Best Car Washes in Toronto Once You Count Tax and Road Salt
The best car washes in Toronto are Junction Car Wash for the lowest price, at $12 with tax, Crosstown for a $27.99 plan that works at four sites, and Splash N Shine for a hand wash at $19.99 plus HST.
Late at night, the pick is VIP Car Wash on Bathurst Street, whose touch-free lane never closes.
Every price here is in Canadian dollars.
We haven’t run a car through any of these washes. The picks rest on what each business posts, meaning prices, plan cost, wash type, number of sites and hours. A menu can’t show how clean a car comes out, and washes that post no prices aren’t in this list.
Tax changes which wash is cheapest
Ontario’s 13% HST sits inside some menu prices and on top of others. Junction’s $12 Express includes tax. Crosstown’s $10.99 Basic doesn’t, so it rings up at $12.42.
| Wash | Price |
|---|---|
| Junction Express | $12 |
| Crosstown Basic | $12.42 |
| Crosstown touchless, Albion Rd | $13 |
| Popular Quick Wash | $13 |
| Klassic Base | $14.99 |
| Petro-Canada ticket | $19.20 |
| VIP Express | $19.99 |
| Splash N Shine exterior by hand | $22.59 |
Those first two are bare washes. Junction’s Express is a wash, rinse and air dry, and Crosstown’s Basic is listed as air dry only, though both include a free self-serve vacuum.
Nanak Car Wash on Finch Ave W advertises an Express wash from $9.99 plus tax, against a regular $13.99. Its own pages list its lowest plan at both $19.99 and $29.99, so we left it out of these comparisons.
Salt season calls for an underbody spray
Toronto typically spreads 130,000 to 150,000 tonnes of road salt a year, and the City says winter weather usually runs from November to March. Neither bare wash lists an underbody spray, so look one tier up in those months.
Crosstown’s Executive and Junction’s Deluxe are the lowest-priced washes that list one, both $15 with tax. Klassic’s Base Plus on Wilson Ave is $17.99 and VIP’s Express is $19.99. A Petro-Canada ticket comes to $19.20 with tax and includes an underbody rust inhibitor.
Popular’s pages don’t say which of its three washes has an underbody spray, so ask before you pay.
The deal to look for is Crosstown’s Works, at $17.69 plus HST, or $19.99 with tax. Its menu says that includes one free Works wash within 7 days, so two undercarriage sprays work out to about $10 each.
Our winter washing steps cover when it’s warm enough to go and how to stop the doors freezing shut.
Most plans pay off on the third wash
Junction’s $26.99 Express is the lowest plan and Crosstown’s $27.99 Basic is next, both plus tax. Junction’s plan has one site to use, while Crosstown’s works at all four.
Popular’s Daily Wash Club starts at $29.99 with no contract. Klassic’s starts at $34.99 on Wilson Ave, with the first month at the $14.99 single price.
Set each plan against the same business’s single washes, and most win on the third wash of a month. All five Junction plans do, with tax counted on both sides.
- 2nd wash on Popular’s $39.99 Lava Shine and Klassic’s two top tiers
- 3rd wash on most others, including every Junction plan
- 5th wash on Crosstown’s $37.99 Works, once you use the free repeat on singles
Popular and Klassic don’t state tax on either price, so those counts assume it’s treated the same on both.
Crosstown’s Works single is where I’d start in salt season. $19.99 with tax covers two undercarriage sprays inside a week, and no plan here gets near that at two washes a month. Once you’re washing weekly, a plan comes out ahead, and that means Junction’s Deluxe at $33.89 with tax or Crosstown’s Executive at $37.28.
Read the exit rules before you join. Crosstown asks for 2 business days’ notice and gives no refunds, and Popular wants 3 days before the billing date. Klassic’s terms say 72 hours in one clause and seven days in another, so give seven. The Junction pages we read don’t state a rule.
Plans cover one car, though Popular adds more at $24.99 each a month. Our unlimited versus pay per wash numbers run the same sum across 10 chains.
For occasional washing, Popular’s wash books give 1 free with 5 or 3 free with 10, good for 12 months at any location. The page prints no book prices, but at the posted $13 the 10-wash book works out to $10 a wash.
Fourteen addresses across the city
| Wash | Toronto addresses |
|---|---|
| Popular | 131 The West Mall, 305 Rexdale Blvd, 5462 Dundas St W, 2460 St. Clair Ave W |
| Crosstown | 1212 Dupont St, 2010 Jane St, 2930 Dufferin St, 1760 Albion Rd |
| Grand | 828 Eastern Ave, 780 Markham Rd |
| Junction | 3193 Dundas St W |
| Klassic | 1031 Wilson Ave |
| VIP | 3595 Bathurst St |
| Splash N Shine | 1901 Danforth Ave |
Popular’s footer also lists Steeles Ave E, but we couldn’t load a page for it, so we count four in the city. Its others are in Brampton, Hamilton, Oshawa, Whitby, Port Perry and Uxbridge.
Touch-free lanes and late hours
VIP Car Wash runs its automatic touch-free lane 24 hours a day, and its self-serve bays from 7 AM to 11 PM. Single washes are $19.99, $23.99 and $26.99, all with an underbody wash.
The home page mentions unlimited washes, but its subscription page caps each plan. $69.99 buys 5 Express washes in 30 days, or $14 each, and the $119.99 Winter Special buys 10 at $12 each.
Crosstown’s touchless lane on Albion Rd is the cheaper way to avoid brushes, at $11.50 or $14.99 plus HST, though that page says memberships are currently unavailable for it. Our touchless and soft-touch comparison covers the trade-offs.
The chart shows Monday. Popular’s St. Clair site closes at 8 PM on Sundays, Splash N Shine stays open until 7 PM from Thursday to Saturday, and Junction adds “weather permitting” to its hours.
Self-serve bays are harder to price. VIP posts no rate, Crosstown lists a coin wash on Albion Rd with no price, and Popular’s self-serve page names only sites outside the city.
A hand wash undercuts the top tunnel tiers
Splash N Shine on the Danforth washes by hand with microfiber mitts, walk-in, seven days a week. Its $19.99 exterior wash comes to $22.59 with tax on a regular car. That’s under the $25 with-tax top washes at Junction and Crosstown, and VIP’s $26.99.
A small SUV or crossover adds $3 and a large SUV or pickup adds $6, for $25.98 or $29.37 with tax. The menu lists a pre-soak, rim cleaning and a towel finish but no underbody spray, so it won’t do that job in winter.
Inside-and-out prices sit closer together.
- Splash N Shine, $29.99 plus HST with a basic interior clean
- Popular, $35.40 for a quick interior clean and Quick Wash
- Grand, $59 for its Bronze package with a vacuum, mat wash and exterior wash
Grand Car Wash doesn’t post an exterior-only hand wash or its membership prices, so phone first. Popular’s Complete Detail Special is $150, plus $20 for an SUV or pickup.
Prepaid cards beat tickets at the gas bar
A Petro-Canada ticket is $16.99 before tax, and a registered $70 Wash & Go card brings each wash down to $11.67 with no expiry. Our Petro-Canada review has the full numbers, including the 90-day Season Pass and its one-device rule.
Not every station has a wash, and station pages list no wash price, so check the location finder first.
The driveway is the one to skip
The City of Toronto says wastewater from outdoor washing must not reach any catch basins, because soaps and contaminants will break the storm sewer by-law’s limits.
Its advice is a commercial wash, which has to treat wastewater before it goes to the sanitary sewer. At home, it suggests a pail and cloth with the dirty water poured down a laundry sink or toilet. Our home washing steps cover the kit.
