Burlington Car Wash Market Analysis
Burlington-South Burlington, VT
Data updated · June 9, 2026
5,256 Google reviews across 83 car washes in 3 Burlington counties. Format mix, operator rank, county breakdown, rating vs. income, aspect-level customer signals.
Snapshot
- Locations
- 83
- 88% independent
- Chains
- 5
- lead: Champ Touchless Car Wash (3 sites)
- Avg rating
- 4.29★
- -0.12 vs national MSA median
- Damage rate
- 1.7%
- near national MSA norm
- Cancel friction
- 28.9%
- Top format
- detail shop
- 41% of classified inventory
- Median single wash
- $24.95
- range $12–$34.95
- Median unlimited
- $27/mo
- cheapest $24.95/mo at Seaway Carwash and Detail Center
Market Quality snapshot
- Population
- 226,603
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Households
- 93,126
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Residents per wash
- 2,730
- 1.4× the national MSA median — lighter supply
- Express tunnels per 10K households
- 0.3
- below the ~0.5 expandable band · classified sites
Key findings
- 83 car wash locations operated by 5 chains and 73 independents across 3 counties.
- Weighted Google rating 4.29★ across the market; structural concentration and format mix sit near US-metro norms.
- Built from 5,256 Google reviews, 1,467 of them AI-extracted across 55 dimensions.
83 car wash locations across 3 counties · dots colored by format · sized by review volume
Burlington's car wash market reads as US-metro-typical in shape; the distinctive cuts are at the format and aspect levels. 83 locations across 5 chains and 73 independents, distributed across 3 counties. Distinctive patterns show up below at the format and aspect levels.
Weighted rating 4.29★; damage 1.7%; membership-cancel friction 28.9%. Equipment reliability runs as the sharpest friction (-0.65). 5,256 Google reviews drive the analysis, 1,467 of them processed through the WashIndex LLM extractor.
Published pricing across the 8 of 85 Burlington locations with menus available: median single car wash $24.95 (range $12–$34.95), median unlimited membership $27/month (range $24.95–$39.95/mo). The cheapest unlimited membership in the metro is $24.95/mo at Seaway Carwash and Detail Center (Basic Wash).
See the top car wash chains in Burlington
Ranked by location count in the metro
What does a car wash cost in the Burlington metro?
Published menu pricing for car washes in the Burlington metropolitan area, captured from operator websites and the WashIndex AI calling agent. 8 of 85 tracked locations have usable published pricing (9% coverage).
| Cheapest unlimited memberships in Burlington | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Seaway Carwash and Detail Center Basic Wash | $24.95 per mo |
| 2 | Seaway Car Wash Basic Wash Monthly Pass | $24.95 per mo |
| 3 | Splash Car Wash Express Express Bath | $27 per mo |
| 4 | Splash Car Wash Express Express Bath | $27 per mo |
| 5 | Champ Touchless Car Wash Subtotal | $34.95 per mo |
| Cheapest single car washes in Burlington | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Seaway Carwash and Detail Center Basic Wash | $12 |
| 2 | Seaway Car Wash Basic Wash | $12 |
| 3 | Splash Car Wash Express Express Bath | $13 |
| 4 | Splash Car Wash Express Express Bath | $14 |
| 5 | Champ Touchless Car Wash Subtotal | $24.95 |
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.
The car wash industry in the Burlington metro, officially
High-wageCar-wash wages in the Burlington metro run about 16% above the national average ($37,695 vs. $32,560), across 13 employer establishments and roughly 91 jobs.
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.
About the Burlington car wash market
How many car washes are in the Burlington metro?
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What is the best-rated car wash in the Burlington metro?
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Which car wash chain has the most locations in Burlington?
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What is the average customer rating in the Burlington car wash market?
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What is the typical household income near car washes in Burlington?
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How much does a car wash cost in Burlington?
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How much does an unlimited car wash membership cost in Burlington?
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What is the cheapest car wash in Burlington?
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What kinds of car washes does Burlington have?
The format mix in Burlington 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 4.78★ across 7 locations. Lowest-rated: In-Bay Automatic at 3.74★ (3 locations).
| Format | Locations | % of MSA | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage Rate | Cancel Friction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Detail Shop | 7 | 8.4% | 1,365 | 4.78 | 0.37% | — |
| In-Bay Automatic | 3 | 3.6% | 138 | 3.74 | 0.00% | — |
| Express Tunnel | 3 | 3.6% | 365 | 4.20 | 1.72% | 0.0% |
| Self-Serve Bay | 2 | 2.4% | 371 | 4.36 | 2.22% | 0.0% |
| Full Service | 2 | 2.4% | 1,502 | 4.22 | 2.40% | 30.8% |
What is the household income near Burlington car washes?
Each ZIP in Burlington 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 Google rating across 33 qualifying locations: 0.23 — mild positive. Higher-income ZIPs host slightly better-rated washes, but operator execution still dominates. Scatter mean: $97K AGI/return, 4.21★.
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 | 4 | 17 | 255 | 3.89 | In-Bay Automatic (2) |
| $75K – $100K | 6 | 23 | 1,888 | 4.29 | Detail Shop (5) |
| $100K – $150K | 4 | 13 | 2,564 | 4.31 | Express Tunnel (2) |
| $150K+ | 1 | 3 | 325 | 4.36 | Detail Shop (1) |
Income band spread: 3/4.36★ 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 Burlington car washes?
