Urbandale, IA Car Wash Market Analysis
Part of the Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA MSA.
Data updated · May 22, 2026
2,296 Google reviews across 11 car washes in Urbandale. Format mix, operator rank, county breakdown, rating vs. income, aspect-level customer signals.
Snapshot
- Locations
- 11
- Chains
- 4
- lead: Mister Car Wash (2)
- Avg rating
- 4.49★
- +0.08 vs MSA median
- Damage rate
- 1.0%
- 1.6× below MSA norm
- Top format
- detail shop
- 55% of classified
Market Quality snapshot
- Population
- 46,026
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Households
- 17,040
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Residents per wash
- 4,184
- 2.2× the national MSA median — lighter supply
- Express tunnels per 10K households
- 1.8
- above ~1.5 — heavily built · classified sites
Key findings
- 11 car wash locations operated by 4 chains and 6 independents.
- Weighted Google rating 4.49★ across the market; structural concentration and format mix sit near US-market norms.
- Built from 2,296 Google reviews, 908 of them AI-extracted across 55 dimensions.
11 car wash locations in Urbandale, IA · dots colored by format · sized by review volume
Tracked at 11 car wash locations, Urbandale matches the structural profile of the typical US city market of comparable size. 11 locations across 4 chains and 6 independents. Distinctive patterns show up below at the format and aspect levels.
Average rating across the 11-location market weighs in at 4.49★; damage rate 1.0%; cancel friction 2.7%. Staff is the brightest aspect signal (0.92/+1). 2,296 Google reviews drive the analysis, 908 of them processed through the WashIndex LLM extractor.
See the best-rated car washes in Urbandale, IA
Ranked by Google review rating
About Urbandale, IA
How many car washes are in Urbandale, IA?
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What is the best-rated car wash in Urbandale, IA?
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Which car wash chains operate in Urbandale, IA?
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What is the median household income near Urbandale car washes?
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What is the average car wash rating in Urbandale, IA?
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What kinds of car washes does Urbandale have?
The table below lists every operating format we classify, with locations, reviews, average rating, damage rate, and membership-cancel friction broken out per format. Urbandale's mix sits close to the US-city median shape.
Highest-rated format in this market: Detail Shop at 4.90★ (6 locations). Lowest: In-Bay Automatic at 3.50★ (1 locations).
| Format | Locations | % of MSA | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage Rate | Cancel Friction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Detail Shop | 6 | 54.5% | 899 | 4.90 | 0.55% | — |
| Express Tunnel | 3 | 27.3% | 1,238 | 4.31 | 1.46% | 2.7% |
| Self-Serve Bay | 1 | 9.1% | 20 | 3.20 | 0.00% | — |
| In-Bay Automatic | 1 | 9.1% | 139 | 3.50 | 5.88% | — |
What is the typical household income near Urbandale car washes?
Each ZIP in Urbandale 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 11 qualifying locations: -0.47 — mild negative. Higher-income ZIPs host slightly lower-rated washes on average, which is unusual. Scatter mean: $116K AGI/return, 4.46★.
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 | 8 | 1,691 | 4.58 | Detail Shop (5) |
| $100K – $150K | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | — |
| $150K+ | 1 | 3 | 605 | 4.21 | Express Tunnel (1) |
Top-tier 3 sites, 4.21★ avg; bottom-tier 0 sites, 0.00★. Across Urbandale's 11 qualifying locations, the income gradient correlates only weakly with rating — operator execution dominates.
Who operates the most Urbandale car washes?
The table below ranks the top 25 chains operating in Urbandale by location count. Each row shows per-chain Google rating, damage rate, and cancel friction — the cleanest side-by-side cut on operator quality in the market.
| # | Chain | Locations | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage | Cancel | Upsell |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mister Car Wash | 2 | 775 | 4.14 | 2.90% | — | 0.72% |
| 2 | Clean Works Car Wash | 1 | 20 | 3.20 | — | — | — |
| 3 | Altoona Laserwash | 1 | 139 | 3.50 | — | — | — |
| 4 | Champion Xpress Carwash | 1 | 463 | 4.60 | 0.49% | — | 1.47% |
What do customers love and complain about at Urbandale car washes?
Reading the aspect grid: numbers above 0.3 are strong positives; numbers below -0.1 indicate meaningful friction; in between is mixed signal. staff is the brightest spot here. equipment reliability is the pain point.
Where are the 11 car washes in Urbandale, IA?
The complete inventory of car wash locations in the Urbandale 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Champion Xpress Carwash 10950 Meredith Dr | Urbandale, IA | Express Tunnel | Champion Xpress Carwash | 4.6 | 463 | $84K |
| Mister Car Wash 12035 Hickman Rd | Urbandale, IA | Express Tunnel | Mister Car Wash | 4.1 | 440 | $204K |
| Mister Car Wash 4850 Merle Hay Rd | Urbandale, IA | Express Tunnel | Mister Car Wash | 4.2 | 335 | $84K |
| Dynamic Auto Detailing 6055 NW Aurora Ave. | Urbandale, IA | Detail Shop | — | 4.9 | 233 | $84K |
| DSM Detailing 3321 111th St STE 305 | Urbandale, IA | Detail Shop | — | 4.9 | 199 | $84K |
| SudBuds Detailing - DesMoines NW 156th St | Urbandale, IA | Detail Shop | — | 4.7 | 145 | $204K |
| Hanson Auto Spa 4701 NW Urbandale Dr #216 | Urbandale, IA | Detail Shop | — | 5.0 | 144 | $84K |
| Laserwash of Urbandale 3969 NW Urbandale Dr | Urbandale, IA | In-Bay Automatic | Altoona Laserwash | 3.5 | 139 | $84K |
| DobsonDetails Auto Detailing 3301 111th St Unit 107 | Urbandale, IA | Detail Shop | — | 5.0 | 109 | $84K |
| Majestic Mobile Detailing LLC 10603 Hickory Dr | Urbandale, IA | Detail Shop | — | 5.0 | 69 | $84K |
Compare Urbandale to other car wash markets in the Des Moines 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). Urbandale, IA car wash market analysis. https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/urbandale-ia
WashIndex. "Urbandale, IA car wash market analysis." WashIndex. Last modified May 22, 2026. https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/urbandale-ia.
"Urbandale, IA car wash market analysis." WashIndex, May. 22, 2026, https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/urbandale-ia.
@misc{washindex_car_wash_cities_urbandale_ia_2026,
title = {{Urbandale, IA car wash market analysis}},
author = {{WashIndex}},
year = {2026},
month = {May},
url = {https://washindex.com/car-wash-cities/urbandale-ia},
urldate = {2026-05-22},
} About this analysis
Car wash inventory for Urbandale, IA is sourced from the WashIndex national car-wash place index, filtered to places whose Google-Maps-reported city matches Urbandale, 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 Des Moines MSA dataset is established by point-in-polygon against the official US Census county boundaries (TIGER/Line, 2024).
Operating-quality signals are derived from 908 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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