Scranton Car Wash Market Analysis
Scranton--Wilkes-Barre, PA
Data updated · June 9, 2026
A read of Scranton's car wash market built from 17,400 Google reviews across 329 locations. Format mix, operator rank, county breakdown, rating vs. income, aspect-level customer signals.
Snapshot
- Locations
- 329
- 91% independent
- Chains
- 10
- lead: Sheetz (14 sites)
- Avg rating
- 4.26★
- -0.15 vs national MSA median
- Damage rate
- 2.0%
- 1.3× national MSA norm
- Cancel friction
- 10.1%
- Top format
- detail shop
- 29% of classified inventory
- Median single wash
- $12
- range $10–$35
- Median unlimited
- $25.99/mo
- cheapest $19.95/mo at Classic Car Wash
Market Quality snapshot
- Population
- 567,887
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Households
- 232,592
- ACS 2023 5-year
- Residents per wash
- 1,726
- near the national MSA median
- Express tunnels per 10K households
- 0.6
- in the 0.5–1.0 filling band · classified sites
Key findings
- 329 car wash locations operated by 10 chains and 298 independents across 3 counties.
- Weighted Google rating 4.26★ across the market; structural concentration and format mix sit near US-metro norms.
- Built from 17,400 Google reviews, 4,815 of them AI-extracted across 55 dimensions.
329 car wash locations across 3 counties · dots colored by format · sized by review volume
Tracked at 329 car wash locations, Scranton matches the structural profile of the typical US metro of comparable size. 329 locations across 10 chains and 298 independents, distributed across 3 counties. Distinctive patterns show up below at the format and aspect levels.
Weighted rating 4.26★; damage 2.0%; membership-cancel friction 10.1%. Equipment reliability runs as the sharpest friction (-0.60). 17,400 Google reviews drive the analysis, 4,815 of them processed through the WashIndex LLM extractor.
Published pricing across the 13 of 332 Scranton locations with menus available: median single car wash $12 (range $10–$35), median unlimited membership $25.99/month (range $19.95–$37.99/mo). The cheapest unlimited membership in the metro is $19.95/mo at Classic Car Wash (Basic Car Wash).
See the top car wash chains in Scranton
Ranked by location count in the metro
What does a car wash cost in the Scranton metro?
Published menu pricing for car washes in the Scranton metropolitan area, captured from operator websites and the WashIndex AI calling agent. 13 of 332 tracked locations have usable published pricing (4% coverage).
| Cheapest unlimited memberships in Scranton | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Classic Car Wash Basic Car Wash | $19.95 per mo |
| 2 | Tommy's Express® Car Wash QUALITY | $24.99 per mo |
| 3 | Orloski's Car Wash & Lube Shop Exterior Soft-Cloth Wash | $25.99 per mo |
| 4 | Orloski's Car Wash Exterior Soft-Cloth Wash | $25.99 per mo |
| 5 | Stop N Go Car Wash BASIC Wash Package - 1 Vehicle | $27 per mo |
| Cheapest single car washes in Scranton | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Summit Auto Spa Diamond Car Wash | $10 |
| 2 | Classic Car Wash Basic Car Wash | $10 |
| 3 | Summit Auto Spa Diamond Car Wash | $10 |
| 4 | Wizard Car Wash Wizard | $11 |
| 5 | Kwik N Ezy Car Wash - Peckville Kwik Wash | $11 |
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 Scranton metro, officially
Low-wageCar-wash wages in the Scranton metro run about 32% below the national average ($22,009 vs. $32,560), across 25 employer establishments and roughly 112 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.
Car wash financing in the Scranton metro
Consolidating marketSince 2011, the U.S. Small Business Administration has backed 8 car-wash loans in the Scranton metro worth $2.4M, at a $327,500 median per car wash and a 0.0% charge-off rate. Early read: acquisitions are unusually prominent — 13% of loans went to buying existing washes (vs. 8% nationally), a sign operators are trading sites more than building new ones.
- Luzerne 5
- Lackawanna 3
- New build / open50% · $251K
- Acquisition13% · $225K
- Expansion / improvement25% · $600K
- Working capital13% · $25K
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 Scranton car wash market
How many car washes are in the Scranton metro?
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What is the best-rated car wash in the Scranton metro?
