Cedar Rapids, IA Car Wash Market Analysis
Part of the Cedar Rapids, IA MSA.
Data updated · May 22, 2026
16 sites, 4 chains, 3,643 reviews — the Cedar Rapids car wash market. Format mix, operator rank, county breakdown, rating vs. income, aspect-level customer signals.
Snapshot
- Locations
- 16
- Chains
- 4
- lead: Mister Car Wash (3)
- Avg rating
- 4.26★
- -0.15 vs MSA median
- Damage rate
- 4.9%
- 3.1× MSA norm
- Top format
- express tunnel
- 38% of classified
Market Quality snapshot
- Population
- 136,859
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Households
- 58,870
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Residents per wash
- 8,554
- 4.4× the national MSA median — lighter supply
- Express tunnels per 10K households
- 1.0
- above ~1.0 — contested · classified sites
Key findings
- 16 car wash locations operated by 4 chains and 8 independents.
- Weighted Google rating 4.26★ across the market; structural concentration and format mix sit near US-market norms.
- Built from 3,643 Google reviews, 750 of them AI-extracted across 55 dimensions.
16 car wash locations in Cedar Rapids, IA · dots colored by format · sized by review volume
Cedar Rapids reads as a balanced car wash market — neither sharply consolidated nor unusually fragmented. 16 locations across 4 chains and 8 independents. Distinctive patterns show up below at the format and aspect levels.
Weighted rating 4.26★; damage 4.9%; membership-cancel friction 9.1%. Equipment reliability runs as the sharpest friction (-0.67). 3,643 Google reviews drive the analysis, 750 of them processed through the WashIndex LLM extractor.
See the best-rated car washes in Cedar Rapids, IA
Ranked by Google review rating
About Cedar Rapids, IA
How many car washes are in Cedar Rapids, IA?
+
What is the best-rated car wash in Cedar Rapids, IA?
+
Which car wash chains operate in Cedar Rapids, IA?
+
What is the median household income near Cedar Rapids car washes?
+
What is the average car wash rating in Cedar Rapids, IA?
+
What kinds of car washes does Cedar Rapids have?
The table below lists every operating format we classify, with locations, reviews, average rating, damage rate, and membership-cancel friction broken out per format. Cedar Rapids's mix sits close to the US-city median shape.
Highest-rated format in this market: Detail Shop at 4.94★ (5 locations). Lowest: Express Tunnel at 4.14★ (6 locations).
| Format | Locations | % of MSA | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage Rate | Cancel Friction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Express Tunnel | 6 | 37.5% | 2,220 | 4.14 | 8.31% | 7.3% |
| Detail Shop | 5 | 31.3% | 371 | 4.94 | 0.00% | 0.0% |
| Full Service | 2 | 12.5% | 690 | 4.23 | 1.39% | 40.0% |
| In-Bay Automatic | 2 | 12.5% | 168 | 4.34 | 0.00% | — |
| Self-Serve Bay | 1 | 6.3% | 194 | 4.30 | 0.00% | — |
What is the typical household income near Cedar Rapids car washes?
Each ZIP in Cedar Rapids is joined to IRS Statistics-of-Income (tax year 2022) and to the per-location Google rating dataset. The scatter below sizes dots by review volume and colors them by format.
Pearson r between ZIP income and rating across 16 qualifying locations: 0.12 — mild positive. Higher-income ZIPs host slightly better-rated washes; weak but present. Scatter mean: $78K AGI/return, 4.46★.
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 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | — |
| $50K – $75K | 2 | 14 | 3,239 | 4.24 | Express Tunnel (5) |
| $75K – $100K | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | — |
| $100K – $150K | 1 | 1 | 28 | 4.90 | Detail Shop (1) |
| $150K+ | 1 | 1 | 376 | 4.40 | Express Tunnel (1) |
Income band spread: 1/4.40★ at the highest tier; 0/0.00★ at the lowest. In a balanced market, the per-tier read is most useful as a sanity check on whether the operating quality is income-uniform or income-stratified.
Who operates the most Cedar Rapids car washes?
