Dubuque Car Wash Market Analysis
Dubuque, IA
Data updated · June 9, 2026
A read of Dubuque's car wash market built from 3,002 Google reviews across 59 locations. Format mix, operator rank, geographic distribution, income overlay, customer-experience signals.
Snapshot
- Locations
- 59
- 81% independent
- Chains
- 6
- lead: bp (4 sites)
- Avg rating
- 4.22★
- -0.19 vs national MSA median
- Damage rate
- 3.1%
- 2.0× national MSA norm
- Cancel friction
- 14.0%
- Top format
- in-bay automatic
- 31% of classified inventory
Market Quality snapshot
- Population
- 98,948
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Households
- 40,585
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Residents per wash
- 1,677
- near the national MSA median
- Express tunnels per 10K households
- 1.0
- in the 0.5–1.0 filling band · classified sites
Key findings
- 59 car wash locations operated by 6 chains and 48 independents across 1 county.
- Weighted Google rating 4.22★ across the market; structural concentration and format mix sit near US-metro norms.
- Built from 3,002 Google reviews, 735 of them AI-extracted across 55 dimensions.
59 car wash locations across 1 counties · dots colored by format · sized by review volume
Tracked at 59 car wash locations, Dubuque matches the structural profile of the typical US metro of comparable size. 6 chains compete alongside 48 independents — typical mix for a market of 59 car washes. Customer-experience signals across 735 AI-extracted reviews produce the distinct read on this market.
Weighted rating 4.22★; damage 3.1%; membership-cancel friction 14.0%. Staff is the brightest aspect signal (0.82/+1). Per-operator and per-format cuts below are more informative than the aggregates.
See the top car wash chains in Dubuque
Ranked by location count in the metro
The car wash industry in the Dubuque metro, officially
Low-wageCar-wash wages in the Dubuque metro run about 100% below the national average ($0 vs. $32,560), across 8 employer establishments and roughly 0 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 Dubuque car wash market
How many car washes are in the Dubuque metro?
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What is the best-rated car wash in the Dubuque metro?
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Which car wash chain has the most locations in Dubuque?
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What is the average customer rating in the Dubuque car wash market?
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What is the typical household income near car washes in Dubuque?
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What kinds of car washes does Dubuque have?
Format counts below split Dubuque's 59 car wash locations by operating concept. Each format serves a different customer occasion — express tunnels for throughput, full-service for staffed convenience, detail shops for hand-finished work — and the rating column lets you read whether each format is meeting its own expectations here.
Highest-rated format: Detail Shop at 4.42★ across 3 locations. Lowest-rated: In-Bay Automatic at 4.14★ (4 locations).
| Format | Locations | % of MSA | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage Rate | Cancel Friction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| In-Bay Automatic | 4 | 6.8% | 117 | 4.14 | 0.00% | — |
| Express Tunnel | 4 | 6.8% | 1,074 | 4.30 | 2.18% | 6.8% |
| Detail Shop | 3 | 5.1% | 238 | 4.42 | 0.00% | — |
| Full Service | 2 | 3.4% | 436 | 4.27 | 5.26% | 0.0% |
What is the household income near Dubuque car washes?
25 Dubuque car washes with at least 10 Google reviews are plotted below against the mean IRS AGI per return for their ZIP. The Pearson correlation we compute is one of the cleanest cuts on whether neighborhood income meaningfully shapes wash quality here.
Pearson r between ZIP income and Google rating across 25 qualifying locations: 0.00 — effectively zero. Operating quality dominates over neighborhood income. Scatter mean: $92K AGI/return, 4.14★.
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 | 1 | 15 | 876 | 3.86 | Detail Shop (2) |
| $75K – $100K | 5 | 21 | 1,536 | 4.43 | Express Tunnel (3) |
| $100K – $150K | 1 | 2 | 41 | 4.01 | — |
| $150K+ | 1 | 12 | 533 | 4.27 | In-Bay Automatic (2) |
The highest-income tier ($150K+) contains 12 car washes across 1 ZIPs at 4.27★, against 0 sites across 0 ZIPs at 0.00★ in the lowest. Middle-income tiers typically host the densest express-tunnel concentrations — the part of the income curve where that format's unit economics are strongest.
Who operates the most Dubuque car washes?
The table below ranks the top 25 chains operating in Dubuque 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 | bp | 4 | 117 | 4.14 | — | — | — |
| 2 | Miracle Car Wash | 2 | 436 | 4.27 | — | — | — |
| 3 | Club Car Wash | 2 | 104 | 4.65 | — | — | — |
| 4 | Kwik Trip | 1 | 387 | 4.40 | — | — | — |
| 5 | Pro-Clean Car Wash Express | 1 | 387 | 3.60 | — | — | — |
| 6 | Tidal Wave Auto Spa | Car Wash | 1 | 583 | 4.70 | 1.57% | — | 0.94% |
Which counties have the most car washes in Dubuque?
