Healdsburg's New Luv Car Wash Has Neighbors Complaining About 'Jet Engines'

HEALDSBURG, CA — The return of a local car wash was a welcome sight when it opened down the street from the Healdsburg Gas Mart.

Less than two weeks later, the roar from LUV Car Wash’s vehicle dryers has some neighbors thinking twice about the eagerly awaited addition.

Residents living near the business now compare the dryers at the city’s newly opened car wash to “jet engines” and are asking city officials to measure noise at the Healdsburg Avenue site.

One resident, who lives on Monte Vista near Monte Lava Circle and Healdsburg Avenue, raised the complaint during Tuesday’s Healdsburg City Council meeting.

“It would be nice if maybe the Planning Department would go out and do a decibel check on the jet engines that are at the car wash,” the resident said.

The full-scale car wash occupies the formerly vacant site at 191 Healdsburg Ave., between Flyers Energy and Big O Tires. The former car wash closed in 2022, leaving Healdsburg without the service for several years.

Two vehicle queues feed the wash tunnel before customers move to vacuum stations. Before exiting, however, vehicles pass through dryers that the resident said produce persistent noise from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., seven days a week.

“Most of the input is people are happy to have it, but I don’t think they want to live across the street from it,” the resident said.

Residents raised concerns early on about traffic, noise, operational effects, and water use before planning commissioners approved the proposal with conditions.

However, many viewed the development as a practical commercial investment that would restore a needed service along one of the city’s busiest commercial corridors.

City officials concluded that the project did not include uses warranting a noise study and was not located near sensitive receptors.

A visit to other sites might have led to a different decision.

LUV Car Wash has opened locations in American Canyon, Rohnert Park, and Santa Rosa, and announced additional sites in Petaluma, Cloverdale, Ukiah, and Fairfield. The Arizona-based company was founded in 2021 by Darren Skarecky, JT Thomson, and Susquehanna Private Capital.

The new car washes are designed to be environmentally friendly by using less water and preventing runoff. Most social media comments focus on the car wash’s convenience and effectiveness.

What noise?

That has led some commenters to downplay the noise.

Between distant freeway traffic and occasional overhead flights, the neighborhood near the Healdsburg Avenue business is not as quiet as other parts of the city.

However, the large industrial blowers that have prompted most of the complaints are loud in specific ways.

Car wash drying jets are loud because they use powerful, high-horsepower motors to push massive volumes of air through narrow nozzles at extreme speeds. Whether LUV’s dryers operate exactly this way or not, they also produce a sudden roar that can rattle nerves. The reaction is biological and difficult to control, according to research.

Airplane and freeway noise, however, is either more distant or occasional. LUV Car Wash operates for about 10 hours a day, with cars driving in and out, including on weekday afternoons.

In response to being chided on Facebook about her complaints, a woman who lives near the car wash said she could live with the occasional jets overhead, “but the constant buzz of the industrial dryers makes it impossible to be outside — I’ll be filing a complaint with the city,” she wrote.

Similarly, another woman responded to a question about the car wash’s hours by writing that she liked to “actually enjoy my yard and actually open my windows — do you not step outside during the day?”