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Which car wash chain has the most locations in Scranton?
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What is the average customer rating in the Scranton car wash market?
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What is the typical household income near car washes in Scranton?
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How much does a car wash cost in Scranton?
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How much does an unlimited car wash membership cost in Scranton?
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What is the cheapest car wash in Scranton?
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What kinds of car washes does Scranton have?
Format counts below split Scranton's 329 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: Express Tunnel at 4.52★ across 15 locations. Lowest-rated: In-Bay Automatic at 3.76★ (16 locations).
| Format | Locations | % of MSA | Reviews | Avg Rating | Damage Rate | Cancel Friction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Detail Shop | 18 | 5.5% | 1,750 | 4.52 | 0.73% | 0.0% |
| In-Bay Automatic | 16 | 4.9% | 2,975 | 3.76 | 0.17% | 8.3% |
| Express Tunnel | 15 | 4.6% | 4,980 | 4.52 | 3.47% | 10.3% |
| Self-Serve Bay | 12 | 3.6% | 1,402 | 4.26 | 1.68% | — |
| Full Service | 1 | 0.3% | 13 | 4.20 | 0.00% | — |
What is the household income near Scranton car washes?
Read together with the format mix above, the income scatter below tells you whether car wash quality in Scranton tracks neighborhood income, format mix, or neither. Operating quality usually dominates this picture.
Pearson r between ZIP income and Google rating across 128 qualifying locations: -0.03 — effectively zero. Operating quality dominates over neighborhood income. Scatter mean: $67K 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 | 6 | 44 | 2,565 | 4.19 | Detail Shop (3) |
| $50K – $75K | 29 | 142 | 10,954 | 4.29 | Express Tunnel (10) |
| $75K – $100K | 8 | 29 | 1,616 | 4.00 | Detail Shop (4) |
| $100K – $150K | 6 | 29 | 1,883 | 4.36 | Detail Shop (5) |
| $150K+ | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | — |
Income band spread: 0/0.00★ at the highest tier; 44/4.19★ 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 Scranton car washes?
10 chains alongside 298 independents make up Scranton'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 | Sheetz | 14 | 2,687 | 3.69 | 0.19% | — | 0.00% |
| 2 | Dundee Self Services Car Wash | 3 | 176 | 3.87 | — | — | — |
| 3 | Cloud10 smartwash | 3 | 1,240 | 4.58 | 3.46% | 11.1% | 0.00% |
| 4 | Summit Auto Spa | 2 | 207 | 4.32 | — | — | — |
| 5 | G & S Car Wash | 2 | 475 | 4.53 | — | — | — |
| 6 | Orloski's Car Wash | 2 | 1,235 | 4.44 | 2.11% | — | 0.60% |
| 7 | LUV Car Wash | 2 | 1,447 | 4.69 | 3.15% | 11.6% | 0.67% |
| 8 | Hurricane Car Wash | 1 | 74 | 4.20 | — | — | — |
| 9 | Taylor Line Car Wash | 1 | 49 | 3.00 | — | — | — |
| 10 | Tommy's Express® Car Wash | 1 | 201 | 4.40 | 8.88% | 8.6% | 0.00% |
Which counties have the most car washes in Scranton?
Counties of the Scranton CBSA are listed below by car wash count. Luzerne 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.
Cross-county rating dispersion: 0.44★ between the highest- and lowest-rated counties with meaningful sample size.
| County | Locations | % of MSA | Reviews | Avg Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Luzerne County | 194 | 59.0% | 9,967 | 4.34 |
| Lackawanna County | 129 | 39.2% | 7,085 | 4.16 |
| Wyoming County | 9 | 2.7% | 348 | 3.90 |
What do customers love and complain about in Scranton?
Reading the aspect grid: numbers above 0.3 are strong positives; numbers below -0.1 indicate meaningful friction; in between is mixed signal. staff is the brightest spot here. equipment reliability is the pain point.
Where are all the car washes in the Scranton metro?
