Merced Car Wash Market Analysis
Merced, CA
Data updated · June 9, 2026
6,663 Google reviews across 160 car washes in 1 Merced counties. Format mix, operator rank, geographic distribution, income overlay, customer-experience signals.
Snapshot
- Locations
- 160
- 90% independent
- Chains
- 7
- lead: Mister Car Wash (7 sites)
- Avg rating
- 4.27★
- -0.14 vs national MSA median
- Damage rate
- 3.3%
- 2.1× national MSA norm
- Cancel friction
- 17.3%
- Top format
- express tunnel
- 55% of classified inventory
- Median single wash
- $10
- range $5–$29
- Median unlimited
- $22.99/mo
- cheapest $14/mo at ARCO W. Pacheco Car Wash
Market Quality snapshot
- Population
- 285,597
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Households
- 84,605
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Residents per wash
- 1,785
- near the national MSA median
- Express tunnels per 10K households
- 1.3
- above ~1.0 — contested · classified sites
Key findings
- 160 car wash locations operated by 7 chains and 144 independents across 1 county.
- Weighted Google rating 4.27★ across the market; structural concentration and format mix sit near US-metro norms.
- Built from 6,663 Google reviews, 1,661 of them AI-extracted across 55 dimensions.
160 car wash locations across 1 counties · dots colored by format · sized by review volume
Merced sits near the center of the US-metro distribution on concentration, format mix, and rating. 160 locations across 7 chains and 144 independents, distributed across 1 counties. Distinctive patterns show up below at the format and aspect levels.
Average rating across the 160-location market weighs in at 4.27★; damage rate 3.3%; cancel friction 17.3%. Staff is the brightest aspect signal (0.77/+1). 6,663 Google reviews drive the analysis, 1,661 of them processed through the WashIndex LLM extractor.
Published pricing across the 12 of 161 Merced locations with menus available: median single car wash $10 (range $5–$29), median unlimited membership $22.99/month (range $14–$39.99/mo). The cheapest unlimited membership in the metro is $14/mo at ARCO W. Pacheco Car Wash (Car Wash Membership).
See the top car wash chains in Merced
Ranked by location count in the metro
What does a car wash cost in the Merced metro?
Published menu pricing for car washes in the Merced metropolitan area, captured from operator websites and the WashIndex AI calling agent. 12 of 161 tracked locations have usable published pricing (7% coverage).
| Cheapest unlimited memberships in Merced | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ARCO W. Pacheco Car Wash Car Wash Membership | $14 per mo |
| 2 | Super Shine Car Wash Basic Membership | $19 per mo |
| 3 | Super Shine Car Wash and Vacuum Basic Membership | $19.99 per mo |
| 4 | Mister Car Wash BASE | $22.99 per mo |
| 5 | Mister Car Wash BASE | $22.99 per mo |
| Cheapest single car washes in Merced | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Super Shine Car Wash Self Serve Station | $5 |
| 2 | Super Shine Car Wash and Vacuum Self Serve | $5 |
| 3 | Mister Car Wash Base | $10 |
| 4 | Mister Car Wash Base | $10 |
| 5 | Mister Car Wash Base | $10 |
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 Merced metro, officially
the Merced metro has 18 car-wash employer establishments employing about 126 people, at a $33,846 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 Merced metro
Consolidating marketSince 2010, the U.S. Small Business Administration has backed 10 car-wash loans in the Merced metro worth $25.9M, at a $1,960,400 median per car wash and a 0.0% charge-off rate. Early read: acquisitions are unusually prominent — 20% of loans went to buying existing washes (vs. 8% nationally), a sign operators are trading sites more than building new ones.
FY2026 annualized from its first 6 months.
- Merced 10
- New build / open50% · $2.1M
- Acquisition20% · $5.0M
- Expansion / improvement30% · $1.4M
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 Merced car wash market
How many car washes are in the Merced metro?
+
What is the best-rated car wash in the Merced metro?
+
Which car wash chain has the most locations in Merced?
+
What is the average customer rating in the Merced car wash market?
+
What is the typical household income near car washes in Merced?
+
How much does a car wash cost in Merced?
+
How much does an unlimited car wash membership cost in Merced?
+
What is the cheapest car wash in Merced?
+
What kinds of car washes does Merced have?
The format mix in Merced 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 4.69★ across 6 locations. Lowest-rated: Express Tunnel at 4.15★ (11 locations).
| Format | Locations | % of MSA | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage Rate | Cancel Friction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Express Tunnel | 11 | 6.9% | 2,464 | 4.15 | 8.48% | 16.7% |
| Detail Shop | 6 | 3.8% | 303 | 4.69 | 0.00% | — |
| Full Service | 2 | 1.3% | 928 | 4.29 | 2.99% | 15.8% |
| In-Bay Automatic | 1 | 0.6% | 88 | 4.20 | 0.00% | — |
What is the household income near Merced car washes?
Read together with the format mix above, the income scatter below tells you whether car wash quality in Merced tracks neighborhood income, format mix, or neither. Operating quality usually dominates this picture.
Pearson r between ZIP income and Google rating across 43 qualifying locations: -0.08 — effectively zero. Operating quality dominates over neighborhood income. Scatter mean: $62K AGI/return, 4.23★.
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 | 2 | 7 | 245 | 4.78 | Detail Shop (1) |
| $50K – $75K | 7 | 52 | 3,607 | 4.13 | Express Tunnel (7) |
| $75K – $100K | 2 | 14 | 2,081 | 4.24 | Express Tunnel (4) |
| $100K – $150K | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | — |
| $150K+ | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | — |
Top-tier 0 sites, 0.00★ avg; bottom-tier 7 sites, 4.78★. Across Merced's 43 qualifying locations, the income gradient correlates only weakly with rating — operator execution dominates.
