Akron Car Wash Market Analysis
Akron, OH
Data updated · May 22, 2026
A detailed read of the Akron car wash industry built from 42,552 Google reviews across 326 locations in 2 counties. Covers format mix, operator dominance, geographic distribution, income demographics, and customer-experience signals at the metro, county, and ZIP level.
326 car wash locations across 2 counties · dots colored by format · sized by review volume
The Akron metropolitan area hosts 326 car wash locations across its 2 counties — among the largest car-wash trade areas in the United States. Operating-quality signals are derived from 42,552 Google reviews, with 11,612 reviews processed through structured LLM extraction across 55 dimensions. The weighted-average rating across all locations is 4.43★, with a reviewer-reported damage rate of 1.20% and a membership-cancellation friction rate of 18.9% of mem-discussing reviews.
The market is highly fragmented: 256 of 326 locations (78.5%) operate as independents or single-location operators, while the top 10 chains together control 46 locations (14.1%). The largest single operator by location count is Sheetz with 10 sites in the MSA.
Of 102 locations that have been formally format-classified, the dominant concept is Detail Shop (36 sites), with strong secondary presence from Express Tunnel (24), Full Service (7), and Self-Serve Bay (4). The remaining 224 locations are unclassified — typically smaller independent operators without enough website signal for format assignment.
Published pricing across the 39 of 326 Akron locations with menus available: median single car wash $11 (range $10–$50), median unlimited membership $28/month (range $17.99–$60/mo). The cheapest unlimited membership in the metro is $17.99/mo at GetGo Café + Market & WetGo Car Wash (Guard Pass).
See the top car wash chains in Akron
Ranked by location count in the metro
What does a car wash cost in the Akron metro?
Published menu pricing for car washes in the Akron metropolitan area, captured from operator websites and the WashIndex AI calling agent. 39 of 326 tracked locations have usable published pricing (12% coverage).
| Cheapest unlimited memberships in Akron | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | GetGo Café + Market & WetGo Car Wash Guard Pass | $17.99 per mo |
| 2 | GetGo Café + Market & WetGo Car Wash Guard Pass | $17.99 per mo |
| 3 | Clean Express Auto Wash Basic Deal | $20 per mo |
| 4 | Quality Scrub Car Wash Express | $22 per mo |
| 5 | Clean Express Auto Wash The Basic Bee | $22 per mo |
| Cheapest single car washes in Akron | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Speedy Wash and Lube-Car Wash (Lube Hours Differ, Check Website) Pit Stop Wash | $10 |
| 2 | Whistle Express Car Wash INCLUDES PROTECT | $10 |
| 3 | Quality Scrub Car Wash Express | $10 |
| 4 | Quality Scrub Car Wash Express | $10 |
| 5 | Quality Scrub Car Wash Express | $10 |
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 the Akron car wash market
How many car washes are in the Akron metro?
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What is the best-rated car wash in the Akron metro?
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Which car wash chain has the most locations in Akron?
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What is the average customer rating in the Akron car wash market?
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What is the typical household income near car washes in Akron?
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How much does a car wash cost in Akron?
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How much does an unlimited car wash membership cost in Akron?
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What is the cheapest car wash in Akron?
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What kinds of car washes does Akron have?
The Akron 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 4.91★ across 36 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 Self-Serve Bay at 3.61★ across 4 locations. Format-level rating gaps of this size are common — different formats serve different customer occasions and have inherently different expectations.
Of the 326 total locations in the MSA, 224 (68.7%) are currently unclassified — these are typically smaller independent operators without enough website signal to determine format unambiguously. Their inclusion in the overall location count is correct, but format-level statistics below should be read as describing the classified subset only.
| Format | Locations | % of MSA | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage Rate | Cancel Friction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unclassified | 224 | 68.7% | 20,145 | 4.50 | 0.45% | 20.0% |
| Detail Shop | 36 | 11.0% | 2,322 | 4.91 | 0.25% | 0.0% |
| In-Bay Automatic | 31 | 9.5% | 4,387 | 3.77 | 1.56% | 13.6% |
| Express Tunnel | 24 | 7.4% | 13,841 | 4.51 | 1.85% | 19.0% |
| Full Service | 7 | 2.1% | 1,487 | 4.17 | 9.22% | 21.7% |
| Self-Serve Bay | 4 | 1.2% | 370 | 3.61 | 2.94% | 0.0% |
What is the household income near Akron car washes?
