Albuquerque Car Wash Market Analysis
Albuquerque, NM
Data updated · September 26, 2026
48,463 Google reviews across 460 car washes in 4 Albuquerque counties. Format mix, operator rank, county breakdown, rating vs. income, aspect-level customer signals.
Snapshot
- Locations
- 460
- 88% independent
- Chains
- 12
- lead: Mister Car Wash (18 sites)
- Avg rating
- 4.24★
- -0.17 vs national MSA median
- Damage rate
- 2.1%
- 1.3× national MSA norm
- Cancel friction
- 12.7%
- Top format
- express tunnel
- 56% of classified inventory
Market Quality snapshot
- Population
- 918,567
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Households
- 371,906
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Residents per wash
- 1,997
- near the national MSA median
- Express tunnels per 10K households
- 1.2
- above ~1.0 — contested · classified sites
Key findings
- 460 car wash locations operated by 12 chains and 403 independents across 4 counties.
- Weighted Google rating 4.24★ across the market; structural concentration and format mix sit near US-metro norms.
- Built from 48,463 Google reviews, 14,206 of them AI-extracted across 55 dimensions.
460 car wash locations across 4 counties · dots colored by format · sized by review volume
No single structural signal jumps out for Albuquerque — it's a mid-shape car wash market. 12 chains compete alongside 403 independents — typical mix for a market of 460 car washes. Customer-experience signals across 14,206 AI-extracted reviews produce the distinct read on this market.
Weighted rating 4.24★; damage 2.1%; membership-cancel friction 12.7%. Staff is the brightest aspect signal (0.80/+1). 48,463 Google reviews drive the analysis, 14,206 of them processed through the WashIndex LLM extractor.
See the top car wash chains in Albuquerque
Ranked by location count in the metro
The car wash industry in the Albuquerque metro, officially
Fast-growingthe Albuquerque metro is one of the faster-growing car-wash job markets: employer establishments grew 16% from 2022 to 2024 — ahead of the ~7% national pace — to 50, now employing about 739 people at a $33,018 average wage.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, QCEW (private, NAICS 811192). Counts car-wash employer establishments, a narrower universe than all physical wash locations — see methodology.
Car wash financing in the Albuquerque metro
Build-out marketSince 2010, the U.S. Small Business Administration has backed 15 car-wash loans in the Albuquerque metro worth $13.9M, at a $974,000 median per car wash and a 16.7% charge-off rate. Early read: the mix tilts toward new construction — 60% of loans funded brand-new washes — pointing to a market where operators are still adding supply.
FY2026 annualized from its first 6 months.
- Bernalillo 11
- Sandoval 3
- Valencia 1
- New build / open60% · $1.3M
- Acquisition7% · $250K
- Expansion / improvement33% · $974K
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 the Albuquerque car wash market
How many car washes are in the Albuquerque metro?
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What is the best-rated car wash in the Albuquerque metro?
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Which car wash chain has the most locations in Albuquerque?
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What is the average customer rating in the Albuquerque car wash market?
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What is the typical household income near car washes in Albuquerque?
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What kinds of car washes does Albuquerque have?
The format mix in Albuquerque reads as a typical mid-market US metro — 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: Detail Shop at 4.75★ across 30 locations. Lowest-rated: Full Service at 3.50★ (1 locations).
381 (82.8%) of 460 locations are unclassified — small independents whose websites don't surface enough signal for format assignment. Format-level statistics describe the classified subset only.
| Format | Locations | % of MSA | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage Rate | Cancel Friction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unclassified | 381 | 82.8% | 16,859 | 4.36 | 1.11% | 0.0% |
| Express Tunnel | 44 | 9.6% | 27,807 | 4.14 | 2.97% | 13.0% |
| Detail Shop | 30 | 6.5% | 2,842 | 4.75 | 0.70% | 0.0% |
| Self-Serve Bay | 3 | 0.7% | 428 | 3.84 | 1.57% | — |
| In-Bay Automatic | 1 | 0.2% | 42 | 3.40 | 0.00% | — |
| Full Service | 1 | 0.2% | 485 | 3.50 | 10.00% | 0.0% |
What is the household income near Albuquerque car washes?
Read together with the format mix above, the income scatter below tells you whether car wash quality in Albuquerque tracks neighborhood income, format mix, or neither. Operating quality usually dominates this picture.
