Fort Collins Car Wash Market Analysis
Fort Collins-Loveland, CO
Data updated · September 26, 2026
13,410 Google reviews across 172 car washes in 1 Fort Collins counties. Format mix, operator rank, county breakdown, rating vs. income, aspect-level customer signals.
Snapshot
- Locations
- 172
- 80% independent
- Chains
- 11
- lead: Breeze Thru Car Wash - Windsor (8 sites)
- Avg rating
- 4.35★
- -0.07 vs national MSA median
- Damage rate
- 1.6%
- near national MSA norm
- Cancel friction
- 15.1%
- Top format
- detail shop
- 43% of classified inventory
Market Quality snapshot
- Population
- 363,561
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Households
- 151,571
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Residents per wash
- 2,114
- near the national MSA median
- Express tunnels per 10K households
- 0.9
- in the 0.5–1.0 filling band · classified sites
Key findings
- 172 car wash locations operated by 11 chains and 138 independents across 1 county.
- Weighted Google rating 4.35★ across the market; structural concentration and format mix sit near US-metro norms.
- Built from 13,410 Google reviews, 4,438 of them AI-extracted across 55 dimensions.
172 car wash locations across 1 counties · dots colored by format · sized by review volume
No single structural signal jumps out for Fort Collins — it's a mid-shape car wash market. 11 chains compete alongside 138 independents — typical mix for a market of 172 car washes. Customer-experience signals across 4,438 AI-extracted reviews produce the distinct read on this market.
Weighted rating 4.35★; damage 1.6%; membership-cancel friction 15.1%. Staff is the brightest aspect signal (0.83/+1). Per-operator and per-format cuts below are more informative than the aggregates.
See the top car wash chains in Fort Collins
Ranked by location count in the metro
The car wash industry in the Fort Collins metro, officially
the Fort Collins metro has 17 car-wash employer establishments employing about 134 people, at a $32,392 average annual 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 Fort Collins metro
Balanced mixSince 2010, the U.S. Small Business Administration has backed 13 car-wash loans in the Fort Collins metro worth $9.6M, at a $654,000 median per car wash and a 12.5% charge-off rate. Early read: its purpose mix tracks the national pattern — a blend of new builds, acquisitions, and reinvestment by existing operators — with no single signal dominating.
- Larimer 13
- New build / open15% · $397K
- Expansion / improvement69% · $1.0M
- Working capital8% · $20K
- Unclassified8% · $8K
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 Fort Collins car wash market
How many car washes are in the Fort Collins metro?
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What is the best-rated car wash in the Fort Collins metro?
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Which car wash chain has the most locations in Fort Collins?
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What is the average customer rating in the Fort Collins car wash market?
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What is the typical household income near car washes in Fort Collins?
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What kinds of car washes does Fort Collins have?
The format mix in Fort Collins 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 4.91★ across 22 locations. Lowest-rated: Full Service at 3.60★ (1 locations).
121 (70.3%) of 172 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 | 121 | 70.3% | 3,197 | 4.46 | 0.62% | 0.0% |
| Detail Shop | 22 | 12.8% | 2,507 | 4.91 | 0.14% | 0.0% |
| Express Tunnel | 14 | 8.1% | 5,319 | 4.29 | 4.62% | 17.0% |
| Self-Serve Bay | 8 | 4.7% | 527 | 3.67 | 0.00% | — |
| In-Bay Automatic | 6 | 3.5% | 1,234 | 3.83 | 1.79% | 10.3% |
| Full Service | 1 | 0.6% | 626 | 3.60 | 2.19% | 33.3% |
What is the household income near Fort Collins car washes?
Read together with the format mix above, the income scatter below tells you whether car wash quality in Fort Collins tracks neighborhood income, format mix, or neither. Operating quality usually dominates this picture.
Pearson r between ZIP income and Google rating across 89 qualifying locations: 0.09 — effectively zero. Operating quality dominates over neighborhood income. Scatter mean: $96K AGI/return, 4.37★.
