Memphis, TN Car Wash Market Analysis
Part of the Memphis, TN-MS-AR MSA.
Data updated · May 22, 2026
20,878 Google reviews across 46 car wash locations in this chain-consolidated city market. Chain rank with rating + damage + cancel friction side-by-side; format mix and aspect signals follow.
Snapshot
- Locations
- 46
- Chains
- 9
- lead: Take 5 Car Wash (7)
- Avg rating
- 4.59★
- +0.18 vs MSA median
- Damage rate
- 1.2%
- 1.3× below MSA norm
- Top format
- express tunnel
- 46% of classified
Market Quality snapshot
- Population
- 629,063
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Households
- 254,530
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Residents per wash
- 13,675
- 7.1× 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
- 46 car wash locations operated by 9 chains and 17 independents.
- Top 10 chains control 63.0% of locations — above the 11.4% US-market median, led by Take 5 Car Wash (7 sites).
- Built from 20,878 Google reviews, 7,215 of them AI-extracted across 55 dimensions.
46 car wash locations in Memphis, TN · dots colored by format · sized by review volume
This is one of the more roll-up-shaped car wash markets in the WashIndex national index. Across 46 tracked locations, the top ten operators control 63.0% of supply — above the 11.4% US-market median, with Take 5 Car Wash the largest at 7 sites. The headline averages below behave like chain averages — the per-chain table is the right cut to read.
Weighted across all locations the average Google rating is 4.59★; reviewer-reported damage runs at 1.2%, and membership-cancellation friction at 13.5% of mem-discussing reviews. Staff is the brightest aspect signal (0.88/+1). Because the operator mix is concentrated, those numbers behave more like chain averages than market averages.
See the best-rated car washes in Memphis, TN
Ranked by Google review rating
About Memphis, TN
How many car washes are in Memphis, TN?
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What is the best-rated car wash in Memphis, TN?
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Which car wash chains operate in Memphis, TN?
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What is the median household income near Memphis car washes?
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What is the average car wash rating in Memphis, TN?
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What kinds of car washes does Memphis have?
Memphis's chain-heavy mix shapes the format distribution below. Express tunnels typically dominate consolidated markets — the format with the best unit economics for multi-location rollouts. Hand-finished detail shops and full-service operators usually run as the residual independent layer.
Highest-rated format in this market: Detail Shop at 4.80★ (16 locations). Lowest: In-Bay Automatic at 3.92★ (7 locations).
| Format | Locations | % of MSA | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage Rate | Cancel Friction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Express Tunnel | 21 | 45.7% | 18,939 | 4.60 | 1.21% | 13.5% |
| Detail Shop | 16 | 34.8% | 1,118 | 4.80 | 0.50% | — |
| In-Bay Automatic | 7 | 15.2% | 277 | 3.92 | 0.00% | — |
| Full Service | 2 | 4.3% | 544 | 4.03 | 2.06% | — |
What is the typical household income near Memphis car washes?
In a chain-consolidated market like Memphis, ZIP-level income tells you more about where chains chose to deploy capital than about how customers actually rate the wash. Rollups tend to anchor expansion in the $75K–$150K AGI band; below that range, supply is thinner.
Pearson r between ZIP income and rating across 45 qualifying locations: 0.04 — effectively zero. Operating quality dominates over neighborhood income here. Scatter mean: $64K AGI/return, 4.55★.
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 | 10 | 28 | 13,232 | 4.58 | Detail Shop (13) |
| $50K – $75K | 3 | 8 | 3,647 | 4.66 | Express Tunnel (5) |
| $75K – $100K | 1 | 2 | 948 | 4.73 | Express Tunnel (2) |
| $100K – $150K | 2 | 4 | 1,992 | 4.70 | Express Tunnel (3) |
| $150K+ | 2 | 3 | 1,043 | 4.06 | Express Tunnel (2) |
Top vs. bottom tier spread: 3 sites at 4.06★ (income $150K+) vs. 28 sites at 4.58★ (income Under $50K). For Memphis's consolidated chain operators, the middle-income band is where the strongest deployment density typically sits.
Who operates the most Memphis car washes?
