50 Valvoline Stores: What Independents Do Next

Originally aired 2026-10-28 on the Mobile Oil Change Industry podcast.

Velocity Auto Care just hit 50 Valvoline centers in Texas — Tyreese lays out the five-move playbook for independents facing a franchise cluster.

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Key Takeaway 1

Look, I want to talk about something that should scare you a little, and then I want to show you why it should not scare you that much. Yesterday, Tuesday, October twenty-seventh, twenty twenty-six, National Oil and Lube News reported that Velocity Auto Care just hit fifty Valvoline Instant Oil Change service centers in Texas. Fifty stores. One company, one state, one brand on the sign, and eighteen more centers already in development, all expected to open by the end of twenty twenty-seven.

Key Takeaway 2

Now here is the part that matters. Velocity did not build fifty stores one at a time from scratch. Back in December of twenty twenty-four, they bought thirty-eight Valvoline locations from Valvoline itself, with the backing of a private equity firm called Franchise Equity Partners. And that deal came with a development agreement to open seventy-five more service centers over seven years. Their newest store, in Edinburg, Texas, is the twelfth they have opened since that acquisition. Their chief executive says they are on track to add an average of nine to twelve new locations every year. The next eighteen months of expansion are aimed at Austin, El Paso, Midland-Odessa, the Rio Grande Valley, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Las Cruces, New Mexico, and other high-growth markets across Central, ...

Key Takeaway 3

So let me frame this from the truck, because that is where I live. When a company like that moves into your market, it does not show up as one competitor. It shows up as a cluster. Six stores in the Rio Grande Valley alone, and remember, they opened the first Valvoline location ever in that valley just last year. A cluster means they can run one ad campaign across a whole region. It means they can hire in bulk, train in bulk, and move a technician from a slow store to a busy store. It means when a customer drives past three of their signs on the way to work, the brand starts to feel like the default choice. That is what scale buys. Do not pretend it buys nothing. Scale buys visibility, it buys a labor pipeline, and it buys staying power through a slow month that would put a single shop on ...

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Tyreese Burton is the owner-operator of MOMS Mobile Oil Change in the Philadelphia area and host of the Mobile Oil Change Industry daily podcast. He covers the business of mobile automotive service — pricing, operations, fleet contracts, and industry shifts — from the driver's seat.

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50 Valvoline Stores: What Independents Do Next