairs with real estate facilities
Sale-leaseback / net lease	Real estate monetization, rent load added	Rent coverage on EBITDAR	Cap rates ~5.8% peak to ~6.9%; operator credit now priced

Source: MMCG database; SBA program materials; net-lease brokerage research (7)(8)(9)(15)(16)(25).

9. Risk framework: tripwires and the bear case

A feasibility study that cannot articulate the bear case is an advocacy document, and in this sector the bear case has recent, named evidence. The honest version concedes what the correction proved: saturation is locked into specific corridors of specific metros, where 2021–2023 vintage sites are still ramping into crowded trade areas and membership price wars have structurally impaired revenue per member (3)(9)(24). Churn runs hotter under economic stress on lower-income members, and a subscription book built at promotional pricing can evaporate when the discounts end (6). Franchise pipelines keep adding supply in their chosen markets regardless of the PE pullback (5). Refinancing risk sits on 2021–2022 vintage debt written at peak multiples and pre-correction rates (13)(14). And the fastest-growth region carries genuine water and permitting exposure, even though drought rules have historically restricted driveway washing while exempting reclaim-equipped commercial washes, a regulatory asymmetry that has so far favored the industry (21)(22).

A disciplined risk section also separates structure from noise, because credit committees now ask about both. Electric vehicles get dirty at the same rate as combustion vehicles, carry finishes their owners are, if anything, more protective of, and are joining a fleet whose record age already favors maintenance behavior; nothing in the adoption evidence suggests a demand impairment inside a seven-to-ten-year hold (1)(17). Autonomous fleet washing is periodically offered as a bull case, and the honest treatment is optionality rather than underwriting: documented fleet-cleaning pilots exist, but the timelines do not support crediting them in a current pro forma. Waterless and mobile washing, whatever its app-era branding, carries no cost structure capable of displacing a tunnel that cleans a vehicle in minutes at a subscription price (17)(18). None of these belongs in a stress case. All of them belong in the study, answered, so the committee never has to raise them first.

Each risk carries an observable tripwire, and naming them is what separates a stress case from boilerplate. The framework below is the one MMCG builds into engagements of this profile.

EXHIBIT 5: BEAR-CASE TRIPWIRE MATRIX

Risk	Observable tripwire	Primary mitigant
Supply re-acceleration	National openings back above ~700-800/yr; new permits filed in the trade area	Two-year build lag; $7-8M+ greenfield cost; corridor permit monitoring
Membership churn spiral	Monthly churn sustained above ~8%; heavy promotional acquisition mix	Churn-stressed underwriting; book quality metrics in the credit file
Price war in trade area	$10-and-under unlimited offers persisting nearby	Corridor pricing census; revenue-per-member stress case
Ramp failure (greenfield)	Membership build below plan at months 12-18	Prefer stabilized acquisitions; interest reserves and injection sizing
Refinancing stress	2021-22 vintage maturities repricing at current rates	Coverage-first sizing; fixed-rate takeout where available
Water and permitting	Drought rules without commercial exemption; discharge limits	Reclaim systems; jurisdiction screening before commitment
Operator execution	Conversion rates falling; frontline turnover spiking	Sponsor evidence file; site-level operating covenants

Source: MMCG analysis of industry benchmarking, court filings, and brokerage research (1)(3)(6)(9)(21)(25).

What would actually reverse the thesis is a conjunction: development re-accelerating to peak pace while membership pricing stays impaired and consumer stress elevates churn simultaneously. Short of that combination, the direction of the argument holds. Demand keeps converting, the supply machine stays throttled through at least 2028, and the residual risk concentrates where it always belonged, in corridor selection and operator execution, both of which a rigorous study can evidence in advance.

Outlook: what the feasibility study must prove

Four facts carry this case study, and each is measurable rather than rhetorical. Demand is structural: a thirty-year conversion to professional washing, a record vehicle base aging into maintenance behavior, and a subscription model that turned weather-dependent retail into recurring revenue. Supply is suspended: openings cut by more than a third, greenfield economics broken by cost inflation, and a roughly two-year build lag shielding incumbents through 2028. Pricing has reset: platforms at half their peak multiples and stabilized sites available below replacement cost. And the risk that decides outcomes, corridor saturation and operator execution, is local, observable, and documentable before a dollar of credit is extended.

