Our Founder, Jeff Pavone of Amplify Capital Group, recently sat down with Kyle Alexander on Wash Talk — the car wash industry’s leading podcast — to share his ground-level read on the state of car wash mergers and acquisitions heading through 2026. Jeff has been advising, brokering, and closing deals in this industry long enough to know the difference between a slow market and a dead one — and his message was clear: the deals aren’t gone, they just got stretched.
From the show floor in Nashville to the pipeline at Amplify, Jeff gave Kyle a candid look at what’s driving deal velocity, what’s holding it back, and where he sees this industry going over the next three years. If you’re an operator, an investor, or simply someone trying to make sense of where car wash consolidation stands right now, this episode is worth your full attention.
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Setting the scene: Nashville and the CarWash Show
Jeff and Kyle opened the conversation fresh off the CarWash Show floor in Nashville, and Jeff’s read on the event was telling — not just for attendance numbers, but for the quality of conversations happening.
“The overall consensus on the show floor was, I would say, less busy than years past. I didn’t feel the quantity of people, but the quality of people — people were very, very serious.”
Jeff noted that Amplify had fewer meetings than at prior shows, but that the ones they did have were among the most substantive in recent memory. Operators came prepared. They weren’t browsing — they were looking at specific technologies, asking pointed questions, and engaging with a level of focus that signals a maturing industry.
“Generally speaking, it was a very positive vibe. It felt a little more upbeat than over the last couple of years. The last couple of years, we didn’t know where the space was going.”
That shift in tone matters. When the people running and investing in car washes show up to the industry’s biggest gathering focused and optimistic, it reflects something real happening beneath the surface — even if the headline deal numbers haven’t caught up yet.
What Jeff shared on the episode
The slow start to 2026 isn’t what it looks like
The first half of 2026 has been notably quiet on the M&A front, and it’s tempting to read that as a sign of trouble. Jeff pushed back on that narrative directly.
At the end of 2025, Amplify had predicted approximately a billion dollars in transactions closing over a six-month window spanning Q4 2025 and into early 2026. Q4 delivered — several large deals closed right on schedule. But the momentum that was expected to carry into the first half of this year stalled. Not because deals fell apart, but because they got complicated.
“These aren’t deals that have died. They got stretched out. There’s a lot of big deals that will start closing here in the very, very near future.”
The distinction matters. A dead deal is a lost opportunity. A stretched deal is a deal in process — one with more friction, more questions, and more time required, but still a deal. Jeff was emphatic that the pipeline heading into mid-2026 is substantial, and that the quietness of the first half is about timing, not appetite.
Why deals are taking longer: the private credit problem
To understand why deals got stretched, you have to understand how they’re funded. Most large car wash transactions are backed by private equity, and private equity runs on private credit. When the credit markets tighten, even deals with strong fundamentals slow down.
“The first issue started with private credit. Private credit is the blood that feeds private equity. And it wasn’t necessarily tied to car washing — a lot of it had to do with software companies and AI and other reasons happening in the private credit markets.”
In other words, the headwinds hitting car wash M&A weren’t born in car wash. They came from instability in other sectors — tech, AI, software — that rippled through the lending market and made private credit providers more cautious across the board. When those lenders start asking more questions, the private equity firms they back have to answer them before deploying capital. That process takes time.
“Private equity is answering a lot more questions. These aren’t deals that aren’t going to get done — they’re answering a lot more questions, a lot more diligence being done. Things are just taking a bit longer.”
The geopolitical environment compounded the issue. With the conflict in Iran creating macro uncertainty, Wall Street — which ultimately underwrites many of these larger transactions — became more hesitant about risk. Jeff explained that buyers going to capital markets to fund large deals hit a wall of caution that had nothing to do with the car wash business itself.
“When a buyer is trying to underwrite a deal, they’re going to Wall Street. Well, Wall Street doesn’t like risk. And they’re looking and saying, how do we underwrite something with this war going on?”
