Spiffy acquires YLL, expands fleet offering to 20 markets

Get Spiffy, Inc. has purchased competitor Your Location Lubrication, a move that, along with Spiffy’s organic expansion, broadens its Fleet Management as a Service offering to 20 markets.

With the purchase, Spiffy — which offers on-demand car care and FMaaS services — adds the high-volume oil change system, technicians and fleet of YLL

The acquisition of YLL, which is about the same size as Spiffy, essentially doubles the company's size, says Spiffy chief executive officer Scot Wingo.

This purchase follows Spiffy’s July acquisition of ongoing Dallas operations from NuWash. That acquisition gave Spiffy the ability to provide on-demand car washing, detailing, oil change and other automotive maintenance for the more than 200 office park and multi-unit residences previously serviced by NuWash.

As for the YLL purchase announced Friday, Wingo said in a news release, “Preventative maintenance is the top priority for our fleet clients, especially oil change and tire rotation. By combining our technology and expertise with YLL’s, we will be able to provide those services even more efficiently, which translates directly into dollars for our clients.

“We are also really excited to add the YLL high-volume oil change offering into the Spiffy FMaaS solution,” Wingo said.

In addition to now offering its fleet services in 20 markets, the purchase expands Spiffy’s count of professional, W2 technicians to more than 300. It also means Spiffy now has more than 200 vans with the necessary technology to provide various in-fleet, preventative maintenance services to any size of fleet along with de-fleeting services.

The combined entity would now be providing 1,500 daily services and 45,000 monthly services, as well as 40,000-plus monthly preventative maintenance services for fleets.

YLL CEO Zachary Zeller founded the company in 2009 in Orlando, Fla. Since then, YLL has made the Inc. 5000 list five times and had 190% three-year growth.  Zeller will remain with the combined company as Spiffy’s senior vice president of fleet business development.

 “Today’s Fleet Managers are seeking innovative preventative maintenance solutions to reduce vehicle turnaround and increase utilization,” Zeller said in a news release. “Providing that type of service requires multifunctional capabilities and a digital backbone.

“Spiffy Fleet Management as a Service delivers that and I’m thrilled to add our advanced on-site oil change solution to the mix. Joining forces will help our customers optimize fleet utilization and drive ROI,” he said.

Spiffy launched its Fleet Management-as-a-Service offering in June to help fleet managers maintain their units across the entire vehicle lifecycle.

Propelled by a fund raising of more than $10 million, Spiffy said at the time that it was expanding into six new markets with FMaaS and also rolling out FMaaS in existing Spiffy markets of Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Los Angeles and Raleigh, N.C.

Those new FMaaS markets included Denver, New York, Phoenix, Seattle, Tampa, Fla., and Washington, D.C.

“Fleet Management-as-a-Service broadens Spiffy’s goal of zero-friction car care to include national fleets,” Wingo said in a news release at that time.

“Offering full-lifecycle maintenance management gives fleet managers a one-vendor solution and, with features that are EV/AV and connected-car friendly, we have designed it to be future-proof,” Wingo continued.

Wingo explained that FMaaS can allow rental car fleets, automotive auctions, midsize fleets and car-sharing services to manage their vehicle in-fleeting, preventative maintenance and de-fleeting with the seamless marriage of digital-enabled fleet services. Fleet managers can utilize a fleet-friendly Spiffy app to schedule, track, rate and pay for vehicle services including pre-delivery inspections, reconditioning (wash/detail), preventative maintenance (oil change, tire rotation) and de-fleeting (de-fueling, label removal), along with a comprehensive set of other services.

Auto Remarketing connected with Wingo in June inquiring about what happens if a Spiffy technician spots a vehicle issue that might need more servicing. Perhaps the vehicle has something mechanically wrong or could use some moderate body work.

Because “we are a tech/digital heavy company,” Wingo replied with the process for those instances since, “for every fleet location we visit, we know the decision makers at that location.”

If the technician is working and sees a service need, Wingo noted they enter it into their technician app. The technician app sends a service upgrade approval request to the decision makers, including pictures, details and pricing. Wingo noted that the fleet service managers then can either approve or disapprove the suggested upgrade. 

Wingo emphasized what he believes are the “great” components about this process being digital.

“It’s fast and easy and very much like a consumer experience. Nobody said B2B experiences have to stink compared to consumer experiences,” Wingo said.

“It creates a digital paper trail,” he continued. “If someone says, ‘Hey, why did we pay X to get service Y?’ We can say, ‘Manager X authorized this at 4 p.m. on Thursday, June 23, and here’s the pictures of before and after.’”

It has been a busy year for Spiffy. 

In the spring, Spiffy was among several on-demand car wash service providers to partner with Ford as part of a connected vehicle services program.

The Spiffy-Ford partnership gave owners and lessees of 2017 model-year or newer Ford/Lincoln vehicles the ability to utilize FordPass Connect and Lincoln Connect to unlock/lock their respective vehicles, meaning they wouldn't have to hand off and pickup keys from the Spiffy staff.  

Spiffy also launched the  Vehicle 2.0 podcast this year, which explores four pillars “for the digital future of the automotive industry.” Those are connectivity, electrification, autonomy and ownership.

Wingo was among the speakers at Cherokee Media Group’s Automotive Intelligence Summit in Raleigh this summer,  discussing “The Future of Ownership in a Vehicle 2.0 World.”

Staff writer Nick Zulovich contributed to this report.