Clearwater, FL Car Wash Market Analysis
Part of the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL MSA.
Data updated · May 20, 2026
11,143 reviews across 22 Clearwater car washes — operating-quality signals run below norm here. Per-chain and per-format quality attribution, aspect-level customer-experience reads.
Snapshot
- Locations
- 22
- Chains
- 8
- lead: Circle K (4)
- Avg rating
- 4.64★
- +0.23 vs MSA median
- Damage rate
- 0.5%
- 3.2× below MSA norm
- Top format
- detail shop
- 50% of classified
- Median single wash
- $10
- range $8.33–$10
- Median unlimited
- $22.99/mo
- cheapest $10/mo at JD Car Detailing
Market Quality snapshot
- Population
- 117,075
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Households
- 49,909
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Residents per wash
- 5,322
- 2.8× the national MSA median — lighter supply
- Express tunnels per 10K households
- 1.2
- above ~1.0 — contested · classified sites
Key findings
- 22 car wash locations operated by 8 chains and 10 independents.
- Reviewer-reported damage rate of 0.5% runs 3.2× below the 1.6% US-market median.
- Built from 11,143 Google reviews, 5,487 of them AI-extracted across 55 dimensions.
22 car wash locations in Clearwater, FL · dots colored by format · sized by review volume
Clearwater stands out for operational-quality signals that are below the typical US market norm. Reviewer-reported damage runs at 0.5% across 22 tracked locations, vs. a peer median of 1.6%. Reading the operator-level breakdown below shows which segments drive the outlier signal.
Weighted Google rating across all locations is 4.64★ — above the 4.41★ US-market median. Membership-cancel friction at 10.1%. Staff scores 0.95 on the WashIndex -1…+1 scale — the brightest signal here. 11,143 Google reviews underpin the quality cut, 5,487 AI-extracted.
Published pricing across the 5 of 22 Clearwater locations with menus available: median single car wash $10 (range $8.33–$10), median unlimited membership $22.99/month (range $10–$22.99/mo). The cheapest unlimited membership in the city is $10/mo at JD Car Detailing (Upgrade).
See the best-rated car washes in Clearwater, FL
Ranked by Google review rating
What does a car wash cost in Clearwater, FL?
Published menu pricing for car washes in Clearwater, captured from operator websites and the WashIndex AI calling agent. 5 of 22 tracked locations in the city have usable published pricing (23% coverage).
| Cheapest unlimited memberships in Clearwater | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | JD Car Detailing Upgrade | $10/mo |
| 2 | Mister Car Wash BASE | $22.99/mo |
| Cheapest single car washes in Clearwater | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | JD Car Detailing Upgrade | $8.33 |
| 2 | Mister Car Wash Base | $10 |
Pricing scraped from operator websites where published; the WashIndex AI calling agent rings up locations that don’t publish menus online to capture pricing directly.
About Clearwater, FL
How many car washes are in Clearwater, FL?
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What is the best-rated car wash in Clearwater, FL?
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Which car wash chains operate in Clearwater, FL?
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What is the median household income near Clearwater car washes?
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What is the average car wash rating in Clearwater, FL?
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How much does a car wash cost in Clearwater, FL?
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How much does an unlimited car wash membership cost in Clearwater, FL?
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What is the cheapest car wash in Clearwater, FL?
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What kinds of car washes does Clearwater have?
Format mix in Clearwater isn't where the distinctive story sits — the damage/quality signal at the top of the page is. Still, the per-format breakdown matters because damage rates concentrate inside specific formats (express tunnels typically run highest, hand-finished detail shops typically run lowest).
Highest-rated format in this market: Detail Shop at 4.93★ (11 locations). Lowest: In-Bay Automatic at 3.58★ (5 locations).
| Format | Locations | % of MSA | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage Rate | Cancel Friction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Detail Shop | 11 | 50.0% | 1,231 | 4.93 | 0.14% | 0.0% |
| Express Tunnel | 6 | 27.3% | 9,763 | 4.62 | 0.55% | 10.1% |
| In-Bay Automatic | 5 | 22.7% | 149 | 3.58 | 0.00% | 0.0% |
What is the typical household income near Clearwater car washes?
Income-vs-rating is the most useful structural-context cut for Clearwater's elevated quality signal: it lets you see whether the damage/quality outlier is income-correlated or operator-correlated.
Pearson r between ZIP income and rating across 22 qualifying locations: 0.23 — mild positive. Higher-income ZIPs host slightly better-rated washes; weak but present. Scatter mean: $86K AGI/return, 4.44★.
