Duluth, MN Car Wash Market Analysis
Part of the Duluth, MN-WI MSA.
Data updated · May 22, 2026
1,385 Google reviews across 12 car washes in Duluth. Format mix, operator rank, geographic distribution, income overlay, customer-experience signals.
Snapshot
- Locations
- 12
- Chains
- 4
- lead: Duluth Carwash Company (3)
- Avg rating
- 4.12★
- -0.29 vs MSA median
- Damage rate
- 7.5%
- 4.8× MSA norm
- Top format
- detail shop
- 42% of classified
- Median single wash
- $12
- range $5–$35
- Median unlimited
- $22.99/mo
- cheapest $22.99/mo at Mister Car Wash
Market Quality snapshot
- Population
- 86,863
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Households
- 37,150
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Residents per wash
- 7,239
- 3.7× the national MSA median — lighter supply
- Express tunnels per 10K households
- 0.8
- in the 0.5–1.0 filling band · classified sites
Key findings
- 12 car wash locations operated by 4 chains and 6 independents.
- Weighted Google rating 4.12★ across the market; structural concentration and format mix sit near US-market norms.
- Built from 1,385 Google reviews, 469 of them AI-extracted across 55 dimensions.
12 car wash locations in Duluth, MN · dots colored by format · sized by review volume
Duluth sits near the center of the US-market distribution on concentration, format mix, and rating. 12 locations across 4 chains and 6 independents. Distinctive patterns show up below at the format and aspect levels.
Weighted rating 4.12★; damage 7.5%; membership-cancel friction 14.6%. Equipment reliability runs as the sharpest friction (-0.51). 1,385 Google reviews drive the analysis, 469 of them processed through the WashIndex LLM extractor.
Published pricing across the 6 of 12 Duluth locations with menus available: median single car wash $12 (range $5–$35), median unlimited membership $22.99/month (range $22.99–$24.99/mo). The cheapest unlimited membership in the city is $22.99/mo at Mister Car Wash (BASE).
See the best-rated car washes in Duluth, MN
Ranked by Google review rating
What does a car wash cost in Duluth, MN?
Published menu pricing for car washes in Duluth, captured from operator websites and the WashIndex AI calling agent. 6 of 12 tracked locations in the city have usable published pricing (50% coverage).
| Cheapest unlimited memberships in Duluth | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mister Car Wash BASE | $22.99/mo |
| 2 | Tanner's Express Car Wash Standard Shine | $22.99/mo |
| 3 | Tommy's Express® Car Wash QUALITY | $24.99/mo |
| Cheapest single car washes in Duluth | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Duluth Carwash Company Self-Service Wash | $5 |
| 2 | Tommy's Express® Car Wash QUALITY | $12 |
| 3 | Tanner's Express Car Wash Standard Shine | $12 |
| 4 | Mister Car Wash Platinum | $22 |
| 5 | O.C.Detailing Duluth Window Cleaning While You Wait | $35 |
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 Duluth, MN
How many car washes are in Duluth, MN?
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What is the best-rated car wash in Duluth, MN?
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Which car wash chains operate in Duluth, MN?
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What is the median household income near Duluth car washes?
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What is the average car wash rating in Duluth, MN?
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How much does a car wash cost in Duluth, MN?
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How much does an unlimited car wash membership cost in Duluth, MN?
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What is the cheapest car wash in Duluth, MN?
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What kinds of car washes does Duluth have?
The format mix in Duluth reads as a typical mid-market US city — express tunnels and detail shops carrying the bulk of supply, with full-service and self-serve layered in. The bar chart pairs location count with per-format average rating.
Highest-rated format in this market: Detail Shop at 4.88★ (5 locations). Lowest: Self-Serve Bay at 3.49★ (3 locations).
| Format | Locations | % of MSA | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage Rate | Cancel Friction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Detail Shop | 5 | 41.7% | 202 | 4.88 | 0.88% | 0.0% |
| Express Tunnel | 3 | 25.0% | 630 | 4.22 | 12.71% | 14.9% |
| Self-Serve Bay | 3 | 25.0% | 107 | 3.49 | 0.00% | — |
| Full Service | 1 | 8.3% | 446 | 3.80 | 3.77% | — |
What is the typical household income near Duluth car washes?
