BIG O TIRES: how 43 SBA-financed owners actually did

Tire Dealers · 43 units financed with SBA 7(a) loans since 2010 · 21 lenders have funded this brand.

Defaults run at or below comparable brands

1 of 43 seasoned units charged off — 0.1%, against 1.4% for similar brands.

Units financed

SBA 7(a), 2010 onward

Old enough to judge

loans at least 7 years old

Defaulted

charged off within 7 years

Default rate

0.1%

comparable brands 1.4%

Typical loan

$376k

$26k–$1.1M

How this brand compares

share of loan dollars charged off within 7 years

BIG O TIRES

0.1%

Comparable brands, typical

1.4%

NAPA AUTO PARTS

1.4%

LINE-X

2.9%

All SBA 7(a) loans

2.1%

Franchise disclosure documents are not required to tell you how many owners failed. This is computed from the federal record of every SBA loan made to this brand, so it is the outcome, not the pitch.

Source SBA 7(a) FOIA, franchise field Released 2026-06-30 Sample 43 loans at least 7 years old Method dollar-weighted, grouped by year approved

When owners got into trouble

share of failures by year

Year 3

50%

Year 6+

50%

Failures usually cluster once the opening cash is spent and the first rent increase lands. Plan working capital for that window, not for month one.

Who still lends on it

last two fiscal years

No lender funded a unit of this brand in the last two fiscal years on record. That is itself worth knowing — it usually means banks have stepped back, which makes financing harder and pricier.

Fewer active lenders means less competition on your rate, and a harder time if the first bank declines.

Each year's owners, as they aged

cumulative % of loan dollars charged off

Not enough history yet to build a triangle.

Each row is one year's crop of new owners. Read across to watch them age; read down a column to compare different years at the same point in their life. Blank cells are simply too recent to know.

Brands worth comparing against this one

NAPA AUTO PARTS · 1.4%LINE-X · 2.9%

A default rate only means something next to its neighbours. These are the brands yours is being compared against.

Before you sign anything

This page tells you how past owners fared with SBA debt. It does not tell you whether this brand suits you, what the territory looks like, or how the franchisor behaves. Ask for Item 19, talk to at least five current franchisees and two who left, and run your own numbers.

Check whether the numbers work → What the SBA Franchise Directory is →