The result: not canceled deals, but delayed ones. The questions needed to be asked, answered, and digested before capital would move.
A flood of large deals is coming
With the context set, Jeff’s outlook for the second half of 2026 was anything but pessimistic. The pipeline at Amplify alone speaks for itself.
“At just Amplify alone, we probably have $500 million in transactions closing here over the next — between now and the end of June.”
That figure is significant on its own. But Jeff also pointed to a broader wave of announcements he expected from large platforms securing new credit facilities to fuel continued growth. The major sponsors — the well-capitalized private equity groups that have been building car wash platforms for the past several years — are not sitting still.
“We’re talking to a lot of the large sponsors that are out there and they’re not sitting back. They’re really moving forward and trying to get stuff closed and grow.”
He also put the current moment in historical context. For much of the past two years, $100 million-plus deals were essentially absent from the car wash M&A landscape. Amplify closed two in Q4 2025 — more than had closed in the prior 24 months combined. That’s not a coincidence. It’s a signal that the market is ready to transact at scale again.
“Getting deals that are $100 and $200 million dollars closed — we’re definitely entering into a space and into a time where the space is coming back.”
He added one important caveat: all of this is predicated on a relatively stable global environment. If macro conditions deteriorate further, all bets are off — not just for car wash, but for M&A broadly. But assuming the world holds, Jeff expects 2026 to be a big year.
Buyers and sellers are finally aligned
One of the more nuanced insights Jeff shared was about something that’s been missing for years in this market: genuine alignment between what sellers want and what buyers can actually make work.
During the peak frenzy of 2021 and 2022, buyers were paying premiums that didn’t always reflect the underlying business fundamentals. Sellers got used to those numbers. When the market corrected, expectations on both sides diverged — sellers were still anchoring to peak valuations, while buyers had to price deals for a more disciplined return environment. That gap killed a lot of potential transactions.
“For the first time, we’re seeing a real alignment between buyers and sellers — what a seller is willing to sell for and what a deal can make sense for a buyer. We’re seeing this come together.”
Jeff framed this convergence as one of the most important catalysts for the deal activity he expects in the back half of the year. When the bid-ask spread closes, deals close. And right now, the spread is the tightest it’s been in years.
The macro matters all the way down to the consumer
Car wash M&A doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Every deal that gets underwritten ultimately rests on a bet about the end consumer — the person paying for a membership or pulling up for a retail wash. Jeff walked through exactly how macro forces filter down to that individual transaction.
Gas prices, inflation, interest rates, geopolitical uncertainty — all of it affects consumer spending behavior, and that behavior is what private credit and private equity are ultimately underwriting. When you’re lending $100 million or $200 million against a car wash platform, you need to believe that the members will keep paying, that retail volume will hold, and that the consumer won’t pull back.
“When you look at somebody who’s underwriting a bigger deal — with call it 100,000 members — there’s a reason to take a bit of caution about what’s going on. That certainly plays a major factor in how these deals are getting done.”
Interest rates added another layer. The expectation heading into 2026 was that rates would come down, reducing the cost of debt and making deal math easier. That hasn’t happened as quickly as the market hoped, and the prospect of inflation moving in the wrong direction keeps that uncertainty alive.
“When you got inflation moving in the wrong direction, you got interest rates that we were expecting to come down — may not come down. That’s a big cost in getting these deals done.”
The buyers who rushed into car wash during the boom years have also matured significantly in their understanding of the business. The early days were characterized by a “get big fast” mentality — acquire as much as possible and figure out operations later. That era is over. Today’s buyers have done the hard work of understanding how to run these businesses, and they’re bringing that operational knowledge into their diligence process.
Diligence has gotten sharper — and that’s a good thing
One of the clearest signs of a maturing market is the sophistication of the questions being asked. Jeff contrasted the diligence process of two or three years ago with what buyers are doing today, and the difference is striking.
“Before, it was kind of simple questions — sort of, how many members you have? What is your average membership? Today, they’re diving in really deep into the data, trying to understand the trends.”