Counties of the Dubuque CBSA are listed below by car wash count. Dubuque 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.
| County | Locations | % of MSA | Reviews | Avg Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dubuque County | 60 | 101.7% | 3,002 | 4.22 |
What do customers love and complain about in Dubuque?
The aspect grid below summarizes 735 AI-extracted reviews across 59 Dubuque 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 Dubuque metro?
59 car washes are tracked in Dubuque; 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tidal Wave Auto Spa | Car Wash 2539 NW Arterial | Dubuque, IA | Express Tunnel | Tidal Wave Auto Spa | Car Wash | 4.7 | 583 | $87K |
| Kwik Star 2685 Dodge St | Dubuque, IA | — | Kwik Trip | 4.4 | 387 | $157K |
| Pro-Clean Car Wash & Detailing 3199 University Ave | Dubuque, IA | Express Tunnel | Pro-Clean Car Wash Express | 3.6 | 387 | $62K |
| Miracle Car Wash 2090 Holliday Dr | Dubuque, IA | Full Service | Miracle Car Wash | 4.3 | 386 | $87K |
| Clean Getaway Express Tunnel Wash 1895 John F Kennedy Rd | Dubuque, IA | — | — | 3.8 | 196 | $87K |
| VIP Auto Detailing Spa 3082 Cedar Crest Ct | Dubuque, IA | Detail Shop | — | 5.0 | 128 | $87K |
| Kingdom Car Center 601 White St | Dubuque, IA | — | — | 4.8 | 116 | $62K |
| Power Wash of Dubuque 3900 Central Ave | Dubuque, IA | Detail Shop | — | 3.8 | 88 | $62K |
| University Car Wash 2779 University Ave | Dubuque, IA | — | — | 3.6 | 87 | $62K |
| Clean Getaway Express Car Wash 4860 Asbury Rd | Dubuque, IA | — | — | 3.5 | 70 | $87K |
| Classic Car Wash 350 S Locust St | Dubuque, IA | — | — | 3.7 | 57 | $62K |
| bp 2150 Twin Valley Dr | Dubuque, IA | In-Bay Automatic | bp | 4.2 | 54 | $157K |
| Club Car Wash 1895 John F Kennedy Rd | Dubuque, IA | Express Tunnel | Club Car Wash | 4.6 | 52 | $87K |
| Club Car Wash 4860 Asbury Rd | Dubuque, IA | Express Tunnel | Club Car Wash | 4.7 | 52 | $87K |
| Miracle Car Wash 255 Locust St | Dubuque, IA | Full Service | Miracle Car Wash | 4.0 | 50 | $62K |
| Peosta Car & Truck Wash 658 Peosta St | Peosta, IA | — | — | 3.9 | 37 | $119K |
| bp 2320 Gateway Dr | Dubuque, IA | In-Bay Automatic | bp | 4.2 | 34 | $157K |
| Nuts Detailing LLC 1180 Roosevelt St Ext | Dubuque, IA | — | — | 4.1 | 28 | $62K |
| Kwik Stop 2320 Gateway Dr | Dubuque, IA | — | — | 3.4 | 26 | $157K |
| Power Wash of Dubuque 1080 University Ave | Dubuque, IA | Detail Shop | — | 3.5 | 22 | $62K |
| TMR Enterprises 923 Peru Rd | Dubuque, IA | — | — | 4.8 | 17 | $62K |
| Auto Accessory & Install 2350 Rockdale Rd | Dubuque, IA | — | — | 4.1 | 16 | $157K |
| bp 11941 ROUTE 52 N | Dubuque, IA | In-Bay Automatic | bp | 3.9 | 15 | $87K |
| bp 2335 University Ave | Dubuque, IA | In-Bay Automatic | bp | 4.0 | 14 | $62K |
| Ride & Shine Auto Detailing LLC 2157 Comanche Dr | Asbury, IA | — | — | 5.0 | 10 | $87K |
Compare Dubuque to other IA 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 2026-06-09. Pick a format and click Copy.
WashIndex. (2026, June 9). Dubuque car wash market analysis. https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/dubuque
WashIndex. "Dubuque car wash market analysis." WashIndex. Last modified June 9, 2026. https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/dubuque.
"Dubuque car wash market analysis." WashIndex, Jun. 9, 2026, https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/dubuque.
@misc{washindex_car_wash_markets_dubuque_2026,
title = {{Dubuque car wash market analysis}},
author = {{WashIndex}},
year = {2026},
month = {Jun},
url = {https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/dubuque},
urldate = {2026-06-09},
} About this analysis
Car wash inventory for the Dubuque, IA CBSA is determined by point-in-polygon test against the official US Census county boundaries (TIGER/Line, 2024) for the 1 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 735 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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