Car Wash M&A Data: The Industry’s Gold Standard

Quick Answer:

Car Wash Advisory created the car wash industry's first public M&A data repository, tracking historical transaction and acquisition activity across the sector. The tool lets operators, investors, and consolidators analyze deal volume, transaction size, and regional trends, with planned updates including historical site-count tracking and a clearer breakdown of pipeline versus operating sites.

Key Takeaways:

• Car Wash Advisory launched the Car Wash M&A Repository, the industry's first public database of historical car wash M&A transactions.
• The repository tracks who is acquiring whom, transaction size, deal volume, and regional trends across the industry.
• According to Car Wash Advisory's 2025 M&A Report, the top 25 car wash companies now account for 70 percent of total sites among the largest 50 operators, and the largest operators are predominantly private equity-backed.
• Planned updates include historical site-count data layered onto the existing Top Car Wash Companies rankings, and a way to distinguish pipeline (in-development) sites from operating sites across both that page and the repository.
• All data in the repository is publicly available information, consolidated into one continuously updated resource.

The State of Car Wash M&A Activity

The car wash industry is entering a different phase than the one that defined the past five years. Between 2020 and 2022, the sector saw unprecedented investor enthusiasm, rapid consolidation, and historically elevated valuation multiples, with EV/EBITDA multiples climbing as high as 20x in 2021 and 2022. Since then, the market has settled into a more disciplined phase, where capital efficiency and asset quality matter more than growth for its own sake.

That shift shows up clearly in the numbers. M&A deal volume peaked at 131 transactions in 2022, then contracted to a range of 40 to 49 deals annually from 2023 through 2025, a level Car Wash Advisory expects to persist through 2026. Valuation multiples have followed a similar pattern, settling between 8x and 15x EV/EBITDA in 2025, down from the 2021–2022 peak but still well above 2019's 6x to 10x range.

What's notable about 2025 specifically is the divergence between deal volume and buyer participation. While overall transaction count remained flat, the number of active acquirors completing 5-or-more-site transactions jumped to 13 in 2025, up from just 5 the year before. That signals a deeper, more competitive buyer pool for scaled platforms, even as total deal activity holds steady.

This isn't a slowdown so much as a maturing market. Premium assets, those washing 125,000-plus cars annually with strong memberships and 50-percent-plus margins, continue to command premium multiples and strong buyer demand. Lower-quality or underperforming assets, meanwhile, have seen a sharper decline in both valuation and buyer interest, a divide Car Wash Advisory refers to as a "K-curve" that it expects to continue into 2026.

Keeping track of all these transactions and buyers has become a genuinely difficult task. Understanding which chain, backed by which private equity sponsor, bought which group of washes, and when, has remained scattered and hard to piece together.

Why Car Wash Advisory Built an M&A Data Repository

No industry benefits from opaqueness or a lack of information sharing. When key data is kept in the dark, people are left to assume the worst, and the game of broken telephone that results can spread misinformation and erode trust.

The car wash industry has seen several companies go from small, independent operations to major players, and one of the most valuable things those companies have done along the way is increase transparency across the industry. Sonny's, on the equipment side, is a good example. Through YouTube content and formal educational programs, Sonny's has made information like the cost to build a wash more accessible than it's ever been.

The transaction side of the industry hasn't had the same treatment. Understanding which chain, backed by which private equity sponsor, acquired which group of washes, and when, has remained scattered and difficult to piece together.

That's the gap the Car Wash M&A Repository is built to close. Car Wash Advisory built the repository as the industry's first true source of historical M&A data, and continues to update and expand it. As CEO Harry Caruso put it, “The goal is for the repository to become an industry resource and mainstay for decades to come”.

How to Use the Car Wash M&A Repository

The repository supports a range of applications, including:

• Spotting geographic shifts in consolidator activity, such as whether Florida and the Southeast are seeing a disproportionate share of deal flow, by comparing transaction and site count volumes by region.
• Gauging where the industry sits in its consolidation cycle, often referred to as "what inning are we in?" This can be approached by comparing average site count per transaction against overall transaction volume, and projecting when the car wash industry might reach the consolidation levels seen in more mature sectors like self-storage or auto collision centers.
• Tracking what share of industry M&A activity, by site count, is being driven by the largest players each year. According to Car Wash Advisory's 2025 M&A Report, the top 25 car wash companies now account for 70 percent of total sites among the largest 50 operators, and the largest companies are predominantly private equity-backed.

Why This Car Wash M&A Data Matters

The level of visibility this repository provides can be startling at first. It's worth putting in context, though: none of this data is new. It was always publicly available, just scattered across dozens of disconnected sources, buyer press releases, state filings, industry rumors, that made it nearly impossible to piece together. Anyone with enough time and resources could have compiled the same picture on their own.

What's changed is access. Instead of chasing down fragments from a dozen places, the industry now has one continuously updated source that's easy to search and analyze. The information hasn't changed. What's changed is that everyone in the car wash community can now work from the same set of facts.

That's the real goal here: shedding light on a part of the industry that's stayed opaque for too long. A handful of companies have consistently pushed this industry forward by making it more transparent, and Car Wash Advisory intends to be one of them, starting with M&A data.

Ready to Explore the Data?

View the latest Car Wash M&A Report to explore transaction and acquisition trends across the industry for yourself.

See something we're missing? Contact us online directly and let us know; community input helps keep this dataset accurate.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Car Wash M&A Repository?
The Car Wash M&A Repository is a database from Car Wash Advisory that tracks historical M&A activity in the car wash industry. It's built to be the industry's first true repository of transaction data, showing which companies, backed by which private equity sponsors, have acquired which car wash groups, and when.

Why did Car Wash Advisory build this database?
Transaction-side data on car wash M&A has historically been scattered across disconnected sources, buyer press releases, state filings, industry chatter, making it hard to piece together. Car Wash Advisory built the repository to consolidate that information in one place, with the goal of becoming the industry's standard reference for transaction data.

What can the Car Wash M&A Repository be used for?
The dataset can be used to spot regional trends in deal activity, such as whether the Southeast is seeing disproportionate deal flow, and to help answer questions about where the industry sits in its consolidation cycle. It can also be used to track what share of M&A activity is concentrated among the largest players. According to Car Wash Advisory's 2025 M&A Report, the top 25 car wash companies now account for 70 percent of total sites among the largest 50 operators.

Is the data in the repository publicly available?
Yes. Everything in the repository is information that was already publicly available, just scattered across numerous disconnected sources. The repository consolidates that information into one continuously updated, searchable dataset.