As a car washer, you will clean different vehicles ranging from cars to minibusses. Depending on how advanced your business is, you may either wash cars by hand or by handling machines. Your duty as a car washer is not limited to the outside of the car. You may also be expected to clean the inside of the car by vacuuming and scrubbing interior carpets and cleaning the dashboard.
In order to become a car washer, you need to be attentive to detail and have extensive knowledge of the products that will aid in achieving a squeaky-clean car - inside and out. This position requires you to have physical endurance because you may need to clean the hard-to-reach parts of the car. You need to be a brilliant cleaner and know how to work with different tools to achieve the best results.
This position does not require any tertiary education, but experience in retail and customer service will be highly advantageous when communicating with customers. You need to have a driver's license and be familiar with different types of vehicles.
What is a Car Washer?
What Does a Car Washer Do
There are certain skills that many car washers have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed customer-service skills, listening skills and physical strength.
How To Become a Car Washer
If you're interested in becoming a car washer, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 9.3% of car washers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 0.4% of car washers have master's degrees. Even though some car washers have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Car Washer Career Paths
As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a car washer can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as delivery driver, progress to a title such as foreman and then eventually end up with the title car wash manager.
Average Salary for a Car Washer
What Am I Worth?
Roles and Types of Car Washer
The role of a car washer includes a wide range of responsibilities. These responsibilities can vary based on an individual's specific job, company, or industry.Here are some general car washer responsibilities:
- Cleans interior and exterior of automobiles for dealerships
- As an car washer you will be responsible for the exterior cleaning of vehicles according to company standards
- The service agent is responsible for the care
There are several types of car washer, including:
Detailer
Role:
You'll notice that becoming a detailer will mean you'll become pretty nit-picky about things. After all, if you want to do your job right it's all in the details. In general, you'll probably only need a high school diploma. As long as you're good about getting into the nitty gritty of specific details, we're sure you'll do just fine.
- Average Salary: $29,506
- Degree: High School Diploma
Car Detailer
Role:
This career path does not require any special education or training. With a high school diploma or higher education, you can get this job. However, you need a valid driver's license. The employer may provide on-the-job training. However, you must be able to use cleaning equipment and tools and possess communication, attention to detail, customer service, and sales skills. Annually, you will earn $31,472 on average. This will range from $22,000 to $45,000.
- Average Salary: $29,125
- Degree: High School Diploma
Auto Detailer
Role:
A minimum of a high school diploma or its equivalent is the educational requirement for this position. You may be required to have a valid driver's license with a clean driving record. You must possess customer service, attention to detail, communication, multitasking, observational, problem-solving, and time management skills. Auto detailers are paid about $24,893 yearly. Their salary ranges $17,000 and $36,000.
- Average Salary: $28,746
- Degree: High School Diploma
States With The Most Car Washer Jobs
Mouse over a state to see the number of active car washer jobs in each state. The darker areas on the map show where car washers earn the highest salaries across all 50 states.
Number Of Car Washer Jobs By State
Rank | State | Number of Jobs | Average Salary |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Florida | 209 | $24,984 |
2 | Texas | 189 | $23,332 |
3 | Pennsylvania | 171 | $25,015 |
4 | Georgia | 120 | $24,825 |
5 | Massachusetts | 114 | $34,034 |
6 | New York | 108 | $31,702 |
7 | Illinois | 107 | $24,281 |
8 | Tennessee | 94 | $27,647 |
9 | California | 88 | $32,758 |
10 | Ohio | 76 | $26,968 |
11 | New Jersey | 64 | $28,410 |
12 | Michigan | 63 | $26,851 |
13 | North Carolina | 60 | $22,381 |
14 | Colorado | 58 | $31,500 |
15 | Maryland | 56 | $28,579 |
16 | Arizona | 56 | $26,318 |
17 | Virginia | 56 | $24,796 |
18 | Indiana | 54 | $27,603 |
19 | Alabama | 54 | $22,349 |
20 | Oregon | 47 | $33,865 |
21 | South Carolina | 41 | $24,863 |
22 | Louisiana | 39 | $22,332 |
23 | Minnesota | 37 | $31,842 |
24 | Missouri | 36 | $23,246 |
25 | Nevada | 30 | $24,458 |
26 | Washington | 27 | $37,248 |
27 | Oklahoma | 27 | $24,958 |
28 | Wisconsin | 25 | $29,196 |
29 | Arkansas | 25 | $25,072 |
30 | Mississippi | 25 | $21,064 |
31 | Utah | 23 | $27,192 |
32 | Connecticut | 19 | $29,400 |
33 | Hawaii | 19 | $28,293 |
34 | Rhode Island | 17 | $32,250 |
35 | Iowa | 17 | $27,497 |
36 | Kentucky | 17 | $24,725 |
37 | Kansas | 11 | $25,820 |
38 | Maine | 10 | $33,905 |
39 | Delaware | 9 | $29,282 |
40 | Nebraska | 8 | $27,980 |
41 | Idaho | 7 | $29,739 |
42 | Alaska | 5 | $34,221 |
43 | Montana | 5 | $29,460 |
44 | New Mexico | 5 | $23,963 |
45 | New Hampshire | 3 | $31,869 |
46 | South Dakota | 3 | $28,100 |
47 | Vermont | 2 | $32,125 |
48 | North Dakota | 1 | $32,006 |
49 | Wyoming | 1 | $31,526 |
50 | West Virginia | 1 | $23,331 |
Top Skills For a Car Washer
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 35.8% of car washers listed clean vehicle on their resume, but soft skills such as customer-service skills and listening skills are important as well.
