88,363 Google reviews across 1,163 car washes in 7 Portland counties. Format mix, operator rank, county breakdown, rating vs. income, aspect-level customer signals.
Snapshot
Locations
1,163
89% independent
Chains
39
lead: Kaady Car Washes (15 sites)
Avg rating
4.36★
near national MSA median
Damage rate
1.7%
near national MSA norm
Cancel friction
8.4%
Top format
detail shop
65% of classified inventory
Median single wash
$22
range $5–$50
Median unlimited
$24.99/mo
cheapest $12/mo at Scrubbys Car Wash
Market Quality snapshot
Population
2,510,529
ACS 2023 5-year
Households
1,000,418
ACS 2023 5-year
Residents per wash
2,159
near the national MSA median
Express tunnels per 10K households
0.2
below the ~0.5 expandable band · classified sites
Key findings
1,163 car wash locations operated by 39 chains and 1,040 independents across 7 counties.
Weighted Google rating 4.36★ across the market; structural concentration and format mix sit near US-metro norms.
Built from 88,363 Google reviews, 27,546 of them AI-extracted across 55 dimensions.
1,163 car wash locations across 7 counties · dots colored by format · sized by review volume
Locations
1,163
Chains
39
+ 1,040 independents
Reviews
88K
Avg Rating
4.36
Damage Rate
1.70%
Median AGI/return
$83K
location-weighted
Executive Read
Portland reads as a balanced car wash market — neither sharply consolidated nor unusually fragmented. 1,163 locations across 39 chains and 1,040 independents, distributed across 7 counties. Customer-experience signals across 27,546 AI-extracted reviews produce the distinct read on this market.
Headline numbers sit near US-metro norms: rating 4.36★, damage 1.7%, cancel friction 8.4%. Staff strong (0.83); equipment reliability weak (-0.61). Per-operator and per-format cuts below are more informative than the aggregates.
Published pricing across the 47 of 1186 Portland locations with menus available: median single car wash $22 (range $5–$50), median unlimited membership $24.99/month (range $12–$100/mo). The cheapest unlimited membership in the metro is $12/mo at Scrubbys Car Wash (Deluxe).
Published menu pricing for car washes in the Portland metropolitan area, captured from operator websites and the WashIndex AI calling agent. 47 of 1186
tracked locations have usable published pricing
(4% coverage).
Single Wash
$22
median · range $5–$50 · 31 locations tracked
Unlimited Membership
$24.99 per month
median · range $12–$100 per month · 29 programs tracked
Cheapest unlimited memberships in Portland
1
Scrubbys Car Wash Deluxe
$12 per mo
2
Crystal Vision Auto Detailing Pro
$15 per mo
3
TenMobileDetailing Pro
$15 per mo
4
Eco Car Wash Dash wipe
$18 per mo
5
Eco Car Wash Dash wipe
$18 per mo
Cheapest single car washes in Portland
1
Flash Wash Sunrise Special
$5
2
Crystal Vision Auto Detailing Starter
$6
3
TenMobileDetailing Starter
$6
4
Chubb's Basic Package
$7
5
Washman Car Wash | Milwaukie Rain-X Express
$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.
Official industry footprint · BLS QCEW 2024
The car wash industry in the Portland metro, officially
High-wage
Car-wash wages in the Portland metro run about 23% above the national average ($40,091 vs. $32,560), across 145 employer establishments and roughly 923 jobs.
Employer establishments
145
NAICS 811192 · 2024
Industry jobs
923
private, annual avg
Avg annual wage
$40,091
per employee
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.
SBA Lending · FY2010–present
Car wash financing in the Portland metro
Operations-heavy
Since 2014, the U.S. Small Business Administration has backed 10 car-wash loans in the Portland metro worth $5.5M, at a $175,000 median per car wash and a 0.0% charge-off rate. Early read: an outsized 30% of loans were for working capital rather than construction or acquisition (vs. 10% nationally), which can point to operators managing cash flow more than expanding.
SBA loans
10
FY2014–2025
Total approved
$5.5M
7(a) + 504
Median loan
$175K
per car wash
Charge-off rate
0.0%
of 5 resolved
SBA car-wash loans approved per fiscal year
Loans by county
Clark5
Clackamas2
Multnomah1
Washington1
Columbia1
What the loans fund · estimated from loan terms
New build / open20% · $1.1M
Expansion / improvement50% · $30K
Working capital30% · $50K
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
About the Portland car wash market
How many car washes are in the Portland metro?
+
There are 1,163 car wash locations across the Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA CBSA, spanning 7 counties.
What is the best-rated car wash in the Portland metro?
+
P1 Auto Detail in Beaverton, OR is the highest-rated car wash in the Portland metro at 5.0★ across 332 Google reviews (filtering to locations with at least 100 reviews).
Which car wash chain has the most locations in Portland?
+
Kaady Car Washes has the most locations in the Portland metro with 15 sites, followed by 76 (14 sites). The metro has 39 multi-location operators in total, alongside 1,040 independent or single-location sites.
What is the average customer rating in the Portland car wash market?
