Staten Island, NY Car Wash Market Analysis
Part of the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA MSA.
Data updated · June 9, 2026
5,040 Google reviews across 31 Staten Island car washes — a detail shop-dominant market. Format dominance breakdown, per-format quality, operator rank, customer-experience signals.
Snapshot
- Locations
- 31
- Chains
- 7
- lead: Wash Hounds Express Car Wash (3)
- Avg rating
- 4.49★
- +0.08 vs MSA median
- Damage rate
- 2.0%
- 1.3× MSA norm
- Top format
- detail shop
- 61% of classified
- Median single wash
- $11
- range $11–$49.99
- Median unlimited
- $22/mo
- cheapest $22/mo at Wash Hounds Car Wash & Oil Change
Market Quality snapshot
- Population
- 492,734
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Households
- 170,047
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Residents per wash
- 15,895
- 8.2× the national MSA median — lighter supply
- Express tunnels per 10K households
- 0.4
- below the ~0.5 expandable band · classified sites
Key findings
- 31 car wash locations operated by 7 chains and 21 independents.
- Detail shop dominates: 61.3% of formally-classified locations.
- Built from 5,040 Google reviews, 2,156 of them AI-extracted across 55 dimensions.
31 car wash locations in Staten Island, NY · dots colored by format · sized by review volume
Staten Island's car wash supply is structurally tilted toward detail shop. 61.3% of formally-classified locations operate as detail shop; the other formats appear at long-tail volume. That makes the metro a useful read on how detail shop performs at scale.
Weighted rating across the market is 4.49★; damage runs 2.0%. The dominant detail shop averages 4.84★ on its own. Staff stands out positively (0.86/+1). 5,040 Google reviews back the analysis, 2,156 LLM-extracted across 55 dimensions.
Published pricing across the 6 of 32 Staten Island locations with menus available: median single car wash $11 (range $11–$49.99), median unlimited membership $22/month (range $22–$22/mo). The cheapest unlimited membership in the city is $22/mo at Wash Hounds Car Wash & Oil Change (Silver).
See the best-rated car washes in Staten Island, NY
Ranked by Google review rating
What does a car wash cost in Staten Island, NY?
Published menu pricing for car washes in Staten Island, captured from operator websites and the WashIndex AI calling agent. 6 of 32 tracked locations in the city have usable published pricing (19% coverage).
| Cheapest unlimited memberships in Staten Island | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wash Hounds Car Wash & Oil Change Silver | $22/mo |
| 2 | MVP Wash & Lube Silver | $22/mo |
| 3 | Wash Hounds Express Car Wash Silver | $22/mo |
| Cheapest single car washes in Staten Island | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wash Hounds Car Wash & Oil Change EXTERIOR ONLY | $11 |
| 2 | MVP Wash & Lube EXTERIOR ONLY | $11 |
| 3 | Wash Hounds Express Car Wash EXTERIOR ONLY | $11 |
| 4 | Gloss Boss Mobile Auto Detailing Exterior Hand Wash Only | $49.99 |
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.
Car wash financing in Staten Island, NY
Since 2010, the U.S. Small Business Administration has backed 6 car-wash loans in Staten Island, NY worth $3.5M, at a median of $62,750 per car wash. About 20% funded brand-new or startup car washes.
FY2026 annualized from its first 6 months.
- New build / open17% · $3.1M
- Expansion / improvement33% · $63K
- Working capital33% · $28K
- Unclassified17% · $270K
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 Staten Island, NY
How many car washes are in Staten Island, NY?
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What is the best-rated car wash in Staten Island, NY?
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Which car wash chains operate in Staten Island, NY?
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What is the median household income near Staten Island car washes?
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What is the average car wash rating in Staten Island, NY?
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How much does a car wash cost in Staten Island, NY?
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How much does an unlimited car wash membership cost in Staten Island, NY?
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What is the cheapest car wash in Staten Island, NY?
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What kinds of car washes does Staten Island have?
Format dominance is the structural story here. 19 of the 31 car washes in Staten Island run as detail shop. The mini-table below shows how the rest of the market splits.
Highest-rated format in this market: Detail Shop at 4.84★ (19 locations). Lowest: Full Service at 4.19★ (2 locations).
| Format | Locations | % of MSA | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage Rate | Cancel Friction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Detail Shop | 19 | 61.3% | 2,319 | 4.84 | 0.74% | 0.0% |
| Express Tunnel | 7 | 22.6% | 2,332 | 4.19 | 3.18% | 14.7% |
| In-Bay Automatic | 2 | 6.5% | 66 | 3.83 | 0.00% | — |
| Full Service | 2 | 6.5% | 240 | 4.19 | 4.73% | 0.0% |
| Self-Serve Bay | 1 | 3.2% | 83 | 4.40 | 0.00% | — |
What is the typical household income near Staten Island car washes?
