Manhattan Car Wash Market Analysis
Manhattan, KS
Data updated · June 9, 2026
A read of Manhattan's car wash market built from 4,562 Google reviews across 52 locations. Format mix, operator rank, county breakdown, rating vs. income, aspect-level customer signals.
Snapshot
- Locations
- 52
- 90% independent
- Chains
- 3
- lead: Willie's Car Wash (2 sites)
- Avg rating
- 4.32★
- -0.09 vs national MSA median
- Damage rate
- 1.0%
- 1.6× below national norm
- Cancel friction
- 4.5%
- Top format
- express tunnel
- 36% of classified inventory
Market Quality snapshot
- Population
- 133,413
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Households
- 50,008
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Residents per wash
- 2,566
- 1.3× the national MSA median — lighter supply
- Express tunnels per 10K households
- 0.8
- in the 0.5–1.0 filling band · classified sites
Key findings
- 52 car wash locations operated by 3 chains and 47 independents across 3 counties.
- Weighted Google rating 4.32★ across the market; structural concentration and format mix sit near US-metro norms.
- Built from 4,562 Google reviews, 1,410 of them AI-extracted across 55 dimensions.
52 car wash locations across 3 counties · dots colored by format · sized by review volume
Manhattan reads as a balanced car wash market — neither sharply consolidated nor unusually fragmented. 52 locations across 3 chains and 47 independents, distributed across 3 counties. Customer-experience signals across 1,410 AI-extracted reviews produce the distinct read on this market.
Headline numbers sit near US-metro norms: rating 4.32★, damage 1.0%, cancel friction 4.5%. Staff strong (0.95); equipment reliability weak (-0.56). Per-operator and per-format cuts below are more informative than the aggregates.
See the top car wash chains in Manhattan
Ranked by location count in the metro
The car wash industry in the Manhattan metro, officially
Low-wageCar-wash wages in the Manhattan metro run about 23% below the national average ($25,084 vs. $32,560), across 9 employer establishments and roughly 70 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 Manhattan car wash market
How many car washes are in the Manhattan metro?
+
What is the best-rated car wash in the Manhattan metro?
+
Which car wash chain has the most locations in Manhattan?
+
What is the average customer rating in the Manhattan car wash market?
+
What is the typical household income near car washes in Manhattan?
+
What kinds of car washes does Manhattan have?
The table below lists every operating format we classify, with locations, reviews, average rating, damage rate, and membership-cancel friction broken out per format. Manhattan's mix sits close to the US-metro median shape.
Highest-rated format: Detail Shop at 4.93★ across 3 locations. Lowest-rated: Self-Serve Bay at 3.88★ (4 locations).
41 (78.8%) of 52 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 | 41 | 78.8% | 997 | 3.97 | 0.82% | 0.0% |
| Express Tunnel | 4 | 7.7% | 2,748 | 4.50 | 1.22% | 4.9% |
| Self-Serve Bay | 4 | 7.7% | 607 | 3.88 | 0.00% | 0.0% |
| Detail Shop | 3 | 5.8% | 210 | 4.93 | 0.00% | — |
What is the household income near Manhattan car washes?
Read together with the format mix above, the income scatter below tells you whether car wash quality in Manhattan tracks neighborhood income, format mix, or neither. Operating quality usually dominates this picture.
Pearson r between ZIP income and Google rating across 23 qualifying locations: -0.31 — mild negative. Higher-income ZIPs in this market host slightly lower-rated washes on average, which is unusual. Scatter mean: $68K AGI/return, 4.18★.
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 | 1 | 1 | 23 | 4.60 | — |
| $50K – $75K | 3 | 26 | 4,124 | 4.35 | Express Tunnel (4) |
| $75K – $100K | 2 | 5 | 113 | 3.75 | Self-Serve Bay (1) |
| $100K – $150K | 1 | 4 | 99 | 2.81 | — |
| $150K+ | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | — |
Income band spread: 0/0.00★ at the highest tier; 1/4.60★ 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 Manhattan car washes?
3 chains run sites in Manhattan; the top 25 are listed below by location count, with their per-chain operating-quality numbers next to them. Useful for narrowing competitive-set considerations or for M&A evaluation.
| # | Chain | Locations | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage | Cancel | Upsell |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Willie's Car Wash | 2 | 470 | 3.82 | — | — | — |
| 2 | Tommy's Express® Car Wash | 2 | 2,036 | 4.68 | 1.22% | 4.8% | 0.00% |
| 3 | Main Post Car Wash | 1 | 87 | 3.90 | — | — | — |
Which counties have the most car washes in Manhattan?
Manhattan's 52 car washes distribute across 3 counties. Riley County leads with 30 locations (57.7%). Cross-county rating dispersion is usually narrow at this scale.
