Jax Kar Wash, the Birmingham-based company once best known for giving customers free birthday car washes, is in the midst of a three-year expansion that has seen it grow to 42 locations from nine outlets.
The first Jax Kar Wash opened in Detroit, at Six Mile Road and Meyers, in 1956. That location is no longer operating, but the one on Woodward Avenue in Birmingham that started up later in ’56 has since becme a mainstay. Today, the chain has car washes in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Indiana.
“We have a formula, and we believe that our formula leads to the best possible outcome for the vehicle, and we stick to that formula,” says Jon Zimmerman, CEO of Jax Kar Wash. “There’s an art to washing a car, and we stand behind that art.”
That artistic style has come a long way in the nearly 70 years Jax has been washing cars — always, Zimmerman notes, towel-drying the clean vehicles before they head back onto the street.
“In those (early) days, the employees worked in pits washing tires and wheels, and used chains to pull cars through the tunnel,” Zimmerman explains. “Equipment is constantly evolving in our industry, from conveyors to the way the brushes interact with vehicles.
“We’re looking at new technology all the time,” he says. “The amount of technology that’s going into pay stations is amazing. Pay stations didn’t exist 20 years ago.”
The car wash art form, as it exists today at Jax, starts with making sure the self-serve vacuum cleaners are working with maximum suction. After that, it’s about ensuring long lines move quickly.
“We take production very seriously, and we spend a lot of time and knowledge on that,” Zimmerman says. “We know that on crazy-busy days, people aren’t going to wait.”
The first contact with Jax employees comes when customers get to the pay kiosk.
“We want to greet you at the kiosks,” Zimmerman relays. “We want to make sure that we get you in with the (wash) plan that you want and (you) don’t have any hassles with the sales terminal.”
Once the transaction is complete, an employee guides the customer onto the conveyor, helps them shift their vehicle into neutral, and eases any anxiety the customer might have rolling into the car wash.
“Some people have issues putting their cars in neutral,” he says, “and so many people have anxiety about driving into a car wash. They don’t like to go to car washes that aren’t attended because of it.”
Zimmerman says the company is focused on making sure the actual washing of vehicles is as perfect as they can make it.
“We take pride in the chemicals that we put on your vehicle,” he says. “We want to put more than enough soap on to clean your car, more than enough wax on to protect your car, and have the proper amount of water flow to get that off.”
Once the vehicle is through the wash tunnel, Jax staff hand-dries it, then bids the customer farewell.
“We dry cars because we believe it gives you the best experience when you have a car that’s towel-dried,” Zimmerman explains. “Our greeters are there to say hello and our towel-dryers are there to say goodbye.
“When you go through a Jax Kar Wash, you recognize you’re going through a Jax Kar Wash based on the amount of chemicals that are actually hitting your car and the outcome you get when you leave.”
In addition to providing high-quality car washes, the Jax business model includes selling unlimited annual wash plans, which go for $25.99 to $59.99 per month (with optional add-ons) and allow members to wash their cars twice a day.
“We believe the unlimited plan is the most affordable way for people to wash, especially when you look at all of the variability of weather we have in the Midwest,” Zimmerman says. “With an unlimited plan, we take the weather out of the equation.”
Bringing the Jax experience to more locations was the brainchild of Bruce Milen, who took over the business from his father, Jack, in 1978. But the company wasn’t always a family concern.
In 1998, the Milens sold the company to a national chain that, according to Zimmerman, only cared about profits and taking the company public, which never happened. So, in June 2001, Bruce Milen bought back the company for an undisclosed sum.
From there, the Milens entered the Florida market in November of 2008 with the acquisition of Clear Sunset Car Wash, but that location is under different ownership now.
In February 2022, TRP Capital Partners in Birmingham took an ownership stake in Jax Kar Wash to fuel the company’s expansion. TRP Capital’s investment has funded the growth via acquisition.
Jax added five Oasis car washes in Jackson in April 2022, and single locations in Brighton and Howell. It added 11 Super Car Washes in August 2022, and 10 Clean View car washes in October 2024. It also acquired 10 locations in Wisconsin in August 2022 that it’s operating under the Jilly’s Car Wash brand. The Clean View acquisition increased the number of locations in Macomb County from two to 10.
“We felt it was complementary to what we were doing and (it) opened us up to a whole new world,” says Zimmerman, who notes that all of the metro Detroit Jax locations are north of Detroit and says there are no plans to go south.
“Doing what we’re doing is like a puzzle,” he says of the company’s expansion philosophy. “You need to fill in pieces of the puzzle. You look at areas and identify areas where you think your business will thrive and where you feel you can get enough employees to staff that area. It’s got to be an area where competition isn’t crazy high. You don’t want to go into a town where there are four car washes and you’re the fifth.
“Locations, demographics, and traffic patterns are all factors,” Zimmerman says. “We strongly believe in (population) density, and we need to be located where our customers are located, and that’s our goal.”
Once a new Jax is built or acquired, Zimmerman and his team inspect the property to determine what needs to be done to make it a Jax Kar Wash, other than new signs.
“There’s technology involved, a point of sale system, and changing the equipment so it matches the washes that we do,” Zimmerman explains. “We try to use as much of what they have as possible, but sometimes they need to be gutted.”
The goal, he says is a three- to four-month transition to a Jax Kar Wash.
Customer service, including towel-drying, has always been the goal at Jax, even before Jax. Jack Milen opened his first car wash in 1950, called National Car Wash, next to the Detroiter Hotel at Woodward Avenue and Alfred Street in Brush Park. It was open 24 hours a day and the price of a car wash was $1 — a shade over $13 in today’s equivalent. In 2025, a basic Jax Kar Wash is $10.