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 | 3 | 5 | 1,464 | 4.57 | Detail Shop (3) |
| $75K – $100K | 4 | 11 | 3,874 | 4.47 | Detail Shop (5) |
| $100K – $150K | 2 | 6 | 5,805 | 4.78 | Detail Shop (3) |
| $150K+ | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | — |
Top tier: 0 sites, 0.00★ avg. Bottom tier: 0 sites, 0.00★. Whether Clearwater'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 Clearwater car washes?
8 chains operate in Clearwater. With damage running at 0.5% (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 | Circle K | 4 | 90 | 3.37 | — | — | — |
| 2 | Sunshine Car Wash - Fowler | 2 | 5,464 | 4.78 | 0.26% | 7.9% | 0.14% |
| 3 | Trademark Car Wash | 1 | 417 | 3.40 | — | — | — |
| 4 | Mister Car Wash | 1 | 810 | 4.30 | 2.36% | — | 1.57% |
| 5 | ModWash | 1 | 2,607 | 4.70 | 0.60% | 15.6% | 0.20% |
| 6 | MPRES MOBILE DETAILING | 1 | 14 | 5.00 | — | — | — |
| 7 | JD Car Detailing | 1 | 103 | 5.00 | — | — | — |
| 8 | bp | 1 | 59 | 3.90 | — | — | — |
What do customers love and complain about at Clearwater car washes?
Equipment reliability at -0.21 is the sharpest friction signal in Clearwater — read alongside the elevated damage rate above for the operating story.
Where are the 22 car washes in Clearwater, FL?
Locations are ranked by review volume; rating, format, chain, and ZIP income are shown. The sites at the top of this list are the ones whose ratings carry the most weight in the metro-wide average.
| Location | City | Format | Chain | Rating | Reviews | ZIP AGI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sunshine Car Wash - Court St 1175 Court St | Clearwater, FL | Express Tunnel | Sunshine Car Wash - Fowler | 4.7 | 3,174 | $109K |
| ModWash 4700 E Bay Dr | Clearwater, FL | Express Tunnel | ModWash | 4.7 | 2,607 | $82K |
| Sunshine Car Wash - Missouri Ave 1430 S Missouri Ave | Clearwater, FL | Express Tunnel | Sunshine Car Wash - Fowler | 4.9 | 2,290 | $109K |
| Mister Car Wash 1880 Gulf to Bay Blvd | Clearwater, FL | Express Tunnel | Mister Car Wash | 4.3 | 810 | $64K |
| Belleair Road Car Wash 2545 Belleair Rd | Clearwater, FL | Express Tunnel | — | 4.0 | 465 | $82K |
| Roman Mobile car care 2625 Alexander Pl | Clearwater, FL | Detail Shop | — | 5.0 | 446 | $62K |
| Main Street Car Wash 1735 McMullen Booth Rd | Clearwater, FL | Express Tunnel | Trademark Car Wash | 3.4 | 417 | $86K |
| Horizon Mobile Detailing LLC 600 Cleveland St suite 292 | Clearwater, FL | Detail Shop | — | 5.0 | 208 | $78K |
| Exceptional Detailing Inc 14605 49th Street N unit 14 | Clearwater, FL | Detail Shop | — | 5.0 | 134 | $127K |
| JD Car Detailing Mobile Car Wash | Clearwater, FL | Detail Shop | JD Car Detailing | 5.0 | 103 | $60K |
Compare Clearwater to other car wash markets in the Tampa 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 2026-05-20. Pick a format and click Copy.
WashIndex. (2026, May 20). Clearwater, FL car wash market analysis. https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/clearwater-fl
WashIndex. "Clearwater, FL car wash market analysis." WashIndex. Last modified May 20, 2026. https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/clearwater-fl.
"Clearwater, FL car wash market analysis." WashIndex, May. 20, 2026, https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/clearwater-fl.
@misc{washindex_car_wash_cities_clearwater_fl_2026,
title = {{Clearwater, FL car wash market analysis}},
author = {{WashIndex}},
year = {2026},
month = {May},
url = {https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/clearwater-fl},
urldate = {2026-05-20},
} About this analysis
Car wash inventory for Clearwater, FL is sourced from the WashIndex national car-wash place index, filtered to places whose Google-Maps-reported city matches Clearwater, 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 Tampa MSA dataset is established by point-in-polygon against the official US Census county boundaries (TIGER/Line, 2024).
Operating-quality signals are derived from 5,487 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.
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