In this episode of Wash Talk: The Carwash Podcast, host Kyle Alexander catches up with John Olert, CEO of American Car Wash Solutions. Recorded at The Car Wash Show™ in Nashville, the conversation covers what drew Olert to the company, why he saw a gap in the market and how an operator-led perspective is driving a different kind of carwash equipment innovation at American Car Wash Solutions.  
Olert discusses the company's competitive approach — prioritizing stainless steel durability, transparency with customers and service responsiveness over sheer booth size or brand recognition. He also introduces the Product Innovation Council, a formal advisory structure that channels ideas from longtime industry operators into American's next product developments.  
Looking ahead, Olert outlines near-term priorities including digitized parts catalogs, user-friendly manuals and a forthcoming e-commerce store designed to make parts ordering faster and easier for operators. He also flags water reclaim systems and smart motor control technology as the two areas of carwash equipment innovation he sees having the greatest impact across the industry.

In this episode of Wash Talk: The Carwash Podcast, host Kyle Alexander is joined by Phil Marquart, founder of Dencar and operator of United Auto Wash, and Robert Greene, owner of Georgia's Car Wash Express at The Car Wash Show™. The conversation covers unattended carwash membership technology and how it's transforming the self-serve and in-bay automatic segments. Marquart traces the origins of Dencar to a frustration he faced as an operator: No existing payment technology could sell a membership at an unattended in-bay automatic site directly through the kiosk interface. After a failed partnership with an outside vendor, he built the solution himself and has spent the past eight years refining it with operators like Greene.

Greene shares his own journey from building a multi-format mega site in 2008 to spending years unable to extend membership programs beyond his attended express tunnel locations. After discovering Dencar at The Car Wash Show™ in 2022, he began a full rollout that now spans all nine of his coastal Georgia sites. The result: More than 600 new members added in 2026 alone across established locations, with zero on-site staff required to sell or manage them. The episode covers how Dencar's site-level membership model allows customers to bundle self-serve bays, in-bay automatics and vacuum stations into a single program.

The conversation looks ahead to the next phase for both companies: deeper integration with marketing platforms to add drip campaigns and outbound lead generation to what is already a capable unattended carwash membership technology stack.

In this episode of Wash Talk: The Carwash Podcast, host Kyle Alexander talks to Brice Scholz of UniFiX about the company's carwash maintenance platform and how it's helping operators keep tunnels running and members satisfied. Scholz traces UniFiX's roots back to its work as an internal ticketing tool built for a 136-location gym operator in 2019 and explains how those same asset-management principles now serve 27 carwashes across the country.   Scholz discusses how the platform was designed for simplicity on the frontline while remaining robust on the backend. He explains how UniFiX evaluates each ticket for completeness, prompting users for missing details before surfacing recommended troubleshooting steps, parts lists and manufacturer video guides directly to technicians. The conversation also covers predictive maintenance, including how ticket history and preventive-maintenance timing can flag recurring problems.   Looking at unmanned sites, Scholz explains how customers can scan a QR code to submit a service request when an issue arises, with certain triggers — such as a tunnel outage — automatically generating phone, text and email alerts to operators. He closes by outlining UniFiX's plan to deepen its carwash maintenance platform through new partnerships while remaining focused solely on serving the carwash industry rather than expanding into other verticals.

In this episode of Wash Talk: The Carwash Podcast, host Kyle Alexander sits down with Tim Hogue of Modernwash to explore why carwash building design deserves as much attention as chemistry, branding and equipment. Hogue explains that the structure itself is often a customer's first interaction with a business, shaping perceptions of quality before a vehicle ever enters the tunnel.
Hogue breaks down the costliest mistakes operators make before construction even begins, pointing to poor site layouts, tight turning radiuses and rushed planning among design professionals who fail to communicate. He also outlines how future-proofing a site helps operators scale equipment and storage as demand grows over a 10- to 15-year horizon rather than a typical five-year window.
The conversation closes with Hogue's perspective on why some carwash building projects clear city approval faster than others. He credits thorough, code-compliant permit submissions and direct communication with city officials as the keys to avoiding delays. He urges operators, new and experienced alike, to build a strong design team and start preparing early to help their carwash building design stand apart from the competition.

In this episode of Wash Talk: The Carwash Podcast, host Kyle Alexander sits down with Brian Mattingly of WelcomeMat to unpack the fast-moving world of carwash digital marketing. Recorded at The Car Wash Show™, the conversation digs into a counterintuitive reality: Despite the rise of AI-powered search tools like ChatGPT and Claude, Google searches hit an all-time high in Q1 2026. Mattingly explains why that makes showing up in local carwash searches more critical than ever and what signals now determine whether an operator appears in results.  

Mattingly breaks down the 12% cost-per-click increase operators are seeing across Google and Meta, the steepest rise since 2021, and shares how top-performing brands are hedging against it. The episode also explores how WelcomeMat's smart traffic system continuously adapts creative to match audience behavior in real time.  

The conversation closes with a strong case for email as the highest-ROI channel in carwash digital marketing today. Mattingly outlines how operators can build first-party data strategies that combine targeted email campaigns with SMS, using each channel for its ideal purpose — email for relationship building and brand affinity, text for timely, weather-aware reminders.

