Study ranks Brampton No. 1 in Canada for cleanest cars; Mississauga also shines

Canada news today — Brampton has a well-known reputation for busy roads, heavy traffic, and some of the highest auto insurance rates in the country. Now a new study has given the city something very different to talk about. Brampton ranks number one in Canada for car care in 2026, according to a new analysis by mobile car detailing platform Panda Hub, which measured how often residents in major Canadian cities search online for vehicle cleaning and detailing services. Toronto finished second. Mississauga came in third. The Greater Toronto Area swept every podium position in the country — and it was not particularly close.

By Maplestime News Desk | Canada | July 16, 2026
Sources: Panda Hub | Driving.ca | Last updated: July 16, 2026

What the Study Found

• Brampton ranked first in Canada for car care with 7,407 annual car care searches per 100,000 residents
• Toronto ranked second with 6,981 searches per 100,000 residents
• Mississauga ranked third with 6,617 searches per 100,000 residents
• Calgary ranked fourth at 5,290 and Vancouver fifth at 5,235
• Winnipeg ranked ninth among the ten cities studied with 1,931 searches per 100,000 residents
• Montreal ranked last among Canadian cities with 1,575 searches per 100,000 residents
• The study analyzed Google search demand from May 2023 through May 2026 for 27 car care related keywords
• Results were adjusted for population so larger cities did not have an automatic advantage over smaller ones
• The study covered the 100 largest U.S. cities and 10 major Canadian cities

How They Measured It

Before getting into what the numbers mean it is worth understanding how Panda Hub arrived at them — because the methodology shapes what the rankings actually tell us.

Rather than inspecting vehicles or surveying drivers directly, Panda Hub based its analysis entirely on Google search activity related to car care. The company analyzed search demand from May 2023 through May 2026 for 27 keywords covering professional detailing services, do-it-yourself cleaning methods, and common cleanup problems like removing stains, pet hair, and interior messes.

The total search volume for each city was then adjusted for population — giving a per capita figure that allowed cities of very different sizes to be compared on equal terms. Brampton’s number one ranking reflects the fact that its residents search for car care content more often relative to their population than residents of any other major Canadian city, not simply that Brampton has more total searches than smaller cities.

The rankings are based on searches per 100,000 residents per year. That is a meaningful number because it captures intensity of interest rather than just scale.

The Full Canadian Rankings

Here is where every city finished:

The gap between Ontario’s top three cities and the rest of the country is significant. Brampton’s 7,407 searches per 100,000 residents is nearly 40 per cent higher than Calgary’s fourth-place 5,290. The GTA’s dominance of the top three is not a marginal lead — it reflects a genuinely distinct level of car care interest concentrated in one part of the country.

The gap at the bottom is equally interesting. Montreal’s 1,575 searches per 100,000 residents is less than a quarter of Brampton’s figure — suggesting that whatever is driving Brampton’s car care culture is highly specific to that community rather than a national Canadian trait.

Why Brampton

Brampton’s large and active car enthusiast community is one of the most frequently cited explanations for the city’s strong showing. The Greater Toronto Area hosts numerous car clubs, car meets, and automotive events throughout the year that keep vehicle care front of mind for a significant portion of the population.

Brampton specifically has a large South Asian community with a strong cultural tradition of vehicle pride and maintenance. Cars are not merely transportation for many Brampton residents — they are a point of genuine personal pride and social identity. That attitude translates naturally into both professional detailing spending and the kind of online search behaviour that this study measured.

The city’s reputation for high auto insurance rates may also play a role in a less intuitive way. When you are paying among the highest insurance premiums in Canada, you are already thinking about your vehicle more often than the average driver. That heightened attention to automotive costs and status may extend to car care as well.

What People Are Actually Searching For

The 27 keywords Panda Hub analyzed covered three broad categories of car care interest.

Professional services — searches for mobile car detailing, ceramic coating, paint protection film, and professional interior cleaning.

Do it yourself cleaning — searches for at-home car washing techniques, detailing products, interior cleaning methods, and tools.

Problem solving — searches for how to remove specific issues like stains, pet hair, coffee spills, tree sap, and bird droppings from vehicle interiors and exteriors.

The combination of all three categories in the analysis is important because it captures both ends of the car care market — people who are paying professionals to maintain their vehicles and people who are putting in their own time and effort to achieve the same result. Both reflect genuine investment in vehicle appearance and condition.

Winnipeg and Montreal — What the Numbers Say

Two cities at the bottom of the Canadian rankings are worth a closer look.

Winnipeg finished ninth with 1,931 searches per 100,000 residents — a figure that reflects the practical realities of car ownership in a Prairie city that deals with months of salt, slush, and road grime every winter. Winnipeg drivers are not necessarily less interested in their vehicles — but the seasonal conditions that make car detailing genuinely difficult for large parts of the year may suppress the year-round search interest that warmer cities sustain more easily.

Montreal’s last-place finish with 1,575 searches per 100,000 residents is the most striking result in the Canadian rankings. Montreal has a large and sophisticated urban population with genuine car culture — but the city’s strong public transit system, high rates of urban living without vehicles, and possibly different cultural attitudes toward car ownership as a status symbol may all contribute to lower per capita car care search intensity.

It is also worth noting that a significant portion of Montreal’s population conducts online searches in French — and Panda Hub’s keyword analysis was presumably conducted in English. French language car care searches in Montreal may not have been fully captured in the methodology, which could mean the city’s actual car care interest is somewhat undercounted.

What This Tells Us About Canadian Car Culture

At its core this study is a proxy measurement for how much different Canadian communities care about their vehicles beyond basic transportation function.

The results suggest that car pride is concentrated in Ontario’s major urban centres — particularly in cities with large immigrant and first-generation communities where vehicle ownership carries significant cultural weight. Brampton, Toronto, and Mississauga all fit that profile.

The results also suggest that car care interest is strongly correlated with car culture infrastructure — the clubs, the meets, the social networks that make vehicle maintenance a community activity rather than a solo chore. The GTA has that infrastructure in abundance. Smaller cities and cities with different cultural compositions around vehicle ownership have less of it.

Panda Hub says the findings suggest Ontario drivers are particularly invested in keeping their vehicles clean compared to the rest of Canada. The numbers make that case clearly.

Have a correction or a car care tip for Canadian drivers? Email [email protected]

Is your city on this list — and does the ranking match what you actually see on the streets? Brampton at number one and Montreal at last place are both surprising in their own way. Share your take in the comments. And send this to every car enthusiast you know who will have an opinion about where their city landed.