9 chains operate in Memphis, with the top ten holding 63.0% of supply. Damage rate, cancel friction, and per-aspect ratings are broken out per chain — useful for understanding which operators drive the metro's headline numbers.
| # | Chain | Locations | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage | Cancel | Upsell |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Take 5 Car Wash | 7 | 12,323 | 4.60 | 1.23% | 16.0% | 0.71% |
| 2 | bp | 7 | 277 | 3.92 | — | — | — |
| 3 | Zips Car Wash | 4 | 2,742 | 4.24 | 4.33% | 24.3% | 0.87% |
| 4 | Glide Xpress Car Wash | 3 | 1,452 | 4.80 | 0.69% | 8.5% | 0.00% |
| 5 | Century Express Carwash | 2 | 207 | 4.49 | — | — | — |
| 6 | Memphis Wash Co. | 2 | 311 | 4.75 | 2.21% | — | 1.33% |
| 7 | Club Car Wash | 2 | 469 | 4.85 | 0.00% | 2.3% | 0.29% |
| 8 | Blue Beacon | 1 | 528 | 4.00 | — | — | — |
| 9 | KINGS DETAILING | 1 | 30 | 4.40 | — | — | — |
What do customers love and complain about at Memphis car washes?
7,215 reviews feed the aspect grid below; each is computed as (positive − negative) / total, on a -1…+1 scale. In Memphis, the dominant chains' aspect profiles drive most of the metro-wide score.
Where are the 46 car washes in Memphis, TN?
Locations table below: ranked by review count, with format, chain affiliation, rating, and ZIP-level IRS AGI for context. In a consolidated market like Memphis, the chain column is the most useful filter.
| Location | City | Format | Chain | Rating | Reviews | ZIP AGI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Take 5 Car Wash 4349 Summer Ave | Memphis, TN | Express Tunnel | Take 5 Car Wash | 4.5 | 2,260 | $41K |
| Take 5 Car Wash 3419 Elvis Presley Blvd | Memphis, TN | Express Tunnel | Take 5 Car Wash | 4.6 | 2,096 | $37K |
| Take 5 Car Wash 6040 Mt Moriah Rd | Memphis, TN | Express Tunnel | Take 5 Car Wash | 4.7 | 1,832 | $35K |
| Take 5 Car Wash 3736 Riverdale Rd | Memphis, TN | Express Tunnel | Take 5 Car Wash | 4.6 | 1,692 | $35K |
| Take 5 Car Wash 2750 S Perkins Rd | Memphis, TN | Express Tunnel | Take 5 Car Wash | 4.6 | 1,678 | $34K |
| Shine and Roll Car Wash 3610 Centennial Dr | Memphis, TN | Express Tunnel | — | 5.0 | 1,435 | $65K |
| Take 5 Car Wash 1270 Lamar Ave | Memphis, TN | Express Tunnel | Take 5 Car Wash | 4.7 | 1,384 | $105K |
| Take 5 Car Wash 3405 Austin Peay Hwy | Memphis, TN | Express Tunnel | Take 5 Car Wash | 4.5 | 1,381 | $36K |
| Zips Car Wash 4831 Poplar Ave | Memphis, TN | Express Tunnel | Zips Car Wash | 3.9 | 849 | $170K |
| Zips Car Wash 4234 Hacks Cross Rd | Memphis, TN | Express Tunnel | Zips Car Wash | 4.1 | 747 | $65K |
Compare Memphis to other car wash markets in the Memphis 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 2026-05-22. Pick a format and click Copy.
WashIndex. (2026, May 22). Memphis, TN car wash market analysis. https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/memphis-tn
WashIndex. "Memphis, TN car wash market analysis." WashIndex. Last modified May 22, 2026. https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/memphis-tn.
"Memphis, TN car wash market analysis." WashIndex, May. 22, 2026, https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/memphis-tn.
@misc{washindex_car_wash_cities_memphis_tn_2026,
title = {{Memphis, TN car wash market analysis}},
author = {{WashIndex}},
year = {2026},
month = {May},
url = {https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/memphis-tn},
urldate = {2026-05-22},
} About this analysis
Car wash inventory for Memphis, TN is sourced from the WashIndex national car-wash place index, filtered to places whose Google-Maps-reported city matches Memphis, 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 Memphis MSA dataset is established by point-in-polygon against the official US Census county boundaries (TIGER/Line, 2024).
Operating-quality signals are derived from 7,215 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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