In this episode of Wash Talk: The Carwash Podcast, host Meagan Kusek sits down with Harry Caruso, founder of Car Wash Advisory, for a candid assessment of where carwash mergers and acquisitions stand heading into the back half of 2026. Recorded live at The Car Wash Show™, the conversation opens with Caruso's frank take on the current deal environment: Transaction counts are on pace to be the lowest in about a decade, not because the industry is less attractive, but because it has matured past the frenzied growth phase of recent years.  
Caruso explains that many of the most active buyers from the last decade are now approaching the end of their investment horizons and pulling back. At the same time, a large share of the best-performing carwashes have already been acquired, and newer sites haven't yet built the track record needed to be acquirable at scale. He notes that for operators with five to 15 sites considering a sale, the message is straightforward: The window is open now and conditions are unlikely to improve over the next two years.  
The episode also covers the significance of Mister Car Wash's return to private ownership. Caruso closes with a reminder that declining transaction volume is not the same as a declining industry and that carwash mergers and acquisitions remain active for operators positioned to move.

In this episode of Wash Talk: The Carwash Podcast, host Meagan Kusek sits down with Tim Hogue, CEO and founder of Modernwash, to examine the business case for prefabricated carwash building construction and the misconceptions that have long followed it. Hogue opens by addressing that prefabricated structures are plain, limited in customization or somehow less permanent than traditional block builds. His counter is simple — Modernwash's bolt-together steel frame system can produce buildings ranging from standard carwash tunnels to two-story towers, equipment room overbuilds and even high-end residential and commercial structures.   The conversation dives into where prefabricated carwash building construction delivers its clearest financial benefit: Speed to open. Hogue walks through how time savings, combined with available tax advantages for pre-engineered structures, changes the financial math on a new build or renovation. He also discusses how Modernwash prepares buildings for future expansion from the start. Hogue closes with a look at current design trends in carwash architecture.

In this episode of Wash Talk: The Carwash Podcast, host Kyle Alexander sits down with Jordan Rowe of RDM to make the case for remanufactured carwash electronics as a cost-effective, reliable alternative to buying new. RDM has served the carwash industry for roughly three decades, building on a broader background in petroleum, medical and laundry equipment repair. Rowe explains what sets RDM apart: Technicians who specialize exclusively in carwash electronics and see the same boards and components every day. The conversation covers RDM's TCS2 product line, which supports DRB's Tunnel Watch system and is tested on a live tunnel simulator in RDM's facility. Rowe notes that remanufactured parts from RDM typically come in at roughly one-third the cost of new, backed by a one-year warranty on all control boards. Rowe also touches on how RDM plans ahead by tracking what equipment operators are buying today, anticipating where remanufactured carwash electronics will be needed as those systems age out of warranty.

In this episode of Wash Talk: The Carwash Podcast, host Meagan Kusek sits down with Kendra Johnson, chief experience officer for the International Carwash Association, for a conversation from the floor of The Car Wash Show™ in Nashville. Johnson shares early attendance numbers from the 2026 show, the buzz surrounding a sold-out main floor and a fully booked second level — the first time in show history that exhibition space has spanned two floors of the Music City Center.   Johnson reflects on where energy is highest at The Car Wash Show, pointing to the new company pavilion, which hosted more than 100 first-time exhibitors, and expanded maintenance and equipment education tracks that drew standing-room-only crowds. She also discusses the growing demand for pre-show carwash tours and the preview party, designed to give operators early access to new technologies and emerging vendor partners before the main floor opens.   The conversation turns to the broader state of the industry, with Johnson noting that while the frenetic growth of recent years has stabilized, deal activity remains steady and operators across the board are prioritizing people, processes and wash experience. She closes with a look ahead to The Car Wash Show™ 2027, set for May 3–5 in Las Vegas, and encourages operators who missed Nashville to stay connected through industry media and publications.

In this episode of Wash Talk: The Carwash Podcast, Jeff Pavone from Amplify Capital Group joins host Kyle Alexander to break down the forces shaping today's deal environment — and why the second half of the year is poised for a significant rebound.   Pavone explains that the slowdown stems less from a lack of buyer interest and more from the pressures upstream. Constraints in private credit markets — driven largely by volatility in software and AI sectors — have slowed the flow of capital to private equity, which in turn has extended timelines for carwash deals. Add geopolitical uncertainty to the mix, and the result is a more cautious, question-heavy underwriting process.   Despite the slower pace, carwash key performance indicators are holding up. Pavone notes that year-over-year sales and membership growth remain positive across the country, with some softening on the retail side attributed to weather variability and pricing shifts at the entry level.   Looking ahead, Pavone expects a strong close to 2026, with Amplify alone tracking roughly $500 million in transactions expected to close by mid-year. He also points to a meaningful shift in deal dynamics: For the first time, buyer and seller price expectations are coming into alignment, a development he views as a key signal for sustained activity in carwash mergers and acquisitions. He also weighs in on Mister Car Wash's transition back to private ownership and what that means for the broader market. The episode closes with Pavone's boldest prediction yet — that within three years, the industry will see its first carwash chain reach 1,000 or more locations.