Lakewood, CO Car Wash Market Analysis
Part of the Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO MSA.
Data updated · June 9, 2026
7,540 Google reviews across 21 car washes in Lakewood. Format mix, operator rank, county breakdown, rating vs. income, aspect-level customer signals.
Snapshot
- Locations
- 21
- Chains
- 8
- lead: Cobblestone Car Wash (5)
- Avg rating
- 4.27★
- -0.14 vs MSA median
- Damage rate
- 4.5%
- 2.9× MSA norm
- Top format
- express tunnel
- 38% of classified
Market Quality snapshot
- Population
- 156,309
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Households
- 69,296
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Residents per wash
- 7,443
- 3.8× the national MSA median — lighter supply
- Express tunnels per 10K households
- 1.2
- above ~1.0 — contested · classified sites
Key findings
- 21 car wash locations operated by 8 chains and 9 independents.
- Weighted Google rating 4.27★ across the market; structural concentration and format mix sit near US-market norms.
- Built from 7,540 Google reviews, 2,095 of them AI-extracted across 55 dimensions.
21 car wash locations in Lakewood, CO · dots colored by format · sized by review volume
Tracked at 21 car wash locations, Lakewood matches the structural profile of the typical US city market of comparable size. 8 chains compete alongside 9 independents — typical mix for a market of 21 car washes. Customer-experience signals across 2,095 AI-extracted reviews produce the distinct read on this market.
Headline numbers sit near US-market norms: rating 4.27★, damage 4.5%, cancel friction 11.9%. Equipment reliability runs as the sharpest friction (-0.22). 7,540 Google reviews drive the analysis, 2,095 of them processed through the WashIndex LLM extractor.
See the best-rated car washes in Lakewood, CO
Ranked by Google review rating
Car wash financing in Lakewood, CO
Since 2010, the U.S. Small Business Administration has backed 8 car-wash loans in Lakewood, CO worth $8.5M, at a median of $1,081,600 per car wash and a 0.0% charge-off rate. About 50% funded brand-new or startup car washes.
- New build / open38% · $1.2M
- Acquisition13% · $1.9M
- Expansion / improvement38% · $900K
- Working capital13% · $75K
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 Lakewood, CO
How many car washes are in Lakewood, CO?
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What is the best-rated car wash in Lakewood, CO?
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Which car wash chains operate in Lakewood, CO?
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What is the median household income near Lakewood car washes?
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What is the average car wash rating in Lakewood, CO?
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What kinds of car washes does Lakewood have?
The format mix in Lakewood 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 4.91★ (5 locations). Lowest: In-Bay Automatic at 3.95★ (2 locations).
| Format | Locations | % of MSA | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage Rate | Cancel Friction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Express Tunnel | 8 | 38.1% | 5,301 | 4.25 | 5.42% | 11.4% |
| Detail Shop | 5 | 23.8% | 779 | 4.91 | 0.27% | 0.0% |
| Self-Serve Bay | 6 | 28.6% | 959 | 4.06 | 3.65% | 0.0% |
| In-Bay Automatic | 2 | 9.5% | 501 | 3.95 | 8.00% | 27.3% |
What is the typical household income near Lakewood car washes?
Read together with the format mix above, the income scatter below tells you whether car wash quality in Lakewood tracks neighborhood income, format mix, or neither. Operating quality usually dominates this picture.
Pearson r between ZIP income and rating across 21 qualifying locations: 0.32 — mild positive. Higher-income ZIPs host slightly better-rated washes; weak but present. Scatter mean: $88K AGI/return, 4.18★.
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 | 11 | 4,887 | 4.28 | Express Tunnel (5) |
| $75K – $100K | 2 | 6 | 1,602 | 4.27 | Detail Shop (3) |
| $100K – $150K | 1 | 5 | 1,051 | 4.22 | Express Tunnel (2) |
| $150K+ | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | — |
Income band spread: 0/0.00★ 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 Lakewood car washes?