Choose From 10+ Customizable Car Washer Resume templates
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Car Washer templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Car Washer resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
Car Washer Demographics
Car Washer Gender Distribution
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
- Among car washers, 13.5% of them are women, while 86.5% are men.
- The most common race/ethnicity among car washers is White, which makes up 55.2% of all car washers.
- The most common foreign language among car washers is Spanish at 86.1%.
Online Courses For Car Washer That You May Like
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The purpose of Electric Vehicles and Mobility is to help you, whatever your profile, your training or your country, find your own answers to questions such as: - Will electric vehicles be the last to be allowed in megalopolises in the 21st century? - Does the environmental gain from vehicle electrification justify heavy investment in charging infrastructure? - Are electric vehicles only for wealthy people in developed countries? This course will allow you to acquire elements from engineering...
See More on Coursera2. Introduction to Self-Driving Cars
Welcome to Introduction to Self-Driving Cars, the first course in University of Toronto’s Self-Driving Cars Specialization. This course will introduce you to the terminology, design considerations and safety assessment of self-driving cars. By the end of this course, you will be able to: - Understand commonly used hardware used for self-driving cars - Identify the main components of the self-driving software stack - Program vehicle modelling and control - Analyze the safety frameworks and...
See More on Coursera3. Self-Driving Cars
Be at the forefront of the autonomous driving industry. With market researchers predicting a $42-billion market and more than 20 million self-driving cars on the road by 2025, the next big job boom is right around the corner.\n\nThis Specialization gives you a comprehensive understanding of state-of-the-art engineering practices used in the self-driving car industry. You'll get to interact with real data sets from an autonomous vehicle (AV)―all through hands-on projects using the open source...
See More on CourseraBest States For a Car Washer
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a car washer. The best states for people in this position are Washington, Alaska, Massachusetts, and Maine. Car washers make the most in Washington with an average salary of $37,248. Whereas in Alaska and Massachusetts, they would average $34,221 and $34,034, respectively. While car washers would only make an average of $33,905 in Maine, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Massachusetts
$34,034
Avg. Salary
2. Rhode Island
$32,250
Avg. Salary
3. Oregon
$33,865
Avg. Salary
How Do Car Washer Rate Their Jobs?

3.0
3.0

What do you like the most about working as Car Washer?
Outside always surrounded fresh water dirty foamy soapy foam. Show MoreWhat do you NOT like?
Sharing waiting starting stopping guidding drying what i can vacuuming what i can detailing what i can waxing offering offs Show MoreTop Car Washer Employers
Most Common Employers For Car Washer
Rank | Company | Average Salary | Hourly Rate | Job Openings |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | UPS | $33,452 | $16.08 | 37 |
2 | Chevron | $32,716 | $15.73 | 18 |
3 | WASH | $32,277 | $15.52 | 16 |
4 | Mrc | $30,188 | $14.51 | 10 |
5 | Mercedes-Benz USA | $29,205 | $14.04 | 16 |
6 | Red Car | $29,060 | $13.97 | 18 |
7 | Crown Cars | $28,878 | $13.88 | 10 |
8 | Golden Gate Partners Inc | $28,741 | $13.82 | 21 |
9 | National Holdings | $28,356 | $13.63 | 42 |
10 | KAR Auction Services | $28,305 | $13.61 | 37 |