Who operates the most Merced car washes?
7 chains run sites in Merced; 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 | Mister Car Wash | 7 | 2,052 | 4.15 | 8.04% | 17.1% | 1.49% |
| 2 | AAA Truck Wash | 3 | 509 | 3.83 | — | — | — |
| 3 | Super Shine Car Wash | 2 | 158 | 3.99 | — | — | — |
| 4 | The Wash Shop | 1 | 648 | 4.50 | 1.25% | — | 0.00% |
| 5 | Chevron | 1 | 21 | 4.20 | — | — | — |
| 6 | Circle K | 1 | 88 | 4.20 | — | — | — |
| 7 | ARCO | 1 | 19 | 3.80 | — | — | — |
Which counties have the most car washes in Merced?
The table below splits the metro's car wash inventory across the 1 counties of the Merced, CA CBSA, with location count, total reviews, and weighted-average rating per county.
| County | Locations | % of MSA | Reviews | Avg Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Merced County | 161 | 100.6% | 6,663 | 4.27 |
What do customers love and complain about in Merced?
The aspect grid below summarizes 1,661 AI-extracted reviews across 160 Merced 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 Merced metro?
Top 25 car washes by review volume in Merced. The full set of 160 is available in the underlying dataset.
| Location | City | Format | Chain | Rating | Reviews | ZIP AGI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mister Car Wash 930 W 16th St | Merced, CA | Express Tunnel | Mister Car Wash | 4.1 | 677 | $76K |
| The Wash Shop 23 E 23rd St | Merced, CA | Full Service | The Wash Shop | 4.5 | 648 | $76K |
| Mister Car Wash 1800 W Olive Ave | Merced, CA | Express Tunnel | Mister Car Wash | 4.1 | 468 | $56K |
| CARES Car Wash 225 W Pacheco Blvd | Los Banos, CA | — | — | 4.4 | 394 | $61K |
| Mister Car Wash 1230 E Pacheco Blvd | Los Banos, CA | Express Tunnel | Mister Car Wash | 4.3 | 328 | $61K |
| Merced Mall Car Wash 870 Loughborough Dr #2643 | Merced, CA | Full Service | — | 3.8 | 280 | $56K |
| AAA Truck Wash LLC 29143 Plaza Dr | Gustine, CA | — | AAA Truck Wash | 3.4 | 269 | $59K |
| Mister Car Wash 307 E Bellevue Rd | City of Atwater, CA | Express Tunnel | Mister Car Wash | 4.2 | 252 | $65K |
| Super Shine Car Wash 16 16th St | Merced, CA | — | — | 3.9 | 242 | $76K |
| Rainflow Express Car Wash 1419 Badger Flat Rd | Los Banos, CA | Express Tunnel | — | 4.3 | 240 | $61K |
| Sunny Truck Wash(Livingston CA.) 2255 F St | Livingston, CA | — | — | 4.2 | 193 | $52K |
| Western Motors Service 1629 W 16th St | Merced, CA | — | — | 4.3 | 168 | $76K |
| AAA Truck Wash LLC 15420 August Ave | Delhi, CA | — | AAA Truck Wash | 4.4 | 163 | $51K |
| Mister Car Wash 3690 G St | Merced, CA | Express Tunnel | Mister Car Wash | 4.2 | 149 | $76K |
| Super Shine Car Wash 2693-2601 First St | Atwater, CA | Express Tunnel | Super Shine Car Wash | 4.0 | 147 | $65K |
| Los Banos Car Wash Inc 823 W Pacheco Blvd | Los Banos, CA | — | — | 3.9 | 135 | $61K |
| Pedro's Detailing | , CA | — | — | 4.9 | 130 | — |
| Mister Car Wash 1001 Commerce Ave | City of Atwater, CA | Express Tunnel | Mister Car Wash | 4.0 | 122 | $65K |
| Car Detailing 209 (Mobile Detailing) | , CA | — | — | 5.0 | 107 | — |
| Circle K 410 Mercey Springs Rd | Los Banos, CA | In-Bay Automatic | Circle K | 4.2 | 88 | $61K |
| Amaros Wash & Detail 335 Grogan Ave Suite F | Merced, CA | Detail Shop | — | 5.0 | 87 | $45K |
| Auto Resources Service Center 1861 Grogan Ave | Merced, CA | — | — | 4.9 | 85 | $45K |
| AAA Truck Wash 11 W 15th St | Merced, CA | — | AAA Truck Wash | 4.1 | 77 | $76K |
| Speedy Bee Car Wash 413 Livingston Cressey Rd | Livingston, CA | — | — | 4.3 | 68 | $52K |
| Mister Car Wash 2905 G St | Merced, CA | Express Tunnel | Mister Car Wash | 4.1 | 56 | $76K |
Compare Merced to other CA 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). Merced car wash market analysis. https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/merced
WashIndex. "Merced car wash market analysis." WashIndex. Last modified June 9, 2026. https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/merced.
"Merced car wash market analysis." WashIndex, Jun. 9, 2026, https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/merced.
@misc{washindex_car_wash_markets_merced_2026,
title = {{Merced car wash market analysis}},
author = {{WashIndex}},
year = {2026},
month = {Jun},
url = {https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/merced},
urldate = {2026-06-09},
} About this analysis
Car wash inventory for the Merced, CA 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 1,661 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