4 chains alongside 8 independents make up Cedar Rapids's car wash supply. The chain rank below shows the multi-location operators' position; the per-location detail near the bottom of the page captures the independent layer.
| # | Chain | Locations | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage | Cancel | Upsell |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mister Car Wash | 3 | 1,313 | 4.23 | 6.85% | 6.8% | 3.65% |
| 2 | Tommy's Express® Car Wash | 2 | 618 | 3.98 | 12.21% | 7.9% | 4.07% |
| 3 | bp | 2 | 168 | 4.34 | — | — | — |
| 4 | Blue Grass Car Wash | 1 | 194 | 4.30 | — | — | — |
What do customers love and complain about at Cedar Rapids car washes?
The aspect grid below summarizes 750 AI-extracted reviews across 16 Cedar Rapids car wash locations. Each aspect lands on a -1…+1 scale (negative = customers complain more than they praise; positive = the reverse).
Where are the 16 car washes in Cedar Rapids, IA?
The complete inventory of car wash locations in the Cedar Rapids market is captured in the underlying dataset; the table below shows the highest-review-volume sites for at-a-glance comparison. Each row shows operator, address, format, chain affiliation, rating, review count, and the IRS mean AGI for the ZIP.
| Location | City | Format | Chain | Rating | Reviews | ZIP AGI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mister Car Wash 5055 Northland Ave NE | Cedar Rapids, IA | Express Tunnel | Mister Car Wash | 4.0 | 635 | $73K |
| Johnny Boy's Car Wash 1317 1st Ave SE | Cedar Rapids, IA | Full Service | — | 4.4 | 397 | $73K |
| Mister Car Wash 5520 Edgewood Rd NE | Cedar Rapids, IA | Express Tunnel | Mister Car Wash | 4.4 | 376 | $176K |
| Tommy's Express® Car Wash 4420 Westdale Pkwy SW | Cedar Rapids, IA | Express Tunnel | Tommy's Express® Car Wash | 3.7 | 329 | $61K |
| Mister Car Wash 3405 Williams Blvd SW | Cedar Rapids, IA | Express Tunnel | Mister Car Wash | 4.5 | 302 | $61K |
| Sparkling Image Car Wash 3218 1st Ave NE | Cedar Rapids, IA | Full Service | — | 4.0 | 293 | $73K |
| Aces Truck Wash 555 French Ct SW | Cedar Rapids, IA | Express Tunnel | — | 4.1 | 289 | $61K |
| Tommy's Express® Car Wash 4035 1st Ave SE | Cedar Rapids, IA | Express Tunnel | Tommy's Express® Car Wash | 4.3 | 289 | $73K |
| Car Detailing Cedar Rapids 1921 Rosehill Dr SW | Cedar Rapids, IA | Detail Shop | — | 4.9 | 201 | $61K |
| Blue Lagoon Storage and Car Wash 288 Blairs Ferry Rd NE | Cedar Rapids, IA | Self-Serve Bay | Blue Grass Car Wash | 4.3 | 194 | $73K |
Data as of 2026-05-22. Pick a format and click Copy.
WashIndex. (2026, May 22). Cedar Rapids, IA car wash market analysis. https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/cedar-rapids-ia
WashIndex. "Cedar Rapids, IA car wash market analysis." WashIndex. Last modified May 22, 2026. https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/cedar-rapids-ia.
"Cedar Rapids, IA car wash market analysis." WashIndex, May. 22, 2026, https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/cedar-rapids-ia.
@misc{washindex_car_wash_cities_cedar_rapids_ia_2026,
title = {{Cedar Rapids, IA car wash market analysis}},
author = {{WashIndex}},
year = {2026},
month = {May},
url = {https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/cedar-rapids-ia},
urldate = {2026-05-22},
} About this analysis
Car wash inventory for Cedar Rapids, IA is sourced from the WashIndex national car-wash place index, filtered to places whose Google-Maps-reported city matches Cedar Rapids, 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 Cedar Rapids MSA dataset is established by point-in-polygon against the official US Census county boundaries (TIGER/Line, 2024).
Operating-quality signals are derived from 750 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