Cross-county rating dispersion: 0.55★ between the highest- and lowest-rated counties with meaningful sample size.
| County | Locations | % of MSA | Reviews | Avg Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Riley County | 30 | 57.7% | 2,988 | 4.51 |
| Pottawatomie County | 11 | 21.2% | 575 | 4.01 |
| Geary County | 11 | 21.2% | 999 | 3.95 |
What do customers love and complain about in Manhattan?
Seven aspects, 1,410 reviews, 52 locations. The grid below gives a quick read on which dimensions of the experience Manhattan's car wash market does well at and which generate friction.
Where are all the car washes in the Manhattan metro?
The complete inventory of car wash locations in the Manhattan 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tommy's Express® Car Wash 510 Tuttle Creek Blvd | Manhattan, KS | Express Tunnel | Tommy's Express® Car Wash | 4.6 | 1,261 | $65K |
| Tommy's Express® Car Wash 1350 Westloop Pl | Manhattan, KS | Express Tunnel | Tommy's Express® Car Wash | 4.8 | 775 | $65K |
| Champions Car & Truck Wash 1710 Old 40 Hwy | Junction City, KS | Express Tunnel | — | 4.0 | 605 | $53K |
| Willie's Car Wash 480 McCall Rd | Manhattan, KS | Self-Serve Bay | Willie's Car Wash | 3.9 | 293 | $65K |
| Cedar Point Car Wash 413 E Chestnut St | Junction City, KS | — | — | 3.5 | 198 | $53K |
| Willie's Car Wash 1145 Westport Dr | Manhattan, KS | Self-Serve Bay | Willie's Car Wash | 3.7 | 177 | $65K |
| The Final Touch 1820 Fair Ln | Manhattan, KS | Detail Shop | — | 4.9 | 138 | $65K |
| Rapid Wash 8115 S Port Dr | Manhattan, KS | — | — | 3.8 | 129 | $65K |
| Splash n dash 1032 W 5th St | Junction City, KS | — | — | 3.8 | 119 | $53K |
| Bubble Wash 2325 Tuttle Creek Blvd | Manhattan, KS | Express Tunnel | — | 4.0 | 107 | $65K |
| Automotive Skills Center/Car Wash Apennines Dr | Milford, KS | Self-Serve Bay | Main Post Car Wash | 3.9 | 87 | $76K |
| Star Wash Manhattan 4133 Scenic Xing | Manhattan, KS | — | — | 2.1 | 73 | $114K |
| Mister G Detailing 1204 W 18th St | Junction City, KS | — | — | 5.0 | 59 | $53K |
| DC Auto Detailing | , KS | — | — | 5.0 | 51 | — |
| The St. Marys Car Wash 107 Fitzsimmons St | St Marys, KS | Self-Serve Bay | — | 4.4 | 50 | $74K |
| Classic Auto and Dog Wash 925 Fort Riley Blvd | Manhattan, KS | — | — | 4.0 | 45 | $65K |
| Little Apple Car Detailing, LLC | , KS | — | — | 4.9 | 45 | — |
| Edge Detailing 1124 Hostetler Dr | Manhattan, KS | Detail Shop | — | 5.0 | 45 | $65K |
| CAR CPR AUTO DETAILING | , KS | — | — | 4.7 | 39 | — |
| Turbo Car Wash | Manhattan, KS | — | — | 3.0 | 37 | $65K |
| King D's Detailing 2421 Brockman St | Manhattan, KS | Detail Shop | — | 5.0 | 27 | $65K |
| Royal Mobile Detailing | , KS | — | — | 5.0 | 24 | — |
| AG Automotive 431 Riley Ave | Ogden, KS | — | — | 4.6 | 23 | $48K |
| In&Out Detailing 8836 Wheatland Cir | Manhattan, KS | — | — | 4.6 | 22 | $65K |
| Grayson Mobile Detailing | , KS | — | — | 4.7 | 20 | — |
Compare Manhattan to other KS 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). Manhattan car wash market analysis. https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/manhattan
WashIndex. "Manhattan car wash market analysis." WashIndex. Last modified June 9, 2026. https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/manhattan.
"Manhattan car wash market analysis." WashIndex, Jun. 9, 2026, https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/manhattan.
@misc{washindex_car_wash_markets_manhattan_2026,
title = {{Manhattan car wash market analysis}},
author = {{WashIndex}},
year = {2026},
month = {Jun},
url = {https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/manhattan},
urldate = {2026-06-09},
} About this analysis
Car wash inventory for the Manhattan, KS 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 1,410 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
Free tools: ROI calculator · site opportunity · investment guide