Dubuque, IA Car Wash Market Analysis
Part of the Dubuque, IA MSA.
Data updated · May 22, 2026
1,865 Google reviews across 13 car washes in Dubuque. Format mix, operator rank, county breakdown, rating vs. income, aspect-level customer signals.
Snapshot
- Locations
- 13
- Chains
- 5
- lead: bp (4)
- Avg rating
- 4.30★
- -0.11 vs MSA median
- Damage rate
- 2.0%
- 1.3× MSA norm
- Top format
- in-bay automatic
- 31% of classified
Market Quality snapshot
- Population
- 59,271
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Households
- 25,818
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Residents per wash
- 4,559
- 2.4× the national MSA median — lighter supply
- Express tunnels per 10K households
- 1.5
- above ~1.5 — heavily built · classified sites
Key findings
- 13 car wash locations operated by 5 chains and 3 independents.
- Weighted Google rating 4.30★ across the market; structural concentration and format mix sit near US-market norms.
- Built from 1,865 Google reviews, 537 of them AI-extracted across 55 dimensions.
13 car wash locations in Dubuque, IA · dots colored by format · sized by review volume
Tracked at 13 car wash locations, Dubuque matches the structural profile of the typical US city market of comparable size. 13 locations across 5 chains and 3 independents. Distinctive patterns show up below at the format and aspect levels.
Headline numbers sit near US-market norms: rating 4.30★, damage 2.0%, cancel friction 6.5%. Staff strong (0.87); equipment reliability weak (-0.50). 1,865 Google reviews drive the analysis, 537 of them processed through the WashIndex LLM extractor.
See the best-rated car washes in Dubuque, IA
Ranked by Google review rating
About Dubuque, IA
How many car washes are in Dubuque, IA?
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What is the best-rated car wash in Dubuque, IA?
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Which car wash chains operate in Dubuque, IA?
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What is the median household income near Dubuque car washes?
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What is the average car wash rating in Dubuque, IA?
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What kinds of car washes does Dubuque 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. Dubuque's mix sits close to the US-city median shape.
Highest-rated format in this market: Detail Shop at 4.42★ (3 locations). Lowest: In-Bay Automatic at 4.14★ (4 locations).
| Format | Locations | % of MSA | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage Rate | Cancel Friction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| In-Bay Automatic | 4 | 30.8% | 117 | 4.14 | 0.00% | — |
| Express Tunnel | 4 | 30.8% | 1,074 | 4.30 | 2.18% | 6.8% |
| Detail Shop | 3 | 23.1% | 238 | 4.42 | 0.00% | — |
| Full Service | 2 | 15.4% | 436 | 4.27 | 5.26% | 0.0% |
What is the typical household income near Dubuque car washes?
Read together with the format mix above, the income scatter below tells you whether car wash quality in Dubuque tracks neighborhood income, format mix, or neither. Operating quality usually dominates this picture.
Pearson r between ZIP income and rating across 13 qualifying locations: 0.29 — mild positive. Higher-income ZIPs host slightly better-rated washes; weak but present. Scatter mean: $88K AGI/return, 4.19★.
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 | 1 | 5 | 561 | 3.67 | Detail Shop (2) |
| $75K – $100K | 1 | 6 | 1,216 | 4.59 | Express Tunnel (3) |
| $100K – $150K | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | — |
| $150K+ | 1 | 2 | 88 | 4.20 | In-Bay Automatic (2) |
Income band spread: 2/4.20★ 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 Dubuque car washes?
The table below ranks the top 25 chains operating in Dubuque by location count. Each row shows per-chain Google rating, damage rate, and cancel friction — the cleanest side-by-side cut on operator quality in the market.
| # | Chain | Locations | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage | Cancel | Upsell |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | bp | 4 | 117 | 4.14 | — | — | — |
| 2 | Miracle Car Wash | 2 | 436 | 4.27 | — | — | — |
| 3 | Club Car Wash | 2 | 104 | 4.65 | — | — | — |
| 4 | Pro-Clean Car Wash Express | 1 | 387 | 3.60 | — | — | — |
| 5 | Tidal Wave Auto Spa | Car Wash | 1 | 583 | 4.70 | 1.57% | — | 0.94% |
What do customers love and complain about at Dubuque car washes?
The aspect grid below summarizes 537 AI-extracted reviews across 13 Dubuque car wash locations. Each aspect lands on a -1…+1 scale (negative = customers complain more than they praise; positive = the reverse).
Where are the 13 car washes in Dubuque, IA?
13 car washes are tracked in Dubuque; below is the top of the list by Google review count. Locations with fewer than 10 reviews are excluded from the rating column.
| Location | City | Format | Chain | Rating | Reviews | ZIP AGI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tidal Wave Auto Spa | Car Wash 2539 NW Arterial | Dubuque, IA | Express Tunnel | Tidal Wave Auto Spa | Car Wash | 4.7 | 583 | $87K |
| Pro-Clean Car Wash & Detailing 3199 University Ave | Dubuque, IA | Express Tunnel | Pro-Clean Car Wash Express | 3.6 | 387 | $62K |
| Miracle Car Wash 2090 Holliday Dr | Dubuque, IA | Full Service | Miracle Car Wash | 4.3 | 386 | $87K |
| VIP Auto Detailing Spa 3082 Cedar Crest Ct | Dubuque, IA | Detail Shop | — | 5.0 | 128 | $87K |
| Power Wash of Dubuque 3900 Central Ave | Dubuque, IA | Detail Shop | — | 3.8 | 88 | $62K |
| bp 2150 Twin Valley Dr | Dubuque, IA | In-Bay Automatic | bp | 4.2 | 54 | $157K |
| Club Car Wash 1895 John F Kennedy Rd | Dubuque, IA | Express Tunnel | Club Car Wash | 4.6 | 52 | $87K |
| Club Car Wash 4860 Asbury Rd | Dubuque, IA | Express Tunnel | Club Car Wash | 4.7 | 52 | $87K |
| Miracle Car Wash 255 Locust St | Dubuque, IA | Full Service | Miracle Car Wash | 4.0 | 50 | $62K |
| bp 2320 Gateway Dr | Dubuque, IA | In-Bay Automatic | bp | 4.2 | 34 | $157K |
Data as of 2026-05-22. Pick a format and click Copy.
WashIndex. (2026, May 22). Dubuque, IA car wash market analysis. https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/dubuque-ia
WashIndex. "Dubuque, IA car wash market analysis." WashIndex. Last modified May 22, 2026. https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/dubuque-ia.
"Dubuque, IA car wash market analysis." WashIndex, May. 22, 2026, https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/dubuque-ia.
@misc{washindex_car_wash_cities_dubuque_ia_2026,
title = {{Dubuque, IA car wash market analysis}},
author = {{WashIndex}},
year = {2026},
month = {May},
url = {https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/dubuque-ia},
urldate = {2026-05-22},
} About this analysis
Car wash inventory for Dubuque, IA is sourced from the WashIndex national car-wash place index, filtered to places whose Google-Maps-reported city matches Dubuque, 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 Dubuque MSA dataset is established by point-in-polygon against the official US Census county boundaries (TIGER/Line, 2024).
Operating-quality signals are derived from 537 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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