31 car washes with ≥10 reviews are plotted below against ZIP-level mean AGI. With detail shop carrying 61.3% of classified locations, dot color reads heavily skewed toward a single hue.
Pearson r between ZIP income and rating across 31 qualifying locations: 0.05 — effectively zero. Operating quality dominates over neighborhood income here. Scatter mean: $80K AGI/return, 4.62★.
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 | 2,650 | 4.41 | Detail Shop (6) |
| $75K – $100K | 6 | 15 | 2,117 | 4.56 | Detail Shop (9) |
| $100K – $150K | 2 | 6 | 273 | 4.79 | Detail Shop (5) |
| $150K+ | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | — |
0 car washes at the top income tier (0.00★) vs. 0 at the bottom (0.00★). Detail shops concentrate in middle-income ZIPs — that's the part of the curve where the unit economics actually work.
Who operates the most Staten Island car washes?
In Staten Island, the chain rank below is closely tied to format dominance — the largest operators tend to be the ones that built out the dominant detail shop at scale. Per-chain quality numbers help separate format-correlated signal from operator-correlated signal.
| # | Chain | Locations | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage | Cancel | Upsell |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wash Hounds Express Car Wash | 3 | 1,450 | 4.20 | 1.76% | 9.7% | 0.53% |
| 2 | Express Auto Spa - Jackson | 2 | 436 | 4.12 | 4.78% | 22.4% | 1.74% |
| 3 | NYC Mobile Auto Detailing | 1 | 50 | 5.00 | — | — | — |
| 4 | bp | 1 | 49 | 3.80 | — | — | — |
| 5 | URBAN XPRESS WASH | 1 | 63 | 4.00 | — | — | — |
| 6 | Duke Boyz | 1 | 90 | 3.50 | — | — | — |
| 7 | Shell | 1 | 17 | 3.90 | — | — | — |
What do customers love and complain about at Staten Island car washes?
Staff stands out positively (0.86); equipment reliability stands out as the friction point (-0.75).
Where are the 31 car washes in Staten Island, NY?
31 locations; the most-reviewed are shown below. In a format-concentrated market, the location table is mostly a leaderboard for the dominant format's top operators.
| Location | City | Format | Chain | Rating | Reviews | ZIP AGI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wash Hounds Car Wash & Oil Change 2321 Forest Ave | Staten Island, NY | Express Tunnel | Wash Hounds Express Car Wash | 4.8 | 583 | $54K |
| MVP Wash & Lube 2321 Forest Ave | Staten Island, NY | Express Tunnel | Wash Hounds Express Car Wash | 3.2 | 525 | $54K |
| Brighton Hand Car Wash 823 Forest Ave | Staten Island, NY | Detail Shop | — | 4.5 | 522 | $74K |
| Express Auto Spa - Staten Island 2042 Hylan Blvd | Staten Island, NY | Express Tunnel | Express Auto Spa - Jackson | 4.1 | 410 | $82K |
| Armstrong Car Wash 522 Armstrong Ave | Staten Island, NY | Express Tunnel | — | 4.3 | 383 | $89K |
| Wash Hounds Express Car Wash 1995 Forest Ave | Staten Island, NY | Express Tunnel | Wash Hounds Express Car Wash | 4.7 | 342 | $54K |
| THE GOAT - Design Wrap Detail 389 Wild Ave | Staten Island, NY | Detail Shop | — | 5.0 | 284 | $83K |
| Dema Auto Inc 396 Bay St | Staten Island, NY | Detail Shop | — | 5.0 | 226 | $82K |
| Never Ride Stock 2041 Hylan Blvd Suite B | Staten Island, NY | Detail Shop | — | 4.9 | 221 | $82K |
| Paradise Island Auto Spa - Hand Car Wash 2246 Forest Ave | Staten Island, NY | Full Service | — | 4.6 | 150 | $54K |
Compare Staten Island to other car wash markets in the New York 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). Staten Island, NY car wash market analysis. https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/staten-island-ny
WashIndex. "Staten Island, NY car wash market analysis." WashIndex. Last modified June 9, 2026. https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/staten-island-ny.
"Staten Island, NY car wash market analysis." WashIndex, Jun. 9, 2026, https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/staten-island-ny.
@misc{washindex_car_wash_cities_staten_island_ny_2026,
title = {{Staten Island, NY car wash market analysis}},
author = {{WashIndex}},
year = {2026},
month = {Jun},
url = {https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/staten-island-ny},
urldate = {2026-06-09},
} About this analysis
Car wash inventory for Staten Island, NY is sourced from the WashIndex national car-wash place index, filtered to places whose Google-Maps-reported city matches Staten Island, 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 New York MSA dataset is established by point-in-polygon against the official US Census county boundaries (TIGER/Line, 2024).
Operating-quality signals are derived from 2,156 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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