How much does car color matter?

[theeedude]

Light silver is the way to go. Never have to wash it, and it still looks great.

 

[hans007]

personally i love white cars. but white is so common now. and silver and gray and black.

so i always want a color that is a little different. i have an estoril blue bmw, which is a little loud, but its different. never have an issue finding my car.


i dont know the colors are all the same cost, but weirdly enough, my mother hates monochromeatic cars. so i got this from my mother. buy a color. dont get a shade of gray

 

[Kaido]

I'm a fan of green because it's weird. I miss my original Kia Soul: (Alien Green, aka Metallic Avocado)

 

[Kaido]

Red = Fast car
Silver = Family car

Hah! True dat.

Personally, I don't like silver as a color at all. To me, it always looks like they simply forgot to paint the sheetmetal at the factory and always ends up looking more plain gray than shiny silver. I think the only car I've ever liked it on was a deep gray...it was a Lotus in gunmetal with heavy clearcoat. In pictures it doesn't look that special, but in person it's amazing:

 

[gorcorps]

I've only owned one black car in my life. It looked amazing when clean but it only looked clean for about 10 minutes after you wash it and they are horrible in hot climates. Silver cars are invisible, white cars are boring, tan cars are for old people... blah blah blah.

Get whatever color car you want.

Yup, there's something "wrong" with every color. Get what you want. When walking to & from your car in a parking lot, look around and see what all the colors look like when dirty.

 

[Jaepheth]

What I want to know is if anyone has ever tried a blue steel treatment for a car body in lieu of paint.

 

[thomsbrain]

For a daily driver, you can't beat white. The least heat in the summer, the longest-lasting clearcoats, easy to touch up, doesn't attract attention and it hides imperfections.

For a weekend car, I'm partial to blue.

 

[jagec]

Shame that white is one of the colors I despise the most. Nothing screams dull more than any white car. It simply has no soul and doesn't do a good job of being generic(silver does that better).

They always look like fleet cars to me.

I like dark blues and greens. More colorful than the generic white/black/silver, but more uncommon than red or yellow. Although red is absolutely gorgeous on the right sports car.

BMW pulls off blue very well.

 

[NutBucket]

I'm a fan of green because it's weird. I miss my original Kia Soul: (Alien Green, aka Metallic Avocado)

I like most dark greens. There's a florescent green you can get on a Fiesta that works too. I like wild colors on small cars but don't know if I'd ever have the guts to buy one!

 

[TridenT]

I tend to prefer pure white type cars. It makes some cars look fine. And many more look absolutely terrible in it (but most cars look like crap in anything... like that Kia Soul).

 

[BurnItDwn]

I hate grey, white, silver cars, I think black is overused. Cars should be colorful.

 

[Raizinman]

When I pick a color, I decide what I want to do with that specific vehicle. When my kid was 16, I picked him out a bright red Toyota Corolla. I believe the bright color saved him from a handful of accidents. When I wanted a go-fast car, I picked a dark gray that matched the street color. A police officers perception of a speeding car is much less when the color matches the street color as opposed to a bright color which gives the perception of speeding even if going the speed limit. The choice of color should not just be what your favorite color is, but what you intend to do with the vehicle.

 

[gorcorps]

What I want to know is if anyone has ever tried a blue steel treatment for a car body in lieu of paint.

You can't... or at least not easily enough to bother. The vast majority of auto panels are zinc coated via galvanneal method for better corrosion resistance. You can only blue steel when it's bare steel, so you'd have to find a way to strip the zinc... the way we do it in the lab is with hydrochloric acid so good luck. A lot of truck gates aren't galvannealed though, so that'd be your best shot.

So if you manage to get a hold of the right grade of steel that ISN'T already galvannealed, you can try to selectively blue that.

 

[JackBurton]

Agree

My favorite and last M3 model I liked. Beautiful car. Hate the new M4. It looks like crap in comparison.