Pearson r between ZIP income and Google rating across 156 qualifying locations: 0.11 — mild positive. Higher-income ZIPs host slightly better-rated washes, but operator execution still dominates. Scatter mean: $70K AGI/return, 4.31★.
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 | 5 | 35 | 6,485 | 4.37 | Express Tunnel (5) |
| $50K – $75K | 10 | 120 | 24,537 | 4.22 | Express Tunnel (24) |
| $75K – $100K | 9 | 71 | 13,518 | 4.14 | Express Tunnel (14) |
| $100K – $150K | 3 | 9 | 1,926 | 4.18 | Detail Shop (1) |
| $150K+ | 1 | 1 | 61 | 5.00 | Detail Shop (1) |
Top-tier 1 sites, 5.00★ avg; bottom-tier 35 sites, 4.37★. Across Albuquerque's 156 qualifying locations, the income gradient correlates only weakly with rating — operator execution dominates.
Who operates the most Albuquerque car washes?
12 chains alongside 403 independents make up Albuquerque'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 | Mister Car Wash | 18 | 13,712 | 3.93 | 3.89% | 13.9% | 0.81% |
| 2 | Champion Xpress Carwash | 17 | 8,593 | 4.29 | 3.30% | 13.0% | 0.90% |
| 3 | Phillips 66 | 5 | 1,202 | 4.05 | — | — | — |
| 4 | Quickshine Express Car Wash | 4 | 1,651 | 4.09 | 6.53% | 37.5% | 0.82% |
| 5 | Car Crafters | 3 | 1,267 | 4.15 | 4.36% | — | 0.44% |
| 6 | Chevron | 2 | 50 | 3.33 | — | — | — |
| 7 | DK Mobile Wash | 2 | 173 | 4.40 | 1.88% | — | 0.63% |
| 8 | Shell | 2 | 113 | 3.30 | — | — | — |
| 9 | Tidal Wave Auto Spa | Car Wash | 1 | 376 | 4.60 | 2.31% | 10.0% | 0.66% |
| 10 | Circle K | 1 | 42 | 3.40 | — | — | — |
| 11 | Rainbow Auto Wash | 1 | 122 | 4.80 | — | — | — |
| 12 | Trademark Car Wash | 1 | 2,899 | 4.60 | 0.27% | 4.1% | 0.20% |
Which counties have the most car washes in Albuquerque?
Counties of the Albuquerque CBSA are listed below by car wash count. Bernalillo County is the most density-concentrated. Reading the rating column tells you whether quality is uniform across the metro or whether specific counties pull in either direction.
Cross-county rating dispersion: 0.40★ between the highest- and lowest-rated counties with meaningful sample size.
| County | Locations | % of MSA | Reviews | Avg Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bernalillo County | 346 | 75.2% | 40,049 | 4.23 |
| Sandoval County | 79 | 17.2% | 5,486 | 4.38 |
| Valencia County | 31 | 6.7% | 2,412 | 4.04 |
| Torrance County | 4 | 0.9% | 516 | 4.44 |
What do customers love and complain about in Albuquerque?
The aspect grid below summarizes 14,206 AI-extracted reviews across 460 Albuquerque car wash locations. Each aspect lands on a -1…+1 scale (negative = customers complain more than they praise; positive = the reverse).
Where are all the car washes in the Albuquerque metro?