+
The review-weighted average rating across all 1,163 car washes in the Portland metro is 4.36★, based on 88,363 Google reviews processed through WashIndex's customer-experience pipeline.
What is the typical household income near car washes in Portland?
+
Across the ZIP codes containing the Portland metro's car washes, the location-weighted median IRS-reported AGI per tax return is $83K (tax year 2022) — a rough proxy for trade-area household income.
How much does a car wash cost in Portland?
+
Single-wash prices across the Portland car wash market range from $5 to $50, with a median of $22 across 31 locations that publish their pricing. The cheapest single car wash in the metro is $5 at Flash Wash (Sunrise Special). Pricing data is captured from operator websites and the WashIndex AI calling agent.
How much does an unlimited car wash membership cost in Portland?
+
Unlimited car wash memberships in the Portland metro range from $12/month to $100/month, with a median of $24.99/month across 29 programs tracked. The cheapest unlimited membership is $12/month at Scrubbys Car Wash (Deluxe); the most expensive tracked is $100/month at OlympiClean Auto Detail (Monthly Maintenance Membership - Small).
What is the cheapest car wash in Portland?
+
The cheapest single car wash in the Portland metro is $5 at Flash Wash (Sunrise Special tier). For ongoing customers, the cheapest unlimited membership is $12/month at Scrubbys Car Wash (Deluxe) — a break-even of roughly 0.5 washes per month at the metro's median single-wash price of $22.
01Format Mix
What kinds of car washes does Portland have?
The format mix in Portland 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 4.84★ across 138 locations.
Lowest-rated: Self-Serve Bay at 3.60★ (3 locations).
951 (81.8%)
of 1,163 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
951
81.8%
44,901
4.37
1.33%
4.3%
Detail Shop
138
11.9%
16,298
4.84
0.43%
6.1%
In-Bay Automatic
35
3.0%
11,218
4.17
8.29%
2.9%
Full Service
20
1.7%
11,345
4.06
3.05%
12.5%
Express Tunnel
16
1.4%
4,035
3.93
6.28%
10.9%
Self-Serve Bay
3
0.3%
566
3.60
3.53%
—
02Income & Demographics
What is the household income near Portland car washes?
Read together with the format mix above, the income scatter below tells you whether car wash quality in Portland tracks neighborhood income, format mix, or neither. Operating quality usually dominates this picture.
Pearson r between ZIP income and Google rating across 415 qualifying locations: 0.03 — effectively zero. Operating quality dominates over neighborhood income.
Scatter mean: $94K AGI/return, 4.37★.
Detail Shop In-Bay Automatic Full Service Express Tunnel Self-Serve Bay
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
7
605
4.72
Detail Shop (2)
$50K – $75K
22
165
23,718
4.28
Detail Shop (23)
$75K – $100K
30
264
34,942
4.34
Detail Shop (66)
$100K – $150K
30
149
18,433
4.31
Detail Shop (35)
$150K+
9
39
4,339
4.43
Detail Shop (10)
The highest-income tier ($150K+) contains 39 car washes across 9 ZIPs at 4.43★, against 7 sites across 1 ZIPs at 4.72★ 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.
03Dominant Chains
Who operates the most Portland car washes?
The table below ranks the top 25 chains operating in Portland 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.
Which counties have the most car washes in Portland?
The table below splits the metro's car wash inventory across the 7 counties of the Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA CBSA, with location count, total reviews, and weighted-average rating per county.
Cross-county rating dispersion: 0.71★ between the highest- and lowest-rated counties with meaningful sample size.
What do customers love and complain about in Portland?
Seven aspects, 27,546 reviews, 1,163 locations. The grid below gives a quick read on which dimensions of the experience Portland's car wash market does well at and which generate friction.
Staff+0.83
Wash Quality+0.78
Wait Time+0.61
Facility Cleanliness+0.48
Per-Wash Price+0.34
Membership Value+0.31
Equipment Working-0.61
06All Locations
Where are all the car washes in the Portland metro?
Top 25 car washes by review volume in Portland. The full set of 1,163 is available in the underlying dataset.
Data as of 2026-09-26.
Pick a format and click Copy.
APA
WashIndex. (2026, September 26). Portland car wash market analysis. https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/portland
Chicago
WashIndex. "Portland car wash market analysis." WashIndex. Last modified September 26, 2026. https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/portland.
MLA
"Portland car wash market analysis." WashIndex, Sep. 26, 2026, https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/portland.
BibTeX
@misc{washindex_car_wash_markets_portland_2026,
title = {{Portland car wash market analysis}},
author = {{WashIndex}},
year = {2026},
month = {Sep},
url = {https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/portland},
urldate = {2026-09-26},
}
About this analysis
Car wash inventory for the Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA CBSA is determined by point-in-polygon test against the
official US Census county boundaries (TIGER/Line, 2024) for the 7 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 27,546 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.
The free WashIndex platform shows every Portland car wash on an interactive map, with the same review-derived
signals and demographic overlays that power this analysis. Filter by format, drive-time, or operator and compare any
location head-to-head with its true competitive set.