Jacksonville, NC Car Wash Market Analysis
Part of the Jacksonville, NC MSA.
Data updated · June 9, 2026
5,276 Google reviews across 13 car washes in Jacksonville. Format mix, operator rank, geographic distribution, income overlay, customer-experience signals.
Snapshot
- Locations
- 13
- Chains
- 6
- lead: Liberty Auto Spa (3)
- Avg rating
- 4.66★
- +0.25 vs MSA median
- Damage rate
- 1.3%
- Top format
- express tunnel
- 54% of classified
Market Quality snapshot
- Population
- 73,507
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Households
- 22,808
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Residents per wash
- 5,654
- 2.9× the national MSA median — lighter supply
- Express tunnels per 10K households
- 3.1
- above ~1.5 — heavily built · classified sites
Key findings
- 13 car wash locations operated by 6 chains and 2 independents.
- Weighted Google rating 4.66★ across the market; structural concentration and format mix sit near US-market norms.
- Built from 5,276 Google reviews, 2,184 of them AI-extracted across 55 dimensions.
13 car wash locations in Jacksonville, NC · dots colored by format · sized by review volume
No single structural signal jumps out for Jacksonville — it's a mid-shape car wash market. 13 locations across 6 chains and 2 independents. Distinctive patterns show up below at the format and aspect levels.
Weighted rating 4.66★; damage 1.3%; membership-cancel friction 7.5%. Equipment reliability runs as the sharpest friction (-0.51). 5,276 Google reviews drive the analysis, 2,184 of them processed through the WashIndex LLM extractor.
See the best-rated car washes in Jacksonville, NC
Ranked by Google review rating
Car wash financing in Jacksonville, NC
Since 2010, the U.S. Small Business Administration has backed 5 car-wash loans in Jacksonville, NC worth $7.5M, at a median of $1,084,000 per car wash. About 50% funded brand-new or startup car washes.
- New build / open40% · $1.2M
- Expansion / improvement60% · $1.0M
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 Jacksonville, NC
How many car washes are in Jacksonville, NC?
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What is the best-rated car wash in Jacksonville, NC?
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Which car wash chains operate in Jacksonville, NC?
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What is the median household income near Jacksonville car washes?
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What is the average car wash rating in Jacksonville, NC?
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What kinds of car washes does Jacksonville 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. Jacksonville's mix sits close to the US-city median shape.
Highest-rated format in this market: Detail Shop at 4.91★ (2 locations). Lowest: In-Bay Automatic at 3.66★ (4 locations).
| Format | Locations | % of MSA | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage Rate | Cancel Friction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Express Tunnel | 7 | 53.8% | 4,661 | 4.70 | 1.30% | 7.5% |
| In-Bay Automatic | 4 | 30.8% | 267 | 3.66 | 6.45% | — |
| Detail Shop | 2 | 15.4% | 348 | 4.91 | 0.68% | — |
What is the typical household income near Jacksonville car washes?
Read together with the format mix above, the income scatter below tells you whether car wash quality in Jacksonville tracks neighborhood income, format mix, or neither. Operating quality usually dominates this picture.
Pearson r between ZIP income and rating across 13 qualifying locations: 0.30 — mild positive. Higher-income ZIPs host slightly better-rated washes; weak but present. Scatter mean: $54K AGI/return, 4.25★.
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 | 46 | 3.40 | In-Bay Automatic (1) |
| $50K – $75K | 2 | 12 | 5,230 | 4.67 | Express Tunnel (7) |
| $75K – $100K | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | — |
| $100K – $150K | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | — |
| $150K+ | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | — |
The highest-income tier ($150K+) contains 0 car washes across 0 ZIPs at 0.00★, against 1 sites across 1 ZIPs at 3.40★ in the lowest. Middle-income tiers typically host the densest express-tunnel concentrations — the part of the income curve where that format's unit economics are strongest.
Who operates the most Jacksonville car washes?
6 chains alongside 2 independents make up Jacksonville'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 | Liberty Auto Spa | 3 | 232 | 3.79 | — | — | — |
| 2 | Green Clean Auto Spa | 3 | 1,107 | 4.54 | 7.19% | — | 0.72% |
| 3 | Whistle Express Car Wash | 2 | 3,281 | 4.75 | 0.83% | 6.7% | 0.12% |
| 4 | Coastal Carolina Car Wash | 1 | 35 | 2.80 | — | — | — |
| 5 | Hall of Fame Car Wash | 1 | 157 | 5.00 | 0.00% | — | 0.00% |
| 6 | Clean Wheels Car Wash | 1 | 116 | 4.40 | — | — | — |
What do customers love and complain about at Jacksonville car washes?
The aspect grid below summarizes 2,184 AI-extracted reviews across 13 Jacksonville 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 Jacksonville, NC?
The complete inventory of car wash locations in the Jacksonville 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whistle Express Car Wash 464 Western Blvd | Jacksonville, NC | Express Tunnel | Whistle Express Car Wash | 4.8 | 1,730 | $55K |
| Whistle Express Car Wash 4245 Western Blvd | Jacksonville, NC | Express Tunnel | Whistle Express Car Wash | 4.7 | 1,551 | $55K |
| Green Clean Auto Spa 2170 Gum Branch Rd | Jacksonville, NC | Express Tunnel | Green Clean Auto Spa | 4.7 | 683 | $56K |
| Green Clean Auto Spa - Richlands Hwy 2881 Richlands Hwy | Jacksonville, NC | Express Tunnel | Green Clean Auto Spa | 4.4 | 379 | $56K |
| James International Services Detailing 136 Basswood Ct | Jacksonville, NC | Detail Shop | — | 4.9 | 300 | $55K |
| Hall of Fame Car Wash 1002 Gum Branch Rd | Jacksonville, NC | Express Tunnel | Hall of Fame Car Wash | 5.0 | 157 | $56K |
| Clean Wheels Car Wash Jacksonville 2311 Lejeune Blvd | Jacksonville, NC | Express Tunnel | Clean Wheels Car Wash | 4.4 | 116 | $55K |
| Liberty Auto Spa 1925 N Marine Blvd | Jacksonville, NC | In-Bay Automatic | Liberty Auto Spa | 4.0 | 112 | $55K |
| Liberty Auto Spa 148 Hickory Rd | Jacksonville, NC | In-Bay Automatic | Liberty Auto Spa | 3.7 | 74 | $56K |
| Chandler’s Detailing 642 Old 30 Rd | Jacksonville, NC | Detail Shop | — | 5.0 | 48 | $55K |
Data as of 2026-06-09. Pick a format and click Copy.
WashIndex. (2026, June 9). Jacksonville, NC car wash market analysis. https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/jacksonville-nc
WashIndex. "Jacksonville, NC car wash market analysis." WashIndex. Last modified June 9, 2026. https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/jacksonville-nc.
"Jacksonville, NC car wash market analysis." WashIndex, Jun. 9, 2026, https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/jacksonville-nc.
@misc{washindex_car_wash_cities_jacksonville_nc_2026,
title = {{Jacksonville, NC car wash market analysis}},
author = {{WashIndex}},
year = {2026},
month = {Jun},
url = {https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/jacksonville-nc},
urldate = {2026-06-09},
} About this analysis
Car wash inventory for Jacksonville, NC is sourced from the WashIndex national car-wash place index, filtered to places whose Google-Maps-reported city matches Jacksonville, 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 Jacksonville MSA dataset is established by point-in-polygon against the official US Census county boundaries (TIGER/Line, 2024).
Operating-quality signals are derived from 2,184 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
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