329 car washes are tracked in Scranton; 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BMW of Wyoming Valley 1470 PA-315 | Wilkes-Barre, PA | — | — | 4.7 | 1,161 | $52K |
| Orloski's Car Wash & Lube Shop 295 Mundy St | Wilkes-Barre Township, PA | Express Tunnel | Orloski's Car Wash | 4.4 | 1,069 | $52K |
| LUV Car Wash 901 Commerce Blvd | Dickson City, PA | Express Tunnel | LUV Car Wash | 4.6 | 812 | $54K |
| Cloud10 smartwash - Wilkes-Barre 150 Wilkes-Barre Blvd | Wilkes-Barre, PA | Express Tunnel | Cloud10 smartwash | 4.5 | 806 | $52K |
| LUV Car Wash 664 N Main St | Taylor, PA | Express Tunnel | LUV Car Wash | 4.8 | 635 | $52K |
| Johnny's Car Wash 3102 N Main Ave | Scranton, PA | — | — | 3.7 | 594 | $45K |
| Sheetz 551 PA-93 | Sugarloaf, PA | In-Bay Automatic | Sheetz | 4.4 | 553 | $101K |
| Cloud10 smartwash 2004 Wyoming Ave | Wyoming, PA | Express Tunnel | Cloud10 smartwash | 4.7 | 324 | $82K |
| G & S Car Wash 114 Monahan Ave | Dunmore, PA | Self-Serve Bay | G & S Car Wash | 4.6 | 316 | $70K |
| Wizard Car Wash 644 Moosic St | Scranton, PA | Express Tunnel | — | 4.6 | 315 | $53K |
| Sheetz 464 Wilkes Barre Township Blvd | Wilkes-Barre, PA | In-Bay Automatic | Sheetz | 3.0 | 294 | $52K |
| Nostalgia Car Wash 617 PA-29 | Tunkhannock, PA | Detail Shop | — | 3.8 | 255 | $79K |
| Sheetz 500 Mount Pleasant Dr | Scranton, PA | In-Bay Automatic | Sheetz | 2.8 | 252 | $57K |
| Stop N Go Car Wash 112 Narrows Rd | Larksville, PA | In-Bay Automatic | — | 4.3 | 251 | $46K |
| Sheetz 610 Scranton Carbondale Hwy | Scranton, PA | In-Bay Automatic | Sheetz | 3.8 | 227 | $45K |
| Sparkle Brite Auto Wash 179 Spring St | Wilkes-Barre, PA | — | — | 4.4 | 219 | $52K |
| Next Level Detail LLC 120 Page Ave Unit 21 | Kingston, PA | Detail Shop | — | 5.0 | 215 | $66K |
| Mundy Street Car Wash 190 Mundy St | Wilkes-Barre Township, PA | — | — | 4.0 | 209 | $52K |
| HazleTints 1201 S Church St | Hazleton, PA | Detail Shop | — | 5.0 | 208 | $38K |
| Taylor Ultra Storage, Carwash And Laundromat 600 N Main St | Taylor, PA | Self-Serve Bay | — | 4.4 | 206 | $52K |
| All Seasons Auto Wash Airport Beltway & Route 309 | Hazleton, PA | Detail Shop | — | 4.2 | 204 | $38K |
| Hazleton Hyundai 703 Airport Rd | Hazle Township, PA | — | — | 4.5 | 202 | $54K |
| Tommy's Express® Car Wash 924 Scranton Carbondale Hwy | Scranton, PA | Express Tunnel | Tommy's Express® Car Wash | 4.4 | 201 | $45K |
| Sheetz 1109 Northern Blvd | Clarks Summit, PA | In-Bay Automatic | Sheetz | 4.0 | 193 | $115K |
| Sheetz 1240 N Memorial Hwy | Shavertown, PA | In-Bay Automatic | Sheetz | 3.9 | 185 | $134K |
Compare Scranton to other PA 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). Scranton car wash market analysis. https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/scranton
WashIndex. "Scranton car wash market analysis." WashIndex. Last modified June 9, 2026. https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/scranton.
"Scranton car wash market analysis." WashIndex, Jun. 9, 2026, https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/scranton.
@misc{washindex_car_wash_markets_scranton_2026,
title = {{Scranton car wash market analysis}},
author = {{WashIndex}},
year = {2026},
month = {Jun},
url = {https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/scranton},
urldate = {2026-06-09},
} About this analysis
Car wash inventory for the Scranton--Wilkes-Barre, PA 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 4,815 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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