The questions now go well beyond headline membership counts. Buyers want to understand what happened to churn when an operator raised prices. They want to see capture rate trends over time. They’re asking about labor hours per car wash, cost of chemicals, and how the business performed in bad weather markets. They want to know whether the membership base is sticky or whether it’s been inflated by promotional pricing that won’t hold.
“What happens when you did a price increase? What did that cause? What is your churn? What is your capture rate? There’s a lot more data points that are out there — a lot smarter buyers.”
For operators thinking about selling, this is the new reality of getting a deal done. The days of closing a transaction on high-level metrics are over. Buyers are building real models with real data, and operators who have been tracking their KPIs carefully will be rewarded for it in the process.
KPIs are holding up — with one soft spot
Despite all the macro uncertainty, the underlying performance of car wash businesses has remained resilient. Jeff tracks data across a broad set of car washes around the country, and the picture he described was largely positive.
Year-over-year sales are growing. Membership is still expanding. The business model has proven itself through a period of significant economic turbulence, and that performance is a key reason why capital is still interested in the space.
“The reason you’re seeing car wash M&A now — you’ll start seeing some of these large deals getting done because it’s proven to be a good business. We’re seeing sales year over year on car washes grow. We’re seeing membership still growing out there.”
The one area of softness Jeff flagged was on the retail side — customers who aren’t members and pay per visit. A combination of factors is creating headwinds there: weather variability across different markets, economic pressure on discretionary spending, and most notably, pricing.
“Back — that wasn’t long ago — when you can get a car wash for five bucks. Now you’ve got a car wash, bottom wash at $10, $11, $12. The higher that number goes up, I think at some point there’s a tradeoff of losing some retail customers.”
The good news is that operators are aware of it. Jeff pointed to a new generation of smarter operators who are paying close attention to their KPIs — not just tracking them, but using them to make real business decisions.
“We’re finding a smarter operator out there. They’re paying attention to whether it’s the cost of chemicals, labor, labor hours per car wash. The good news is that I think we’ve got operators that are paying attention.”
The bold prediction: a 1,000-location chain within three years
Jeff saved his biggest call for last — and it’s one he said he wouldn’t have made even a year ago.
The car wash industry has never had a truly national brand at scale. The largest operators have built impressive regional and multi-regional platforms, but nothing approaching what a McDonald’s or a Jiffy Lube looks like in their respective categories. Jeff thinks that’s about to change.
“If I’m a betting guy, I’d say within three years, you’ll see a car wash chain of a thousand or more.”
He pointed to a small number of groups that are executing at a high level across every part of the business — development, operations, customer experience, and capital strategy. These aren’t operators who got big by cutting corners or riding the wave. They’re doing it right, and the results are showing.
“I’m believing it today that you could see a national brand take hold here — a thousand or more locations with significant growth ahead of it. I think that’s out there.”
It’s a bold call. But coming from someone who has been at the center of car wash M&A for years and has visibility into the pipelines of the industry’s largest platforms, it’s worth taking seriously.
Why this matters for operators
The industry is entering a new phase. The frothy, move-fast era of 2021 and 2022 is behind us. What’s replacing it is more disciplined, better capitalized, and — arguably — more durable. Buyers are smarter. Sellers are more realistic. And the businesses that have survived the reset and kept their KPIs strong are well-positioned for what comes next.
Whether you’re thinking about selling in the next 12 months, growing through acquisition, or simply running your business with an eye on what a future buyer will want to see — Jeff’s conversation with Kyle on this episode gives you a real picture of the market you’re operating in.
Know your churn. Know your capture rate. Know what happened to your membership when you raised prices. Those are the questions that will determine how your next deal gets done.
Want the full data behind the conversation?
Jeff’s insights in this episode go even deeper in his written analysis over at Car Wash Magazine. For the full deal context, trend data, and 2026 outlook, check out the original article:
Car Wash M&A Trends: Jeff Pavone’s 2026 Outlook →
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