Each ZIP in the Akron 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 175 qualifying locations the simple Pearson correlation between ZIP income and Google rating is -0.02 — 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 $73K AGI/return and 4.23★.
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 | 9 | 51 | 13,426 | 4.61 | Detail Shop (5) |
| $50K – $75K | 13 | 99 | 13,684 | 4.30 | In-Bay Automatic (16) |
| $75K – $100K | 10 | 62 | 13,160 | 4.40 | Detail Shop (15) |
| $100K – $150K | 3 | 8 | 245 | 4.35 | Detail Shop (2) |
| $150K+ | 3 | 16 | 1,464 | 4.14 | Detail Shop (3) |
The highest-income tier ($150K+) contains 16 car washes across 3 ZIPs, with a weighted-average rating of 4.14★ — compared to 51 locations across 9 ZIPs averaging 4.61★ 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 Akron car washes?
The Akron MSA hosts 24 different chains alongside 256 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 10 chains together control 46 of 326 locations (14.1%) — meaning 85.9% 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 | Sheetz | 10 | 2,093 | 3.43 | 0.22% | — | 0.00% |
| 2 | bp | 7 | 394 | 3.58 | — | — | — |
| 3 | Quality Scrub Car Wash | 5 | 1,238 | 4.18 | — | — | — |
| 4 | United Auto Wash | 5 | 740 | 4.14 | 1.35% | 11.4% | 0.68% |
| 5 | Ultimate Wash | 4 | 370 | 3.61 | — | — | — |
| 6 | Blue Falls Car Wash | 4 | 410 | 3.97 | 7.69% | — | 0.77% |
| 7 | Hometown Car Wash | 3 | 377 | 4.19 | — | — | — |
| 8 | Sgt. Clean Car Wash | 3 | 1,015 | 4.39 | 3.92% | 3.7% | 1.31% |
| 9 | ModWash | 3 | 4,510 | 4.86 | 0.60% | 17.1% | 0.23% |
| 10 | GetGo Café + Market & WetGo Car Wash | 2 | 202 | 2.90 | — | — | — |
| 11 | Petit Auto Wash | 2 | 374 | 3.94 | — | — | — |
| 12 | Country Clean Car Wash | 2 | 313 | 4.06 | — | — | — |
| 13 | Clean Express Auto Wash | 2 | 624 | 4.44 | — | — | — |
| 14 | Macedonia Laser Wash | 2 | 172 | 4.14 | — | — | — |
| 15 | Hoodiewan’s Mobile Car Detailing | 2 | 70 | 4.80 | — | — | — |
| 16 | Whistle Express Car Wash | 2 | 787 | 4.22 | 11.55% | 25.0% | 0.00% |
| 17 | Stow Laserwash | 2 | 395 | 4.62 | — | — | — |
| 18 | Splash Car Wash of Green | 2 | 1,205 | 4.05 | 4.94% | — | 1.85% |
| 19 | Rubber Duck Auto Wash | 2 | 131 | 4.01 | — | — | — |
| 20 | Take 5 Car Wash | 2 | 3,338 | 4.60 | 0.78% | 22.6% | 0.43% |
| 21 | Waterway Carwash | 1 | 235 | 4.10 | — | — | — |
| 22 | Soak City Car Wash | 1 | 474 | 4.30 | 4.50% | — | 1.80% |
| 23 | Wheely Clean Car Wash | 1 | 213 | 4.20 | — | — | — |
| 24 | Willo Wash Ravenna | 1 | 120 | 4.10 | — | — | — |
Which counties have the most car washes in Akron?
The Akron, OH CBSA spans 2 counties. The table below shows how the MSA's car wash inventory is distributed across those counties — by location count, total review volume, and weighted-average customer rating.
Summit County is the heart of the metro's car wash supply, hosting 259 locations (79.4%) of the 326 total. Cross-county rating dispersion is narrow — about 0.25★ between the highest and lowest-rated county with meaningful sample size, which suggests operating quality is more a function of operator execution than of county-level market dynamics.
| County | Locations | % of MSA | Reviews | Avg Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Summit County | 259 | 79.4% | 37,817 | 4.46 |
| Portage County | 67 | 20.6% | 4,735 | 4.21 |
What do customers love and complain about in Akron?
Aspect scores aggregate the per-review LLM extractions for 11,612 reviews across all 326 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 all the car washes in the Akron metro?
