Rockford, IL Car Wash Market Analysis
Part of the Rockford, IL MSA.
Data updated · May 22, 2026
29 car washes, 9 chains, 1,271 AI-extracted reviews — concentrated more than the typical US market. Per-chain ratings vs. footprint, format mix, customer-experience signals across the chain-heavy market.
Snapshot
- Locations
- 29
- Chains
- 9
- lead: Kelley's Market (5)
- Avg rating
- 4.40★
- Damage rate
- 1.7%
- Top format
- in-bay automatic
- 52% of classified
- Median single wash
- $10
- range $6–$50
- Median unlimited
- $22.99/mo
- cheapest $15/mo at Swift Wash
Market Quality snapshot
- Population
- 169,167
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Households
- 71,017
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Residents per wash
- 5,833
- 3.0× the national MSA median — lighter supply
- Express tunnels per 10K households
- 0.4
- below the ~0.5 expandable band · classified sites
Key findings
- 29 car wash locations operated by 9 chains and 9 independents.
- Top 10 chains control 69.0% of locations — above the 11.4% US-market median, led by Kelley's Market (5 sites).
- Built from 10,642 Google reviews, 1,271 of them AI-extracted across 55 dimensions.
29 car wash locations in Rockford, IL · dots colored by format · sized by review volume
Among the US city markets we track, Rockford is a relatively consolidated example. Across 29 tracked locations, the top ten operators control 69.0% of supply — above the 11.4% US-market median, with Kelley's Market the largest at 5 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 4.40★; reviewer-reported damage runs at 1.7%, and membership-cancellation friction at 12.8% of mem-discussing reviews. Equipment reliability is the sharpest friction point (-0.52). Because the operator mix is concentrated, those numbers behave more like chain averages than market averages.
Published pricing across the 4 of 29 Rockford locations with menus available: median single car wash $10 (range $6–$50), median unlimited membership $22.99/month (range $15–$65/mo). The cheapest unlimited membership in the city is $15/mo at Swift Wash (Basic).
See the best-rated car washes in Rockford, IL
Ranked by Google review rating
What does a car wash cost in Rockford, IL?
Published menu pricing for car washes in Rockford, captured from operator websites and the WashIndex AI calling agent. 4 of 29 tracked locations in the city have usable published pricing (14% coverage).
| Cheapest unlimited memberships in Rockford | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Swift Wash Basic | $15/mo |
| 2 | Mister Car Wash BASE | $22.99/mo |
| 3 | 37 Customs Collection | $65/mo |
| Cheapest single car washes in Rockford | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Auburn Car Wash Touchless Automatic - Maximum | $6 |
| 2 | Mister Car Wash Base | $10 |
| 3 | 37 Customs Collection | $50 |
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 Rockford, IL
How many car washes are in Rockford, IL?
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What is the best-rated car wash in Rockford, IL?
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Which car wash chains operate in Rockford, IL?
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What is the median household income near Rockford car washes?
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What is the average car wash rating in Rockford, IL?
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How much does a car wash cost in Rockford, IL?
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How much does an unlimited car wash membership cost in Rockford, IL?
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What is the cheapest car wash in Rockford, IL?
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What kinds of car washes does Rockford have?
Because chain operators have consolidated supply here, format counts below skew toward the formats those chains build at scale. The lowest-rated format is usually a long-tail mix of small operators rather than a meaningful share of the market.
Highest-rated format in this market: Detail Shop at 4.76★ (8 locations). Lowest: Self-Serve Bay at 3.75★ (3 locations).
| Format | Locations | % of MSA | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage Rate | Cancel Friction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| In-Bay Automatic | 15 | 51.7% | 6,806 | 4.52 | 0.00% | 0.0% |
| Detail Shop | 8 | 27.6% | 613 | 4.76 | 0.32% | — |
| Self-Serve Bay | 3 | 10.3% | 849 | 3.75 | 6.03% | 9.1% |
| Express Tunnel | 3 | 10.3% | 2,374 | 4.18 | 4.05% | 14.5% |
What is the typical household income near Rockford car washes?
In a chain-consolidated market like Rockford, 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 29 qualifying locations: -0.37 — mild negative. Higher-income ZIPs host slightly lower-rated washes on average, which is unusual. Scatter mean: $61K AGI/return, 4.26★.