Read together with the format mix above, the income scatter below tells you whether car wash quality in Duluth tracks neighborhood income, format mix, or neither. Operating quality usually dominates this picture.
Pearson r between ZIP income and rating across 12 qualifying locations: -0.67 — mild negative. Higher-income ZIPs host slightly lower-rated washes on average, which is unusual. Scatter mean: $79K AGI/return, 4.27★.
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 | 1 | 1 | 25 | 4.80 | Detail Shop (1) |
| $50K – $75K | 1 | 3 | 108 | 4.88 | Detail Shop (3) |
| $75K – $100K | 2 | 6 | 1,137 | 4.01 | Express Tunnel (3) |
| $100K – $150K | 1 | 2 | 115 | 4.38 | Detail Shop (1) |
| $150K+ | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | — |
Top-tier 0 sites, 0.00★ avg; bottom-tier 1 sites, 4.80★. Across Duluth's 12 qualifying locations, the income gradient correlates only weakly with rating — operator execution dominates.
Who operates the most Duluth car washes?
4 chains alongside 6 independents make up Duluth'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 | Duluth Carwash Company | 3 | 107 | 3.49 | — | — | — |
| 2 | Mister Car Wash | 1 | 132 | 4.40 | 9.00% | — | 0.00% |
| 3 | Tommy's Express® Car Wash | 1 | 446 | 4.20 | — | — | — |
| 4 | Detail & Dash: Ceramic Pro Elite Dealer | 1 | 18 | 5.00 | — | — | — |
What do customers love and complain about at Duluth car washes?
Reading the aspect grid: numbers above 0.3 are strong positives; numbers below -0.1 indicate meaningful friction; in between is mixed signal. wait time is the brightest spot here. equipment reliability is the pain point.
Where are the 12 car washes in Duluth, MN?
12 car washes are tracked in Duluth; 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tommy's Express® Car Wash 321 E. Central Ent | Duluth, MN | Express Tunnel | Tommy's Express® Car Wash | 4.2 | 446 | $88K |
| Miller Mall Car Wash 1721 Maple Grove Rd #1828 | Duluth, MN | Full Service | — | 3.8 | 446 | $88K |
| Mister Car Wash 604 W Central Entrance | Duluth, MN | Express Tunnel | Mister Car Wash | 4.4 | 132 | $88K |
| Lakeside Auto Detail 5133 Glenwood St | Duluth, MN | Detail Shop | — | 4.9 | 69 | $105K |
| O.C.Detailing Duluth 614 N 59th Ave W | Duluth, MN | Detail Shop | — | 4.8 | 66 | $53K |
| Tanner's Express Car Wash 4250 Haines Rd | Duluth, MN | Express Tunnel | — | 3.9 | 52 | $88K |
| Duluth Carwash Company - Lakeside Location 5819 E Superior St | Duluth, MN | Self-Serve Bay | Duluth Carwash Company | 3.6 | 46 | $105K |
| Duluth Carwash Company - Central 11 S Basswood Ave | Duluth, MN | Self-Serve Bay | Duluth Carwash Company | 3.4 | 33 | $88K |
| Duluth Carwash Company 10 W Austin St | Duluth, MN | Self-Serve Bay | Duluth Carwash Company | 3.4 | 28 | $97K |
| Exclusive Detail Duluth 22 N 24th Ave W | Duluth, MN | Detail Shop | — | 4.8 | 25 | $49K |
Data as of 2026-05-22. Pick a format and click Copy.
WashIndex. (2026, May 22). Duluth, MN car wash market analysis. https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/duluth-mn
WashIndex. "Duluth, MN car wash market analysis." WashIndex. Last modified May 22, 2026. https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/duluth-mn.
"Duluth, MN car wash market analysis." WashIndex, May. 22, 2026, https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/duluth-mn.
@misc{washindex_car_wash_cities_duluth_mn_2026,
title = {{Duluth, MN car wash market analysis}},
author = {{WashIndex}},
year = {2026},
month = {May},
url = {https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/duluth-mn},
urldate = {2026-05-22},
} About this analysis
Car wash inventory for Duluth, MN is sourced from the WashIndex national car-wash place index, filtered to places whose Google-Maps-reported city matches Duluth, 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 Duluth MSA dataset is established by point-in-polygon against the official US Census county boundaries (TIGER/Line, 2024).
Operating-quality signals are derived from 469 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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