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 | 4 | 433 | 3.72 | Self-Serve Bay (1) |
| $75K – $100K | 9 | 101 | 11,740 | 4.35 | Detail Shop (18) |
| $100K – $150K | 3 | 12 | 626 | 4.22 | Detail Shop (2) |
| $150K+ | 1 | 3 | 169 | 4.69 | Detail Shop (1) |
The highest-income tier ($150K+) contains 3 car washes across 1 ZIPs at 4.69★, 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 Fort Collins car washes?
11 chains alongside 138 independents make up Fort Collins'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 | Breeze Thru Car Wash - Windsor | 8 | 3,901 | 4.27 | 6.32% | 9.6% | 3.98% |
| 2 | Signal Car Wash at Loaf n Jug | 7 | 246 | 3.53 | — | — | — |
| 3 | Autowash Headquarters | 4 | 1,173 | 3.82 | 1.62% | 10.3% | 1.82% |
| 4 | Shell | 4 | 230 | 3.75 | — | — | — |
| 5 | Auto-Glow Detailing | Mobile Detailing Fort Collins | 2 | 333 | 4.91 | 0.42% | — | 0.00% |
| 6 | Cannon Xpress Car Wash | 2 | 383 | 4.27 | 6.06% | 26.2% | 3.03% |
| 7 | Broadmoor Heights Convenience | 2 | 61 | 4.16 | — | — | — |
| 8 | Cobblestone Car Wash | 2 | 790 | 4.31 | 3.34% | 25.0% | 1.95% |
| 9 | Zz Denver Mobile Detailing | 1 | 138 | 4.80 | 0.00% | — | 1.64% |
| 10 | Champion Xpress Carwash | 1 | 147 | 4.70 | 0.77% | — | 0.77% |
| 11 | Colorado Detail Supply | 1 | 55 | 5.00 | — | — | — |
Which counties have the most car washes in Fort Collins?
Fort Collins's 172 car washes distribute across 1 counties. Larimer County leads with 172 locations (100.0%). Cross-county rating dispersion is usually narrow at this scale.
| County | Locations | % of MSA | Reviews | Avg Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Larimer County | 172 | 100.0% | 13,410 | 4.35 |
What do customers love and complain about in Fort Collins?
Seven aspects, 4,438 reviews, 172 locations. The grid below gives a quick read on which dimensions of the experience Fort Collins's car wash market does well at and which generate friction.
Where are all the car washes in the Fort Collins metro?
172 car washes are tracked in Fort Collins; 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Breeze Thru Car Wash - Mulberry Fort Collins 1171 E Mulberry St | Fort Collins, CO | Express Tunnel | Breeze Thru Car Wash - Windsor | 4.3 | 1,297 | $99K |
| Breeze Thru Car Wash - South College Fort Collins 3141 S College Ave | Fort Collins, CO | Express Tunnel | Breeze Thru Car Wash - Windsor | 4.4 | 918 | $96K |
| Breeze Thru Car Wash - East Loveland 3555 Mountain Lion Dr | Loveland, CO | Express Tunnel | Breeze Thru Car Wash - Windsor | 4.2 | 711 | $82K |
| Casey's Car Wash & Detail Center 4315 S Mason St | Fort Collins, CO | Full Service | — | 3.6 | 626 | $96K |
| Cobblestone Car Wash 3500 S Timberline Rd | Fort Collins, CO | Express Tunnel | Cobblestone Car Wash | 4.4 | 560 | $96K |
| Breeze Thru Car Wash - North Loveland 279 W 64th St | Loveland, CO | Express Tunnel | Breeze Thru Car Wash - Windsor | 4.3 | 461 | $88K |
| FOCO Fresh Detail 1305 Duff Dr STE 5 | Fort Collins, CO | Detail Shop | — | 4.9 | 415 | $99K |
| Autowash @ JFK Pkwy Car Wash 4221 John F Kennedy Pkwy | Fort Collins, CO | In-Bay Automatic | Autowash Headquarters | 3.7 | 375 | $96K |