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 | 3 | 7 | 1,211 | 4.59 | Detail Shop (3) |
| $50K – $75K | 3 | 15 | 3,038 | 4.05 | In-Bay Automatic (7) |
| $75K – $100K | 1 | 4 | 194 | 3.70 | In-Bay Automatic (4) |
| $100K – $150K | 1 | 3 | 6,199 | 4.55 | In-Bay Automatic (2) |
| $150K+ | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | — |
The highest-income tier ($150K+) holds 0 car washes across 0 ZIPs at 0.00★; the lowest-income tier (Under $50K) holds 7 across 3 ZIPs at 4.59★. In a chain-consolidated market like Rockford, the income mix mostly reads as a record of where the top operators chose to deploy — middle-income ZIPs typically anchor the densest rollouts.
Who operates the most Rockford car washes?
In Rockford, where chain share runs above the US-market median, the chain-level breakdown below is where most of the operating-quality signal sits. Kelley's Market alone runs 5 of the metro's 29 sites; per-chain rating, damage rate, and membership-friction numbers follow.
| # | Chain | Locations | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage | Cancel | Upsell |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kelley's Market | 5 | 234 | 4.12 | — | — | — |
| 2 | bp | 4 | 198 | 3.74 | — | — | — |
| 3 | Circle K | 3 | 69 | 4.16 | — | — | — |
| 4 | Woodman's Gas Station | 2 | 6,050 | 4.59 | 0.00% | — | 0.23% |
| 5 | WOW Wash Car Wash | 2 | 749 | 3.74 | 6.31% | — | 1.80% |
| 6 | Mister Car Wash | 1 | 693 | 3.80 | — | — | — |
| 7 | Rainstorm Car Wash | 1 | 1,095 | 4.20 | — | — | — |
| 8 | Swift Wash | 1 | 586 | 4.60 | 2.58% | 11.9% | 2.58% |
| 9 | Phillips 66 | 1 | 255 | 4.00 | — | — | — |
What do customers love and complain about at Rockford car washes?
1,271 reviews feed the aspect grid below; each is computed as (positive − negative) / total, on a -1…+1 scale. In Rockford, the dominant chains' aspect profiles drive most of the metro-wide score.
Where are the 29 car washes in Rockford, IL?
Locations table below: ranked by review count, with format, chain affiliation, rating, and ZIP-level IRS AGI for context. In a consolidated market like Rockford, the chain column is the most useful filter.
| Location | City | Format | Chain | Rating | Reviews | ZIP AGI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Woodman's Food Market 3155 McFarland Rd | Rockford, IL | In-Bay Automatic | Woodman's Gas Station | 4.6 | 5,728 | $104K |
| Rainstorm Car Wash 5051 E State St | Rockford, IL | Express Tunnel | Rainstorm Car Wash | 4.2 | 1,095 | $56K |
| Mister Car Wash 3708 E State St | Rockford, IL | Express Tunnel | Mister Car Wash | 3.8 | 693 | $56K |
| WOW Wash Car Wash 999 S Perryville Rd | Rockford, IL | Self-Serve Bay | WOW Wash Car Wash | 3.9 | 600 | $56K |
| Swift Wash 3901 W Riverside Blvd | Rockford, IL | Express Tunnel | Swift Wash | 4.6 | 586 | $45K |
| Woodman's Gas Station 3155 McFarland Rd | Rockford, IL | In-Bay Automatic | Woodman's Gas Station | 4.4 | 322 | $104K |
| Phillips 66 4415 Sandy Hollow Rd | Rockford, IL | In-Bay Automatic | Phillips 66 | 4.0 | 255 | $53K |
| VIP Mobile Shop Detail 2616 Kilburn Ave | Rockford, IL | Detail Shop | — | 5.0 | 226 | $45K |
| WOW Car Wash Riverside 1729 E Riverside Blvd | Rockford, IL | Self-Serve Bay | WOW Wash Car Wash | 3.1 | 149 | $104K |
| Die Hard Detailing 2013 Harrison Ave | Rockford, IL | Detail Shop | — | 5.0 | 130 | $33K |
Compare Rockford to other car wash markets in the Rockford 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). Rockford, IL car wash market analysis. https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/rockford-il
WashIndex. "Rockford, IL car wash market analysis." WashIndex. Last modified May 22, 2026. https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/rockford-il.
"Rockford, IL car wash market analysis." WashIndex, May. 22, 2026, https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/rockford-il.
@misc{washindex_car_wash_cities_rockford_il_2026,
title = {{Rockford, IL car wash market analysis}},
author = {{WashIndex}},
year = {2026},
month = {May},
url = {https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/rockford-il},
urldate = {2026-05-22},
} About this analysis
Car wash inventory for Rockford, IL is sourced from the WashIndex national car-wash place index, filtered to places whose Google-Maps-reported city matches Rockford, 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 Rockford MSA dataset is established by point-in-polygon against the official US Census county boundaries (TIGER/Line, 2024).
Operating-quality signals are derived from 1,271 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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