Midas

General Automotive Repair

How franchisees’ loans performed

Every SBA-guaranteed loan to a Midas franchisee approved between 2010–2026. This is the only public record of what happened to people who actually bought this franchise — the disclosure document does not report it.

Rates below count only finished loans — ones that have been repaid in full or written off. A loan still being repaid has not succeeded yet, and counting it as though it had would make every brand look better than it is.

8 of 92 finished loans were charged off

8.7% of finished loans charged off

Loans on record
186
Finished — repaid or written off
92
Outcome withheld by SBA
66 — 35% of all loans
Median loan approved
$283,650

How that splits by when the loan was approved

Charge-off rate by SBA approval vintage
ApprovedLoansFinishedStill runningOutcome withheldCharged offRate
Before 2015624611548.7%
2015-20195734815411.8%
2020 onwards671294600.0%

Read the newest row with care. A franchise that fails does so in its first two or three years, while one that succeeds takes the full term to repay — so recent vintages are weighted towards failures and toward loans that have not finished. That cuts both ways: it can overstate the risk of a brand that has simply been lending recently, and it can be the first sign of a system getting worse. The last two columns are there so you can see which: a loan still being repaid may yet go either way, while one whose outcome the SBA withholds will never tell us.

By dollar rather than by loan: SBA wrote off $3,074,897 of the $39,268,000 it lent on finished loans — 7.8%, against 8.7% by count. The two differ because failures are not the same size as successes, and because a default late in the term recovers most of the loan. Neither is the truer figure; they answer different questions.

Source: U.S. Small Business Administration 7(a) FOIA disclosure data. A loan is counted only once it has been repaid in full or charged off — loans still running are neither a success nor a failure, and counting them as repaid would flatter every brand here. Loans whose status SBA withheld are excluded from the figures above and shown separately. The median is the loan approved, not the cost of opening — most projects are financed with additional capital.

What the loan record cannot tell you about Midas

Above is who borrowed to buy in and who never paid it back — a public record, free here and always. What it cannot say is what the franchisor claims those outlets earn, or what it costs to run one.

One brand of your choosing opens free with an account, for a year. From $49 for more, up to $199 for every brand we have read. Nothing renews itself.

Takes an email and a password. You land back here and choose which brand to open — it stays open for a year. Or see what more costs.Already have an account?

What that opens

  • The revenue bands Item 19 reports separately, and how many outlets sit in each
  • Every ongoing fee in Item 6 priced in dollars a year, not just the royalty
  • How many franchisees left that year, which a headline outlet count hides
  • How long the agreement binds you, and on what terms it renews
  • Whether the franchisor earns from the suppliers it requires you to use
  • A five-year model you drive with your own rent, wages, borrowing and ramp

The loan record stays free — how many of this brand’s franchisees borrowed from a bank to buy in, and how many never paid it back. That is a public government record and we do not charge for it. What you pay for is only what we read out of the franchisor’s own disclosure document.

FDD data sourced from public state filings. We are not a franchise broker; we do not receive payment from franchisors and do not sell your information. Figures are read from the filing by a machine and link to the page they came from — check any of them against the source. Read the current disclosure document, and take advice from a franchise attorney, before you sign anything.