The table below ranks the top 25 chains operating in Burlington 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 | Champ Touchless Car Wash | 3 | 365 | 4.20 | — | — | — |
| 2 | Shell | 2 | 43 | 3.82 | — | — | — |
| 3 | Seaway Car Wash | 2 | 371 | 4.36 | — | — | — |
| 4 | Splash Car Wash Express | 2 | 1,502 | 4.22 | 2.40% | 30.8% | 2.40% |
| 5 | Stewart's Shops | 1 | 95 | 3.70 | — | — | — |
Which counties have the most car washes in Burlington?
The table below splits the metro's car wash inventory across the 3 counties of the Burlington-South Burlington, VT CBSA, with location count, total reviews, and weighted-average rating per county.
Cross-county rating dispersion: 0.36★ between the highest- and lowest-rated counties with meaningful sample size.
| County | Locations | % of MSA | Reviews | Avg Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chittenden County | 62 | 74.7% | 4,906 | 4.32 |
| Franklin County | 23 | 27.7% | 350 | 3.96 |
What do customers love and complain about in Burlington?
Seven aspects, 1,467 reviews, 83 locations. The grid below gives a quick read on which dimensions of the experience Burlington's car wash market does well at and which generate friction.
Where are all the car washes in the Burlington metro?
83 car washes are tracked in Burlington; below is the top of the list by Google review count. Locations with fewer than 10 reviews are excluded from the rating column.
| Location | City | Format | Chain | Rating | Reviews | ZIP AGI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Splash Car Wash Express 22 James Brown Dr | Williston, VT | Full Service | Splash Car Wash Express | 4.2 | 1,208 | $118K |
| Noyes Automotive & Tire 777 Pine St | Burlington, VT | Detail Shop | — | 4.6 | 553 | $78K |
| Matt's Wash & Wax - Vermont 127 VT-15 | Jericho, VT | Detail Shop | — | 4.9 | 354 | $108K |
| Clean & Clear Auto Detailing 18 Lincoln St | Essex Junction, VT | Detail Shop | — | 4.9 | 311 | $89K |
| Splash Car Wash Express 2630 Shelburne Rd | Shelburne, VT | Full Service | Splash Car Wash Express | 4.3 | 294 | $186K |
| Checkerbay Carwash 38 Roosevelt Hwy | Colchester, VT | — | — | 3.9 | 273 | $93K |
| Seaway Carwash and Detail Center 1341 Shelburne Rd | South Burlington, VT | Self-Serve Bay | Seaway Car Wash | 4.3 | 265 | $105K |
| Executive Car Wash 1700 Williston Rd | South Burlington, VT | — | — | 3.8 | 245 | $105K |
| Paya's Auto Inc 559 Mountain View Rd | Williston, VT | — | — | 4.8 | 212 | $118K |
| Acadia's Spray & Wash 49 Susie Wilson Rd | Essex Junction, VT | — | — | 3.4 | 195 | $89K |
| Champ Touchless Car Wash 1801 Shelburne Rd | South Burlington, VT | Express Tunnel | Champ Touchless Car Wash | 4.2 | 148 | $105K |
| Champ Touchless Car Wash 124 Pearl St | Essex Junction, VT | Express Tunnel | Champ Touchless Car Wash | 4.2 | 129 | $89K |
| Eco Car Wash 530 US-7 | Milton, VT | — | — | 3.1 | 125 | $76K |
| Seaway Car Wash 142 Heineberg Dr | Colchester, VT | Self-Serve Bay | Seaway Car Wash | 4.5 | 106 | $93K |
| Stewart's Shops 711 Fairfax Rd | St Albans City, VT | In-Bay Automatic | Stewart's Shops | 3.7 | 95 | $72K |
| Champ Car Care Center 2 Harbor View Rd | South Burlington, VT | Express Tunnel | Champ Touchless Car Wash | 4.2 | 88 | $105K |
| Touchfree Car Wash | St. Albans Town, VT | — | — | 3.7 | 61 | — |
| Scrubba Dub Mobile Detailing LLC | , VT | — | — | 5.0 | 40 | — |
| Devils Details Mobile Detailing 135 Manhattan Dr | Burlington, VT | Detail Shop | — | 5.0 | 36 | $78K |
| Hands On Car Wash Swanton 123 1st St | Swanton, VT | — | — | 3.5 | 29 | $71K |
| Shell 711 Fairfax Rd | St Albans City, VT | In-Bay Automatic | Shell | 4.1 | 28 | $72K |
| Executive Car wash 10901 Rte 116 | Hinesburg, VT | — | — | 2.7 | 22 | $100K |
| Mobile Oil Vermont | , VT | — | — | 4.8 | 22 | — |
| Hands On Car Wash Main Street 291 N Main St | St Albans City, VT | — | — | 3.1 | 21 | $72K |
| GlossGuruVT | , VT | — | — | 5.0 | 21 | — |
Data as of 2026-06-09. Pick a format and click Copy.
WashIndex. (2026, June 9). Burlington car wash market analysis. https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/burlington-vt
WashIndex. "Burlington car wash market analysis." WashIndex. Last modified June 9, 2026. https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/burlington-vt.
"Burlington car wash market analysis." WashIndex, Jun. 9, 2026, https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/burlington-vt.
@misc{washindex_car_wash_markets_burlington_vt_2026,
title = {{Burlington car wash market analysis}},
author = {{WashIndex}},
year = {2026},
month = {Jun},
url = {https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/burlington-vt},
urldate = {2026-06-09},
} About this analysis
Car wash inventory for the Burlington-South Burlington, VT CBSA is determined by point-in-polygon test against the official US Census county boundaries (TIGER/Line, 2024) for the 3 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 1,467 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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