Aurora, CO Car Wash Market Analysis
Part of the Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO MSA.
Data updated · June 9, 2026
Quality-outlier car wash market analysis for Aurora: 53 sites, 14,510 reviews, sharp deviation from chain-category norms. Per-operator damage attribution, format-level quality decomposition, aspect-level customer signals.
Snapshot
- Locations
- 53
- Chains
- 17
- lead: Cobblestone Car Wash (8)
- Avg rating
- 4.19★
- -0.22 vs MSA median
- Damage rate
- 3.8%
- 2.4× MSA norm
- Top format
- detail shop
- 42% of classified
Market Quality snapshot
- Population
- 390,201
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Households
- 143,179
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Residents per wash
- 7,362
- 3.8× the national MSA median — lighter supply
- Express tunnels per 10K households
- 1.0
- in the 0.5–1.0 filling band · classified sites
Key findings
- 53 car wash locations operated by 17 chains and 21 independents.
- Reviewer-reported damage rate of 3.8% runs 2.4× above the 1.6% US-market median.
- Built from 14,510 Google reviews, 3,677 of them AI-extracted across 55 dimensions.
53 car wash locations in Aurora, CO · dots colored by format · sized by review volume
Aurora stands out for operational-quality signals that are above the typical US market norm. Reviewer-reported damage runs at 3.8% across 53 tracked locations, vs. a peer median of 1.6%. That spread is the most distinctive read this market produces.
Weighted Google rating across all locations is 4.19★ — below the 4.41★ US-market median. Membership-cancel friction at 16.7%. Staff scores 0.73 on the WashIndex -1…+1 scale — the brightest signal here. Per-location breakdown shows which specific sites pull the metro-wide damage rate in either direction.
See the best-rated car washes in Aurora, CO
Ranked by Google review rating
Car wash financing in Aurora, CO
Since 2010, the U.S. Small Business Administration has backed 18 car-wash loans in Aurora, CO worth $18.6M, at a median of $588,500 per car wash and a 0.0% charge-off rate. About 31% funded brand-new or startup car washes.
FY2026 annualized from its first 6 months.
- New build / open22% · $1.2M
- Acquisition22% · $795K
- Expansion / improvement50% · $523K
- Working capital6% · $20K
Source: U.S. Small Business Administration 7(a) & 504 FOIA datasets (NAICS 811192), data through 2026-03-31. See the Car Wash Lending Tracker for national figures and methodology.
About Aurora, CO
How many car washes are in Aurora, CO?
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What is the best-rated car wash in Aurora, CO?
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Which car wash chains operate in Aurora, CO?
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What is the median household income near Aurora car washes?
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What is the average car wash rating in Aurora, CO?
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What kinds of car washes does Aurora have?
Reading format mix in a quality-outlier market like Aurora is most useful as a damage-attribution exercise: which formats contribute most to the elevated metro-wide damage rate, and which are clean. The per-format damage column below answers that directly.
Highest-rated format in this market: Detail Shop at 4.80★ (22 locations). Lowest: Full Service at 3.61★ (3 locations).
| Format | Locations | % of MSA | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage Rate | Cancel Friction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Detail Shop | 22 | 41.5% | 1,960 | 4.80 | 0.80% | — |
| Express Tunnel | 14 | 26.4% | 8,054 | 4.20 | 6.08% | 17.4% |
| In-Bay Automatic | 9 | 17.0% | 2,234 | 3.93 | 0.75% | 8.9% |
| Self-Serve Bay | 5 | 9.4% | 1,331 | 4.07 | 1.65% | 22.2% |
| Full Service | 3 | 5.7% | 931 | 3.61 | 5.74% | — |
What is the typical household income near Aurora car washes?
In a quality-outlier market like Aurora, the rating-vs-income relationship matters mainly as an attribution check. Pearson r below: if it's small, the quality story is about operators; if it's meaningful, neighborhood matters.
Pearson r between ZIP income and rating across 53 qualifying locations: 0.10 — mild positive. Higher-income ZIPs host slightly better-rated washes; weak but present. Scatter mean: $71K AGI/return, 4.30★.
Car wash count and quality by income tier
Blue bars: location count per tier. Orange tick marks: average Google rating (same y-axis).
| Income tier (mean AGI/return) | ZIPs | Locations | Reviews | Avg Rating | Top Format |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under $50K | 2 | 12 | 2,315 | 4.34 | Detail Shop (6) |
| $50K – $75K | 4 | 26 | 6,784 | 4.03 | Detail Shop (11) |
| $75K – $100K | 1 | 10 | 4,215 | 4.41 | Express Tunnel (4) |
| $100K – $150K | 1 | 5 | 1,196 | 4.08 | Detail Shop (3) |
| $150K+ | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | — |
Top tier: 0 sites, 0.00★ avg. Bottom tier: 12 sites, 4.34★. Whether Aurora's elevated quality signal concentrates in a specific income band or runs market-wide is visible in the rating column below.
Who operates the most Aurora car washes?
