Why car wash owners keep dodging succession planning, and what to do about it

Most car wash owners have not seriously mapped out what happens when they step away, whether by choice or by circumstance. That gap between good intentions and actual preparation is where otherwise healthy businesses fall apart, according to reporting from Professional Carwashing & Detailing by CarwashOS partners Michael Griggs and Matt Brunk.

The stakes are steep. The authors point to a widely cited statistic that 70% of family businesses fail to transition successfully from the first generation to the second. In an industry where operators sink years of capital, relationships, and labor into their sites, that failure rate is largely avoidable with planning that starts long before a transition feels urgent.

The plan depends on your structure

Succession looks different depending on the size and shape of the operation. A lean owner-operator running an express tunnel is often the entire leadership team at once: general manager, maintenance lead, customer relationship holder, and keeper of institutional knowledge. For that owner, the real question is not which role needs a backup but what happens to the business if the owner is gone tomorrow.

A larger single-site with a full management structure has a bench to develop, but also more roles that can leave critical gaps. The article identifies the site manager and the assistant site manager, who often doubles as the maintenance lead, as top succession priorities at that scale.

Multi-site operators face compounded risk. A single site manager vacancy is manageable, but a district manager departure that leaves three or four locations without experienced oversight is a far bigger problem. The authors advise mapping every load-bearing role, documenting what each one requires to run well, and flagging any position where there is zero redundancy. Those gaps become the planning priorities.

Develop successors before you need them

The biggest mistake, the authors write, is waiting too long to identify candidates. Real leadership development takes years, not weeks, so by the time a retirement, health issue, or resignation forces the question, it is already too late to build someone from scratch.

Griggs and Brunk share a cautionary story: a mentor from their mastermind group mentioned succession planning almost offhandedly, then died in an accident less than a year later. His business survived and continued thriving because he had put the right people in place ahead of time.

For established single-site teams, the article lays out a structured path: identify employees or family members who show genuine leadership interest and work ethic, evaluate their actual readiness honestly rather than just their potential, build customized development plans with clear milestones and mentoring, and transfer knowledge systematically through documentation, job shadowing, and gradually expanded authority rather than a sudden handoff. For multi-site operators, that development has to be institutionalized across the organization.

Why it matters for operators

Succession planning is a continuity issue, not just a retirement issue. Any operator can lose a key person without warning, and the sites most exposed are often the smallest, where one person holds every critical function. The practical first step costs nothing: inventory the roles that keep the lights on, write down what each requires, and identify where you have no backup. From there, start developing candidates now, on a multi-year timeline, so a departure becomes a managed transition rather than a crisis. Documentation, mentoring, and gradually shared authority protect member retention, throughput, and equipment reliability when the inevitable turnover arrives.