Memphis, TN Car Wash Market Analysis
Part of the Memphis, TN-MS-AR MSA.
Data updated · May 22, 2026
A detailed read of the Memphis car wash market built from 20,878 Google reviews across 46 locations. Covers format mix, operator dominance, geographic distribution, income demographics, and customer-experience signals at the metro, county, and ZIP level.
46 car wash locations in Memphis, TN · dots colored by format · sized by review volume
Memphis, TN hosts 46 car wash locations identified by the WashIndex format classifier within the broader Memphis trade area. Operating-quality signals are derived from 20,878 Google reviews, with 7,215 reviews processed through structured LLM extraction across 55 dimensions. The weighted-average rating across all locations is 4.59★, with a reviewer-reported damage rate of 1.18% and a membership-cancellation friction rate of 13.5% of mem-discussing reviews.
Concentration in this city: 17 of 46 locations (37.0%) operate as independents or single-location operators; the top 10 chains together control 29 locations (63.0%). The largest single operator by location count is Take 5 Car Wash with 7sites in Memphis.
Across all 46 locations, the dominant concept is Express Tunnel (21 sites), with secondary presence from Detail Shop (16), Full Service (2), and Self-Serve Bay (0).
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?
The Memphis MSA contains a wide mix of car wash formats — from express tunnels and full-service operations to detail shops and self-serve bays. The bar chart below shows how many locations of each format have been formally classified by our LLM-based format classifier (which reads each operator's own website to determine the format), with the avg Google rating per format displayed alongside the count.
The format with the highest customer rating is Detail Shop at 4.80★ across 16 locations — typical of the format, which is staffed, hand-finished, and oriented toward customers who care more about wash result than throughput. The lowest-rated format is In-Bay Automatic at 3.92★ across 7 locations. Format-level rating gaps of this size are common — different formats serve different customer occasions and have inherently different expectations.
| 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?
Each ZIP in the Memphis MSA has been joined to IRS Statistics-of-Income data (tax year 2022, mean Adjusted Gross Income per return as the income proxy) and to the per-location Google rating dataset. The scatter below plots every car wash with at least 10 reviews against its ZIP-level income, with each dot colored by format and sized by review volume.
Across 45 qualifying locations the simple Pearson correlation between ZIP income and Google rating is 0.04 — effectively zero. Higher-income ZIPs in the MSA do not produce systematically better-rated car washes. Operating-quality signals are dominated by per-operator execution, not by neighborhood income. The mean-of-scatter location sits at $64K AGI/return and 4.55★.
Car wash count and quality by income tier
Grouping ZIPs by income tier shows how location count and average rating shift across the income distribution. The blue bars are location count per tier; the orange tick marks show the average Google rating across all car wash locations in that tier (scaled against the 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) |
The highest-income tier ($150K+) contains 3 car washes across 2 ZIPs, with a weighted-average rating of 4.06★ — compared to 28 locations across 10 ZIPs averaging 4.58★ in the lowest-income tier (Under $50K). The middle-income tiers ($75K–$150K) tend to host the densest concentrations of express tunnels — the format that monetizes most effectively at suburban price points.
Who operates the most Memphis car washes?
The Memphis MSA hosts 9 different chains alongside 17 independent operators (single-location or unaffiliated sites). The table below ranks the top 25 chains by location count in the MSA, with each chain's per-MSA Google rating, reviewer-reported damage rate, and membership cancellation friction rate.
The top 9 chains together control 29 of 46 locations (63.0%) — meaning 37.0% of the MSA's car wash supply remains in the hands of smaller chains and independent operators. That fragmentation level is typical of large US metros and creates meaningful consolidation runway for active acquirers.
| # | 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?
Aspect scores aggregate the per-review LLM extractions for 7,215 reviews across all 46 MSA locations. Each score is computed as (positive − negative) / (positive + negative + mixed) for that aspect, ranging from −1 (universally negative) to +1 (universally positive). Numbers above zero mean customers say more positive than negative things; below zero means the reverse.
Reading these together gives a quick read on where the metro's car wash industry stands operationally: which aspects of the experience are reliable strengths and which ones generate the most friction.
Where are the 46 car washes in Memphis, TN?
The complete inventory of car wash locations in the Memphis MSA, ranked by review volume. Each row shows the operator name, address, format classification (where determined), chain affiliation (when part of a multi-location operator), Google rating, total review count, county, and the IRS mean-AGI-per-return for the ZIP it sits in. Locations with fewer than 10 reviews on Google appear without a rating column populated.
We're showing the top 10 by review volume; the full set of 46 locations is available in the underlying dataset for users requesting a custom market study.
| 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 |
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.