None of that, on its own, underwrites a specific loan. Averages do not sign credit memos, and in this asset class the averages are actively misleading in both directions. The feasibility study’s mandate is to convert the sector thesis into deal-level evidence: a corridor census of every competing tunnel and every pending permit rather than a metro statistic; a membership book analyzed for penetration, churn, and promotional dependency rather than taken at face value; a ramp or in-place cash flow tested against the sector’s documented failure modes; a sponsor evidence file that would satisfy a workout committee’s hindsight; and a bear case with named tripwires rather than generic risk language. MMCG Invest, LLC prepares lender-grade feasibility studies of exactly this profile, covering SBA 7(a), SBA 504, USDA, and conventional credit files across more than thirty asset classes, from its San Francisco office, as independent third-party analysis built to support the lender’s underwriting and to hold up in committee. The firm’s proprietary loan-level SBA dataset, drawn from more than one million 7(a) and 504 records, additionally allows car wash credit performance to be examined directly rather than through anecdote (25).

The express car wash correction did not disprove the asset class. It disproved underwriting that never looked past the metro average. Measured at the corridor, with the membership book and the operator in evidence, the sector now offers what it could not offer at the peak: honest prices, suspended competition, and a clear record of exactly how these deals fail. That record is the feasibility study’s raw material, and the lender who uses it is positioned to own the recovery that generalist capital, still reading headlines, will arrive at late.

To discuss an express car wash feasibility engagement, book a meeting with our team.

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July 6, 2026, by Michal Mohelsky, J.D. Principal of MMCG Invest, LLC, feasibility study company serving feasibility studies for car wash projects, iunlcudign SBA 7(a), 504 and USDA loan programs. .

Reach out to discuss how our methodology supports your lending decision.

Michal Mohelsky, J.D. | Principal | mmcginvest.com 

Contact: michal@mmcginvest.com

Phone: (628) 225-1125

Methodological note: figures reflect actual reported data through mid-2026 where so stated; site-count, pricing, and outlook figures beyond that date are projections and are identified as such in context. Aggregated market intelligence reflects the MMCG database. This article is market commentary, not an offer of financing or investment advice.

Sources

(1) International Carwash Association: consumer studies, industry data, and WashIndex benchmarking.

(2) Mister Car Wash, Inc.: SEC filings, earnings materials, and 2025 take-private documentation.

(3) ZIPS Car Wash, LLC: Chapter 11 petitions and first-day declarations, February 2025.

(4) Driven Brands Holdings: SEC filings, earnings transcripts, and U.S. car wash divestiture announcements.

(5) Tommy’s Express: franchise disclosure documents and system growth disclosures.

(6) Rinsed: car wash CRM benchmarking reports on membership churn and conversion.

(7) The Boulder Group: net-lease car wash research, 2021-2026.

(8) B+E Net Lease: car wash sector reports.

(9) Matthews Real Estate Investment Services: car wash and net-lease research.

(10) Northmarq: net-lease market reports.

(11) Marcus & Millichap: car wash investment research.

(12) SAB Capital: car wash net-lease reports.

(13) S&P Global Ratings and Moody’s: car wash issuer reports and sector commentary.

(14) PitchBook and PE Hub: car wash platform transaction coverage.

(15) U.S. Small Business Administration: SOP 50 10 and 7(a)/504 program materials.

(16) Coleman Report and SBA lender trade press: car wash lending commentary.

(17) Professional Carwashing & Detailing: operational and trade coverage.

(18) CAR WASH Magazine (ICA): chain rankings and operator profiles.

(19) Federal Highway Administration / Bureau of Transportation Statistics: vehicle miles traveled.

(20) S&P Global Mobility: vehicles in operation and average fleet age.

(21) Municipal permitting records: car wash moratoriums and zoning restrictions, 2023-2026.

(22) State water authorities: drought-period commercial car wash rules.

(23) Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Axios: car wash capital cycle coverage.

(24) Local business journals: corridor-level saturation and price-war reporting.

(25) MMCG database, 2026: proprietary aggregation of car wash market, cost, and program intelligence, including the firm’s loan-level SBA 7(a) and 504 dataset.