Stow, OH Car Wash Market Analysis
Part of the Akron, OH MSA.
Data updated · May 22, 2026
A read of Stow's car wash market built from 3,128 Google reviews across 10 locations. Format mix, operator rank, county breakdown, rating vs. income, aspect-level customer signals.
Snapshot
- Locations
- 10
- Chains
- 6
- lead: bp (2)
- Avg rating
- 4.47★
- +0.06 vs MSA median
- Damage rate
- 0.9%
- 1.7× below MSA norm
- Top format
- in-bay automatic
- 50% of classified
- Median single wash
- $12
- range $10–$12
Market Quality snapshot
- Population
- 34,317
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Households
- 14,030
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Residents per wash
- 3,432
- 1.8× the national MSA median — lighter supply
- Express tunnels per 10K households
- 0.7
- in the 0.5–1.0 filling band · classified sites
Key findings
- 10 car wash locations operated by 6 chains and 3 independents.
- Weighted Google rating 4.47★ across the market; structural concentration and format mix sit near US-market norms.
- Built from 3,128 Google reviews, 1,197 of them AI-extracted across 55 dimensions.
10 car wash locations in Stow, OH · dots colored by format · sized by review volume
Stow reads as a balanced car wash market — neither sharply consolidated nor unusually fragmented. 6 chains compete alongside 3 independents — typical mix for a market of 10 car washes. Customer-experience signals across 1,197 AI-extracted reviews produce the distinct read on this market.
Weighted rating 4.47★; damage 0.9%; membership-cancel friction 18.6%. Staff is the brightest aspect signal (0.89/+1). 3,128 Google reviews drive the analysis, 1,197 of them processed through the WashIndex LLM extractor.
Published pricing across the 3 of 10 Stow locations with menus available: median single car wash $12 (range $10–$12).
See the best-rated car washes in Stow, OH
Ranked by Google review rating
What does a car wash cost in Stow, OH?
Published menu pricing for car washes in Stow, captured from operator websites and the WashIndex AI calling agent. 3 of 10 tracked locations in the city have usable published pricing (30% coverage).
| Cheapest single car washes in Stow | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Stow Laserwash Basic | $10 |
| 2 | Take 5 Car Wash Wash | $12 |
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 Stow, OH
How many car washes are in Stow, OH?
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What is the best-rated car wash in Stow, OH?
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Which car wash chains operate in Stow, OH?
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What is the median household income near Stow car washes?
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What is the average car wash rating in Stow, OH?
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How much does a car wash cost in Stow, OH?
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What kinds of car washes does Stow have?
The format mix in Stow 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 4.96★ (3 locations). Lowest: Self-Serve Bay at 3.70★ (1 locations).
| Format | Locations | % of MSA | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage Rate | Cancel Friction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| In-Bay Automatic | 5 | 50.0% | 537 | 3.84 | 3.70% | 12.5% |
| Detail Shop | 3 | 30.0% | 426 | 4.96 | 0.00% | — |
| Self-Serve Bay | 1 | 10.0% | 154 | 3.70 | 8.33% | — |
| Express Tunnel | 1 | 10.0% | 2,011 | 4.60 | 0.57% | 19.4% |
What is the typical household income near Stow car washes?
Each ZIP in Stow is joined to IRS Statistics-of-Income (tax year 2022) and to the per-location Google rating dataset. The scatter below sizes dots by review volume and colors them by format.
Pearson r between ZIP income and rating across 10 qualifying locations: 0.00 — effectively zero. Operating quality dominates over neighborhood income here. Scatter mean: $84K AGI/return, 4.19★.
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 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | — |
| $75K – $100K | 1 | 10 | 3,128 | 4.47 | In-Bay Automatic (5) |
| $100K – $150K | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | — |
| $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 Stow car washes?
6 chains alongside 3 independents make up Stow's car wash supply. The chain rank below shows the multi-location operators' position; the per-location detail near the bottom of the page captures the independent layer.
| # | Chain | Locations | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage | Cancel | Upsell |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | bp | 2 | 115 | 3.29 | — | — | — |
| 2 | Ultimate Wash | 1 | 154 | 3.70 | — | — | — |
| 3 | Blue Falls Car Wash | 1 | 120 | 4.20 | — | — | — |
| 4 | Stow Laserwash | 1 | 86 | 4.70 | — | — | — |
| 5 | Sheetz | 1 | 216 | 3.60 | — | — | — |
| 6 | Take 5 Car Wash | 1 | 2,011 | 4.60 | 0.57% | 19.4% | 0.34% |
What do customers love and complain about at Stow car washes?
The aspect grid below summarizes 1,197 AI-extracted reviews across 10 Stow car wash locations. Each aspect lands on a -1…+1 scale (negative = customers complain more than they praise; positive = the reverse).
Where are the 10 car washes in Stow, OH?
The complete inventory of car wash locations in the Stow market is captured in the underlying dataset; the table below shows the highest-review-volume sites for at-a-glance comparison. Each row shows operator, address, format, chain affiliation, rating, review count, and the IRS mean AGI for the ZIP.
| Location | City | Format | Chain | Rating | Reviews | ZIP AGI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Take 5 Car Wash 4573 Kent Rd | Stow, OH | Express Tunnel | Take 5 Car Wash | 4.6 | 2,011 | $84K |
| Sheetz 950 E Steels Corners Rd | Stow, OH | In-Bay Automatic | Sheetz | 3.6 | 216 | $84K |
| Mitchells Auto Spa 2381 Graham Rd | Stow, OH | Detail Shop | — | 4.9 | 179 | $84K |
| Ultimate Wash (Car Wash) 5559 Fishcreek Rd | Stow, OH | Self-Serve Bay | Ultimate Wash | 3.7 | 154 | $84K |
| JayClean Auto Detail 4660 Darrow Rd | Stow, OH | Detail Shop | — | 5.0 | 129 | $84K |
| Blue Falls Car Wash 3996 Fishcreek Rd | Stow, OH | In-Bay Automatic | Blue Falls Car Wash | 4.2 | 120 | $84K |
| Mikez Mobile Detailing 4606 Fishcreek Rd | Stow, OH | Detail Shop | — | 5.0 | 118 | $84K |
| Stow Laserwash 4150 Kent Rd | Stow, OH | In-Bay Automatic | Stow Laserwash | 4.7 | 86 | $84K |
| bp 959 E Steels Corners Rd | Stow, OH | In-Bay Automatic | bp | 3.5 | 85 | $84K |
| bp 3050 Graham Rd | Stow, OH | In-Bay Automatic | bp | 2.7 | 30 | $84K |
Compare Stow to other car wash markets in the Akron 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). Stow, OH car wash market analysis. https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/stow-oh
WashIndex. "Stow, OH car wash market analysis." WashIndex. Last modified May 22, 2026. https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/stow-oh.
"Stow, OH car wash market analysis." WashIndex, May. 22, 2026, https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/stow-oh.
@misc{washindex_car_wash_cities_stow_oh_2026,
title = {{Stow, OH car wash market analysis}},
author = {{WashIndex}},
year = {2026},
month = {May},
url = {https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/stow-oh},
urldate = {2026-05-22},
} About this analysis
Car wash inventory for Stow, OH is sourced from the WashIndex national car-wash place index, filtered to places whose Google-Maps-reported city matches Stow, 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 Akron MSA dataset is established by point-in-polygon against the official US Census county boundaries (TIGER/Line, 2024).
Operating-quality signals are derived from 1,197 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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