For decades the auto repair business was almost entirely local. One owner, one or two bays, a name on the building. That is still most of the market. But over the last few years, larger groups have been buying up locations at a pace the industry has not seen before, and the Southeast is one of the places it is happening fastest.
If you own a shop and you are thinking about a sale, this matters. Not because consolidation is good or bad, but because it changes who is at the table when you decide to sell. Here is what the public record shows, and how to read it.
What the public record shows
These are figures the companies themselves have disclosed or that have been reported in industry coverage. Read them as the shape of the market, not a scoreboard.
- Main Street Auto has grown to roughly 100 locations and is headquartered in Atlanta. In 2025 it raised $60M in growth financing from Turning Rock Partners to keep expanding.
- Sun Auto Tire & Service operates 525+ locations across its markets.
- Mavis completed its acquisition of Midas, bringing its combined footprint past 3,500 locations.
- Driven Brands, the parent of several repair and service banners, reports roughly 5,200 locations.
Put together, the picture is clear. Groups that did not exist at this scale a decade ago now run hundreds or thousands of locations, and several of them are active in the Southeast.
What it means for an owner
The instinct is to read those numbers as pressure: the big players are coming, so sell now or get squeezed. That is the wrong takeaway. The right one is calmer and more useful.
More buyers in the market means more people who might want your shop. A well-run independent shop with clean books and a stable crew is exactly what these groups are looking for. That is leverage for a seller, not a threat. The owner who is prepared has more options, not fewer.
It also means more discipline. As more locations change hands, buyers get better at reading the numbers and pricing risk. Auto repair business values fell about 16% in 2025 versus the year before, and buyer discipline went up with it. A buyer in this market is not going to overlook messy books or a shop that cannot run without its owner. The premium goes to the owner who did the work to be ready.
Fast consolidator or deliberate partner
Not every buyer is the same, and the difference matters more than the headline location count.
Some groups are built for speed. They acquire quickly, standardize hard, and run a location the way the group runs every location. For some owners, especially those who want a clean exit and are done, that is a fine outcome.
Other buyers move more deliberately. They care about the crew staying, the name and reputation holding, and the shop continuing to serve the community that built it. That kind of partner takes more time at the table and asks different questions. For an owner who cares what happens to the people and the customers after the sale, the difference is the whole point.
Neither is automatically better. But knowing which kind of buyer is across the table, and what they actually want, is part of being prepared. The owner who understands the map decides on his own terms instead of reacting to a number on a page.
The shops are still local. The buyers are not anymore. Read the map, get your house in order, and you choose the deal instead of letting the deal choose you.