Anyone who has endured a northeast Ohio winter with road salt and grime caked to their vehicle knows …

Anyone who has ever gone through a northeast Ohio summer with their vehicle coated in dust, pollen and insects knows …

Anyone who has ever taken their children on a road trip and has witnessed the havoc they can wreak to a vehicle’s interior knows …

Is having their vehicle professionally cleaned — inside and out, top to bottom and in all the nooks and crannies — is a feeling of content that straddles delight.

And, here in the Mahoning Valley, there’s no shortage of wash locations, especially now given the rapid growth of the car wash industry in the region led by two companies — one, an established name in car care and the other, one that entered the Ohio and Mahoning Valley markets about two years ago, but has marked its presence with sites all over.

Niles-based Coates Car Care, founded in 1959 in the McKinley Heights neighborhood of the city, recently opened a new multimillion-dollar, state-of-the-art flex-serve car wash on South Avenue in Boardman in Mahoning County, marking the family company’s sixth location in the Valley.

ModWash, headquartered in Chattanooga, Tenn., meanwhile, is on the cusp of opening its seventh Valley location, also in Boardman. The high-tech facility joins other express washes in Howland, Warren, Liberty, Austintown, Salem and another in Boardman.

The company has 20 facilities either open or under construction across Ohio, including others in Akron, Ashtabula, Canton and Kent, with another one coming soon in Alliance.

DECADES OF FAMILY SERVICE

The Coates family will mark 65 years in the car wash industry in 2024. James Coates Sr. opened the flagship center in McKinley Heights that also features a detail shop and oil change department.

His son, Jim, now owns the company along with his two sons, James, chief operating officer, and Jake, vice president of operations. Jim Coates’ sister, Angela Stabile, is office manager.

The company opened its Austintown location in 1999; grew into Howland in 2001; and further expanded across the Pennsylvania border into Hermitage in 2003. The Cortland location opened in 2018, and the Boardman wash in August 2023.

“Now that we have this one under our belts, we definitely want to continue to expand,” James Coates said. That is our goal … the more locations you have, the more accessible it is for our customers (and) our members are able to access their benefits in more areas.”

The McKinley Heights and Boardman locations are flex-serve centers; the others are express washes.

Flex serve combines the express and full-service models, “which essentially means the customer has the flexibility to either just get the outside cleaned and leave, get the outside cleaned and go to the free vacuums or get their outside cleaned and pull in for us to get their inside,” James Coates said.

In Boardman, the company invested about $6 million to build and equip the 10,000-square-foot wash that features three service lanes that funnel into the wash tunnel, 22 free customer vacuums and four service bays that can accommodate up to eight vehicles for interior cleaning.

A customer lobby also features lush couches, a large-screen TV and free coffee from Boardman-based Branch Street Coffee.

Why Boardman? The simple answer is need.

“Not a lot of people do this anymore, it’s pretty rare to find, at least around here. We felt there was a need. We wanted to bring that service out to this county, out to Boardman, so our customers, our Wash Club members, wherever they are at, they have the ability to get the outside and the inside clean,” James Coates said.

The Boardman facility is the only one with license plate readers that allow Wash Club members to pass through more easily. The technology, Coates said, also could make its way to the other five Coates’ locations.

“We are truly unlimited,” James Coates said. “Theoretically, a customer can come in and wash their car multiple times in one day if they really wanted to.”

Also in Boardman, which hired about 45 people to open, the car wash tunnel is blacked out, making for an impressive light show that alerts customers to the different applications as they pass from within inside their vehicles.

“There are all kinds of car washes; there are all kinds of options. What can you do to make that experience that much better than someone else that would make a customer say, ‘I’m going to join to be a member with Coates Car Care?'” James Coates said.

Other amenities include mat machines, microfiber towels and glass cleaner.

NEW KID ON THE BLOCK

ModWash was formed in 2020 by Karen Hutton, founder, CEO and president of Hutton Build, a property development firm in Chattanooga that has developed real estate for the likes of Walmart, Dollar General, Family Dollar, AutoZone, Wendy’s, HomeGoods, Publix and more.

“She got interested, seeing what was out there, the excitement around the car wash and was actually doing some building for different washes and created her own brand,” Harry T. Jenkins IV, ModWash chief operating officer, said.

The company has grown, and fast, to 84 open express-wash locations scattered across 14 states from Ohio, where 20 either are already open or will soon, south to Port Charlotte, Fla.

Jenkins wasn’t with ModWash when it formed, so he said it’s not for him to say why Ohio is attractive, but he has been there for the rapid growth in the Buckeye State, so he can talk expansion.

No. 1, he said, is because of the people in the region. “It’s true Americana,” he said.

“And on the business side of things, snow doesn’t hurt. “We’re in the business of washing cars … at the end of the day folks come to see us because we wash cars. We’re a destination because we wash cars and snow is certainly our season,” Jenkins said.

The company ended July with 7,392 reviews between Google and Yelp with an average rating of 4.92, a figure Jenkins attributes to the culture of the company.

Business in Ohio has been “exceptional,” Jenkins said.

“From Cleveland to all the way through Pittsburgh and our footprint there, that is our best performing area of the country. And we do very well in other parts, but as a pocket, that has been exceptional,” Jenkins said. “The folks have welcomed us with open arms.”

This story previously ran in Valley Business magazine.