17 chains operate in Aurora. With damage running at 3.8% (vs. 1.6% peer median), the chain-by-chain damage column below shows you which operators are driving the outlier signal.
| # | Chain | Locations | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage | Cancel | Upsell |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cobblestone Car Wash | 8 | 4,736 | 4.23 | 7.51% | 17.8% | 1.60% |
| 2 | Conoco | 6 | 1,031 | 3.88 | — | — | — |
| 3 | D HAND FULL SERVICE CAR WASH & DETAIL CENTER - SMOKY HILL | 2 | 409 | 4.26 | 5.76% | — | 3.14% |
| 4 | ProClean Auto Wash | 2 | 349 | 3.75 | — | — | — |
| 5 | Whistle Express Car Wash | 2 | 287 | 4.82 | 0.55% | — | 0.00% |
| 6 | Rockies Mobile Car Detail | 1 | 42 | 5.00 | — | — | — |
| 7 | Red Carpet Hand Car Wash | 1 | 522 | 3.10 | — | — | — |
| 8 | Finish Line Car Wash & Detail | 1 | 675 | 3.60 | — | — | — |
| 9 | Scrubbles Car Wash | 1 | 207 | 3.90 | — | — | — |
| 10 | Mister Car Wash | 1 | 664 | 4.00 | 6.00% | 12.9% | 2.00% |
| 11 | Autowash Headquarters | 1 | 1,144 | 4.00 | 0.89% | 9.3% | 1.34% |
| 12 | ARS AT Shortline | 1 | 29 | 3.70 | — | — | — |
| 13 | Maximus Detailing | 1 | 61 | 4.80 | — | — | — |
| 14 | Adams Car Wash | 1 | 29 | 2.50 | — | — | — |
| 15 | Circle K | 1 | 30 | 4.20 | — | — | — |
| 16 | Colorado Detail Supply | 1 | 89 | 4.90 | — | — | — |
| 17 | Four Seasons Car Wash | 1 | 1,562 | 4.30 | 3.90% | 18.5% | 1.42% |
What do customers love and complain about at Aurora car washes?
Equipment reliability at -0.64 is the sharpest friction signal in Aurora — read alongside the elevated damage rate above for the operating story.
Where are the 53 car washes in Aurora, CO?
The locations table below is the right place to look in a quality-outlier market: it lets you see which specific sites carry the most review volume and how their ratings compare to the metro-wide average of 4.19★.
| Location | City | Format | Chain | Rating | Reviews | ZIP AGI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cobblestone Car Wash 4301 S Parker Rd | Aurora, CO | Express Tunnel | Cobblestone Car Wash | 4.7 | 1,932 | $93K |
| Four Seasons Car Wash 3060 S Havana St | Aurora, CO | Express Tunnel | Four Seasons Car Wash | 4.3 | 1,562 | $66K |
| Autowash @ Fox Hill Car Wash 4570 S Reservoir Rd | Aurora, CO | In-Bay Automatic | Autowash Headquarters | 4.0 | 1,144 | $93K |
| Cobblestone Car Wash 3850 N Tower Dr | Aurora, CO | Express Tunnel | Cobblestone Car Wash | 4.0 | 774 | $46K |
| Finish Line Car Wash & Detail 1150 S Chambers Rd | Aurora, CO | Express Tunnel | Finish Line Car Wash & Detail | 3.6 | 675 | $55K |
| Mister Car Wash 24273 E Prospect Ave | Aurora, CO | Express Tunnel | Mister Car Wash | 4.0 | 664 | $143K |
| Phoenix Auto Detailing 1540 Florence St | Aurora, CO | Detail Shop | — | 4.9 | 607 | $47K |
| Zelo Car Wash 18690 E Iliff Ave | Aurora, CO | Self-Serve Bay | — | 4.3 | 590 | $67K |
| Red Carpet Hand Car Wash 1090 S Havana St | Aurora, CO | Full Service | Red Carpet Hand Car Wash | 3.1 | 522 | $52K |
| Cobblestone Car Wash 479 S Airport Blvd | Aurora, CO | Express Tunnel | Cobblestone Car Wash | 3.9 | 516 | $55K |
Compare Aurora to other car wash markets in the Denver metro
Cities in the same metro, ordered by closest comparable size. Each link runs the same operator concentration, format mix, and customer-experience analysis.
Data as of 2026-06-09. Pick a format and click Copy.
WashIndex. (2026, June 9). Aurora, CO car wash market analysis. https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/aurora-co
WashIndex. "Aurora, CO car wash market analysis." WashIndex. Last modified June 9, 2026. https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/aurora-co.
"Aurora, CO car wash market analysis." WashIndex, Jun. 9, 2026, https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/aurora-co.
@misc{washindex_car_wash_cities_aurora_co_2026,
title = {{Aurora, CO car wash market analysis}},
author = {{WashIndex}},
year = {2026},
month = {Jun},
url = {https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/aurora-co},
urldate = {2026-06-09},
} About this analysis
Car wash inventory for Aurora, CO is sourced from the WashIndex national car-wash place index, filtered to places whose Google-Maps-reported city matches Aurora, and further restricted to places whose format the WashIndex LLM classifier identified as a car wash (excluding dealerships, gas stations, and other auto-related businesses that don't primarily operate a car wash). Inclusion in the parent Denver MSA dataset is established by point-in-polygon against the official US Census county boundaries (TIGER/Line, 2024).
Operating-quality signals are derived from 3,677 customer reviews processed through WashIndex's 55-field LLM extraction pipeline. Format classification comes from a separate per-location website-reading classifier. ZIP-level income data is from the IRS Statistics of Income (tax year 2022) — mean Adjusted Gross Income per tax return, which is directionally aligned with ACS median household income but available without authentication.
See our full methodology for the extraction pipeline, validation samples, and aggregation logic. Term definitions in the glossary.
Machine-readable: JSON ↓ · API root
Free tools: membership break-even · site opportunity · ROI calculator