The complete inventory of car wash locations in the Akron 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 25 by review volume; the full set of 326 locations is available in the underlying dataset for users requesting a custom market study.
| Location | City | Format | Chain | Rating | Reviews | ZIP AGI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| North Coast Mitsubishi Akron 1875 Brittain Rd | Akron, OH | — | — | 4.7 | 10,115 | $37K |
| ModWash 3152 Manchester Rd | Akron, OH | Express Tunnel | ModWash | 4.9 | 2,673 | $74K |
| Prestige Auto Mall 1559 State Rd | Cuyahoga Falls, OH | — | — | 4.4 | 2,226 | $83K |
| Take 5 Car Wash 4573 Kent Rd | Stow, OH | Express Tunnel | Take 5 Car Wash | 4.6 | 2,011 | $84K |
| Take 5 Car Wash 8581 Darrow Rd | Twinsburg, OH | Express Tunnel | Take 5 Car Wash | 4.6 | 1,327 | $88K |
| ModWash 505 West Ave | Tallmadge, OH | Express Tunnel | ModWash | 4.8 | 1,143 | $75K |
| Perfect Auto Collection 895 E Tallmadge Ave | Akron, OH | — | — | 4.7 | 909 | $37K |
| Speedy Wash and Lube-Car Wash (Lube Hours Differ, Check Website) 3160 Barber Rd | Barberton, OH | Express Tunnel | — | 4.3 | 773 | $56K |
| ModWash 1788 E Main St | Kent, OH | Express Tunnel | ModWash | 4.8 | 694 | $65K |
| Splash Car Wash of Fairlawn 130 S Cleveland Massillon Rd | Fairlawn, OH | Express Tunnel | Splash Car Wash of Green | 4.1 | 653 | $166K |
| Whistle Express Car Wash 135 Tallmadge Rd | Kent, OH | Express Tunnel | Whistle Express Car Wash | 4.4 | 628 | $65K |
| Splash Car Wash of Green 3405 S Arlington Rd | Akron, OH | Express Tunnel | Splash Car Wash of Green | 4.0 | 552 | $56K |
| Sgt. Clean Car Wash 3673 Massillon Rd | Uniontown, OH | Express Tunnel | Sgt. Clean Car Wash | 4.3 | 536 | $93K |
| Sheetz 6941 OH-44 | Ravenna, OH | In-Bay Automatic | Sheetz | 4.0 | 510 | $60K |
| Soak City Car Wash 2156 E Waterloo Rd | Akron, OH | Express Tunnel | Soak City Car Wash | 4.3 | 474 | $56K |
| Quality Scrub Car Wash 2960 State Rd | Cuyahoga Falls, OH | Full Service | Quality Scrub Car Wash | 4.3 | 452 | $83K |
| Clean Express Auto Wash 9475 OH-14 | Streetsboro, OH | Express Tunnel | Clean Express Auto Wash | 4.5 | 443 | $71K |
| Big Mike's Automotive & Collision 556 4th St NW | Barberton, OH | — | — | 4.7 | 382 | $56K |
| Splash Car wash of Coventry 3385 Manchester Rd | Akron, OH | — | — | 4.2 | 351 | $74K |
| United Auto Wash 1021 Graham Rd | Cuyahoga Falls, OH | — | United Auto Wash | 4.1 | 337 | $84K |
| Falls Laserwash 1675 Portage Trail | Cuyahoga Falls, OH | In-Bay Automatic | Stow Laserwash | 4.6 | 309 | $83K |
| Sgt. Clean Car Wash 2743 2nd St | Cuyahoga Falls, OH | Express Tunnel | Sgt. Clean Car Wash | 4.5 | 308 | $53K |
| Sheetz 20 W Waterloo Rd | Akron, OH | In-Bay Automatic | Sheetz | 3.0 | 306 | $74K |
| Quick Clean Car & Pet Wash Store, Ltd. 2500 Mayfair Rd | Akron, OH | In-Bay Automatic | Hometown Car Wash | 4.2 | 281 | $56K |
| Petit Auto Wash, Krancz Dr. 4749 Krancz Dr | Norton, OH | — | — | 4.1 | 276 | $56K |
About this analysis
Car wash inventory for the Akron, OH CBSA is determined by point-in-polygon test against the official US Census county boundaries (TIGER/Line, 2024) for the 2 counties that make up the MSA. Each location was verified to fall inside one of those county polygons; lat/lng comes from Google Maps metadata.
Operating-quality signals are derived from 11,612 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.