The table below ranks the top 25 chains operating in Lakewood 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 | Cobblestone Car Wash | 5 | 1,731 | 3.94 | 13.33% | 20.4% | 2.05% |
| 2 | ATLANTIS Car Wash | 1 | 318 | 4.20 | — | — | — |
| 3 | Autowash Headquarters | 1 | 257 | 4.10 | — | — | — |
| 4 | Scrubbles Car Wash | 1 | 78 | 3.70 | — | — | — |
| 5 | Techwash Fredonia | 1 | 1,703 | 3.90 | 7.09% | — | 1.57% |
| 6 | Walt's Green Car Wash | 1 | 178 | 4.00 | — | — | — |
| 7 | Club Car Wash | 1 | 108 | 4.10 | — | — | — |
| 8 | Conoco | 1 | 244 | 3.80 | — | — | — |
What do customers love and complain about at Lakewood 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. staff is the brightest spot here. equipment reliability is the pain point.
Where are the 21 car washes in Lakewood, CO?
21 car washes are tracked in Lakewood; 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jimmy Suds Car Wash 935 S Kipling Pkwy | Lakewood, CO | Express Tunnel | — | 4.9 | 1,759 | $73K |
| Octo+ Car Wash & Detail 7490 W Colfax Ave | Lakewood, CO | Express Tunnel | Techwash Fredonia | 3.9 | 1,703 | $70K |
| Cobblestone Car Wash 1975 S Webster St | Lakewood, CO | Express Tunnel | Cobblestone Car Wash | 3.8 | 464 | $90K |
| Cobblestone Car Wash 5800 W Colfax Ave | Lakewood, CO | Express Tunnel | Cobblestone Car Wash | 4.1 | 431 | $70K |
| Cobblestone Car Wash 13139 W Alameda Pkwy | Lakewood, CO | Express Tunnel | Cobblestone Car Wash | 4.2 | 424 | $115K |
| Dun Right Detailing & Windshield Repair 9727 W 17th Ave | Lakewood, CO | Detail Shop | — | 4.9 | 347 | $98K |
| Cobblestone Car Wash 130 S Wadsworth Blvd | Lakewood, CO | Express Tunnel | Cobblestone Car Wash | 3.5 | 325 | $73K |
| ATLANTIS Car Wash 10001 Morrison Rd | Lakewood, CO | Self-Serve Bay | ATLANTIS Car Wash | 4.2 | 318 | $90K |
| Green Mountain Car Wash 12890 W Alameda Pkwy | Lakewood, CO | Self-Serve Bay | — | 4.3 | 298 | $115K |
| Carwash Express by Autowash 1398 S Wadsworth Blvd | Lakewood, CO | In-Bay Automatic | Autowash Headquarters | 4.1 | 257 | $74K |
Compare Lakewood to other car wash markets in the Denver 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 2026-06-09. Pick a format and click Copy.
WashIndex. (2026, June 9). Lakewood, CO car wash market analysis. https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/lakewood-co
WashIndex. "Lakewood, CO car wash market analysis." WashIndex. Last modified June 9, 2026. https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/lakewood-co.
"Lakewood, CO car wash market analysis." WashIndex, Jun. 9, 2026, https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/lakewood-co.
@misc{washindex_car_wash_cities_lakewood_co_2026,
title = {{Lakewood, CO car wash market analysis}},
author = {{WashIndex}},
year = {2026},
month = {Jun},
url = {https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/lakewood-co},
urldate = {2026-06-09},
} About this analysis
Car wash inventory for Lakewood, CO is sourced from the WashIndex national car-wash place index, filtered to places whose Google-Maps-reported city matches Lakewood, 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 Denver MSA dataset is established by point-in-polygon against the official US Census county boundaries (TIGER/Line, 2024).
Operating-quality signals are derived from 2,095 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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