| Breeze Thru Car Wash - Johnstown 4810 Larimer Pkwy | Johnstown, CO | Express Tunnel | Breeze Thru Car Wash - Windsor | 4.0 | 373 | $97K |
| KCL Creations LLC Paintless Dent Repair & Hail Damage 551 N Denver Ave | Loveland, CO | — | — | 5.0 | 326 | $82K |
| AutoGlow - Paint Protection Film, Window Tint, Ceramic Coatings, Detailing in Loveland 546 8th St SE STE C2 | Loveland, CO | Detail Shop | Auto-Glow Detailing | Mobile Detailing Fort Collins | 4.9 | 315 | $82K |
| Highline Motors 1401 S Lincoln Ave | Loveland, CO | — | — | 4.4 | 299 | $82K |
| Sticklers 4 Details - Auto Detailing & Ceramic Coatings 414 S Summit View Dr | Fort Collins, CO | Detail Shop | — | 5.0 | 290 | $99K |
| City Park Car Wash & Auto Detail 505 S Taft Hill Rd | Fort Collins, CO | Self-Serve Bay | — | 3.8 | 281 | $68K |
| Autowash @ Thompson Valley Car Wash 1150 Eagle Dr | Loveland, CO | In-Bay Automatic | Autowash Headquarters | 4.0 | 274 | $82K |
| Autowash @ Manhattan Car Wash 3614 Manhattan Ave | Fort Collins, CO | In-Bay Automatic | Autowash Headquarters | 4.0 | 271 | $81K |
| Cannon Xpress Car Wash 6683 Crossroads Blvd | Windsor, CO | Express Tunnel | Cannon Xpress Car Wash | 4.1 | 253 | $121K |
| Autowash @ Spring Creek Car Wash 2102 Midpoint Dr | Fort Collins, CO | In-Bay Automatic | Autowash Headquarters | 3.6 | 253 | $96K |
| Car Lab Detailers 1611 E Lincoln Ave Unit F | Fort Collins, CO | Detail Shop | — | 4.9 | 231 | $99K |
| Cobblestone Car Wash 1606 N College Ave | Fort Collins, CO | Express Tunnel | Cobblestone Car Wash | 4.1 | 230 | $99K |
| Shine Squad Ceramic Coatings & Car Detailing 5378 Ronald Reagan Blvd | Johnstown, CO | Detail Shop | — | 5.0 | 203 | $97K |
| Auto Trends 1235 N College Ave | Fort Collins, CO | — | — | 4.7 | 169 | $99K |
| Go Details – Premium Detailing & Cleaning Services 3513 Fieldstone Dr | Fort Collins, CO | Detail Shop | — | 5.0 | 162 | $96K |
| Keepn' It Kleen 2941 N Garfield Ave | Loveland, CO | — | — | 4.0 | 162 | $88K |
| Champion Xpress Carwash 125 Knobcone Dr | Loveland, CO | Express Tunnel | Champion Xpress Carwash | 4.7 | 147 | $88K |
Compare Fort Collins to other CO 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). Fort Collins car wash market analysis. https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/fort-collins
WashIndex. "Fort Collins car wash market analysis." WashIndex. Last modified September 26, 2026. https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/fort-collins.
"Fort Collins car wash market analysis." WashIndex, Sep. 26, 2026, https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/fort-collins.
@misc{washindex_car_wash_markets_fort_collins_2026,
title = {{Fort Collins car wash market analysis}},
author = {{WashIndex}},
year = {2026},
month = {Sep},
url = {https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/fort-collins},
urldate = {2026-09-26},
} About this analysis
Car wash inventory for the Fort Collins-Loveland, CO 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 4,438 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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