The complete inventory of car wash locations in the Albuquerque MSA 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trademark Car Wash 500 Coors Blvd NW | Albuquerque, NM | Express Tunnel | Trademark Car Wash | 4.6 | 2,899 | $43K |
| Melloy Nissan Service 7707 Lomas Blvd NE | Albuquerque, NM | — | — | 4.8 | 2,605 | $69K |
| Mister Car Wash 9516 Snow Heights Cir NE | Albuquerque, NM | Express Tunnel | Mister Car Wash | 3.8 | 2,104 | $62K |
| Mister Car Wash 3101 Coors Blvd NW | Albuquerque, NM | Express Tunnel | Mister Car Wash | 3.7 | 1,568 | $77K |
| Auto Solution NM 5200 Alameda Blvd NE | Albuquerque, NM | — | — | 4.8 | 1,399 | $90K |
| Mister Car Wash 8100 San Pedro Dr NE | Albuquerque, NM | Express Tunnel | Mister Car Wash | 3.6 | 1,300 | $90K |
| Mister Car Wash 2300 4th St NW | Albuquerque, NM | Express Tunnel | Mister Car Wash | 4.1 | 1,137 | $45K |
| Mister Car Wash 3625 NM-528 | Albuquerque, NM | Express Tunnel | Mister Car Wash | 3.6 | 1,095 | $82K |
| Mister Car Wash 2421 NM-528 | Rio Rancho, NM | Express Tunnel | Mister Car Wash | 4.1 | 1,091 | $70K |
| Mister Car Wash 5308 Central Ave SE | Albuquerque, NM | Express Tunnel | Mister Car Wash | 3.9 | 1,079 | $50K |
| Champion Xpress Carwash 10705 Central Ave NE | Albuquerque, NM | Express Tunnel | Champion Xpress Carwash | 4.1 | 1,074 | $64K |
| Mister Car Wash 5215 San Mateo Blvd NE | Albuquerque, NM | Express Tunnel | Mister Car Wash | 3.9 | 1,041 | $68K |
| Champion Xpress Carwash 4516 Wyoming Blvd NE | Albuquerque, NM | Express Tunnel | Champion Xpress Carwash | 4.4 | 936 | $104K |
| Champion Xpress Carwash 250 Main St NE | Los Lunas, NM | Express Tunnel | Champion Xpress Carwash | 4.1 | 912 | $58K |
| Car Crafters 600 Montaño Rd NE | Albuquerque, NM | — | Car Crafters | 4.0 | 850 | $89K |
| Mister Car Wash 4200 San Mateo Blvd NE | Albuquerque, NM | Express Tunnel | Mister Car Wash | 4.1 | 846 | $69K |
| Champion Xpress Carwash 2100 Central Ave SW | Albuquerque, NM | Express Tunnel | Champion Xpress Carwash | 4.0 | 830 | $87K |
| Champion Xpress Carwash 5101 Lomas Blvd NE | Albuquerque, NM | Express Tunnel | Champion Xpress Carwash | 4.1 | 829 | $69K |
| Champion Xpress Carwash 1890 Abrazo Rd NE | Rio Rancho, NM | Express Tunnel | Champion Xpress Carwash | 4.6 | 820 | $70K |
| Champion Xpress Carwash 395 Alameda Blvd NW | Albuquerque, NM | Express Tunnel | Champion Xpress Carwash | 4.5 | 666 | $82K |
| Mister Car Wash 6016 Central Ave SE | Albuquerque, NM | Express Tunnel | Mister Car Wash | 4.3 | 628 | $50K |
| Quickshine Express Car Wash 9935 Lomas Blvd NE | Albuquerque, NM | Express Tunnel | Quickshine Express Car Wash | 4.0 | 619 | $62K |
| Champion Xpress Carwash 5401 Sevilla Ave NW | Albuquerque, NM | Express Tunnel | Champion Xpress Carwash | 4.2 | 587 | $77K |
| Rocky Mountain Car Wash 1209 San Mateo Blvd NE | Albuquerque, NM | — | — | 4.2 | 513 | $69K |
| Champion Xpress Carwash 7509 Menaul Blvd NE | Albuquerque, NM | Express Tunnel | Champion Xpress Carwash | 4.5 | 511 | $69K |
Compare Albuquerque to other NM car wash markets
Each link drills into a full per-metro analysis — operator concentration, format mix, and customer-experience signals against the same methodology.
Data as of 2026-09-26. Pick a format and click Copy.
WashIndex. (2026, September 26). Albuquerque car wash market analysis. https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/albuquerque
WashIndex. "Albuquerque car wash market analysis." WashIndex. Last modified September 26, 2026. https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/albuquerque.
"Albuquerque car wash market analysis." WashIndex, Sep. 26, 2026, https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/albuquerque.
@misc{washindex_car_wash_markets_albuquerque_2026,
title = {{Albuquerque car wash market analysis}},
author = {{WashIndex}},
year = {2026},
month = {Sep},
url = {https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/albuquerque},
urldate = {2026-09-26},
} About this analysis
Car wash inventory for the Albuquerque, NM CBSA is determined by point-in-polygon test against the official US Census county boundaries (TIGER/Line, 2024) for the 4 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 14,206 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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