What is the Most Practical Car Color?

[Revolution 11]

I will be buying a 2013 Honda Accord and I was thinking about which color would be the most practical. This car will be stored outdoors 24/7 in central North Carolina and I do not have access to a garage.

I first considered white because the car will heat up less during summer. But every single dust speck is visible. Black solves this somewhat and looks nicer to me but heat is a problem in summer drives. I don't want colors that are "flashy" to police for example, don't know if colors affecting traffic tickets is a myth or not.

As long as the color is not something crazy like neon green or pink, I can live with it. To summarize, please don't give me your favorite colors, but rather the most practical colors, in terms of heat, visibility, and cleaning requirements.

Edit: It will be the 2014 Accord instead.

 

[BlitzPuppet]

I will be buying a 2013 Honda Accord and I was thinking about which color would be the most practical. This car will be stored outdoors 24/7 in central North Carolina and I do not have access to a garage.

I first considered white because the car will heat up less during summer. But every single dust speck is visible. Black solves this somewhat and looks nicer to me but heat is a problem in summer drives. I don't want colors that are "flashy" to police for example, don't know if colors affecting traffic tickets is a myth or not.

As long as the color is not something crazy like neon green or pink, I can live with it. To summarize, please don't give me your favorite colors, but rather the most practical colors, in terms of heat, visibility, and cleaning requirements.

Black and white are the hardest colors to keep clean. Black is the worst since swirl marks will show like mad.

My girlfriend has a 2013 Accord in White and I have a 2013 Altima in Dark Gray. Neither of us really show much dirt.

My family has always gone light gray/silver (Texas heat) and have had no issues.

 

[exdeath]

Grey. A deep dark glassy hypnotic metallic grey, not a light "look another Nissan" silver.

Doesn't look dirty or make scratches and swirl marks stand out.

Doesn't look loud and attention whorish.

Isn't hot in the summer like black and doesn't look douch like ALL black or ALL white.

Subtle, clean, minimalist.

But looks downright sinister on the right car (03 Cobra, CTS Vs, anything with a chiseled angular look for me). Yet classy at the same time.

 

[zaydq]

Believe it or not, white is extremely easy to keep clean. All the white cars i've ever had were dirty... but i wasn't aware of it until i would wash them. White seems to hide being dirty very well with just changing a different shade (Unless your car is chalk full of mud).

Black is by far the worst. It shows hairline scratches and dust and dirt and just about anything.

Silver/Metallic grey's tend to hide it the best.

 

[hanoverphist]

beige or champagne gets my vote. boring color, people dont really notice them and dirt is about the same color so you wont notice much on it.

as for whether certain colors attract attention, of course they do. my civic was silver when i drove it, i never even got stopped in it. my daughter has it satin black with hot pink trim, shes been stopped 3 times in 4 months. its not necessarily a specific color that gets you noticed, its the deviation from the norm. and the norm in rush hour seems to be the muted colors. next time youre driving, do a quick glance around, see which car draws your attention and note the color of it.

 

[xSkyDrAx]

Yea it's a misconception that a black car will hide anything because the of the stark difference in appearance between a clean black car and a black car with a small layer of dust.

White is the more forgiving of the two. Dark grey is probably the most practical as exdeath mentioned without looking bland. Other than that dark greens/blues/purples/reds generally have the same effect.

 

[Jimzz]

Grey. A deep dark glassy hypnotic metallic grey, not a light "look another Nissan" silver.

Doesn't look dirty or make scratches and swirl marks stand out.

Doesn't look loud and attention whorish.

Isn't hot in the summer like black and doesn't look douch like ALL black or ALL white.

Subtle, clean, minimalist.

But looks downright sinister on the right car (03 Cobra, CTS Vs, anything with a chiseled angular look for me). Yet classy at the same time.

I agree with this. Darker grey is a good all round color.

 

[Revolution 11]

Which color option on the Accord is the darker grey? The hematite metallic or the modern steel metallic? I am guessing the latter...but both look similar on Honda's site.

And it will not be the 2013 Accord but the 2014 model.

 

[DougK62]

It sounds like you want something that will hide dirt well and not garner attention. That means you want something light in color, slightly metallic. Light beige and silver metallics would be the best.

 

[Revolution 11]

Well, I am deciding between the Modern Steel Metallic (darker grey) and the Alabaster Silver Metallic (silver grey). These two shades are both attractive to me so I will pick the one that is functionally better. Some people are saying go for light grey, others for dark grey. What's the difference?

This is probably a waste of time to worry about which shade of grey but a car is expensive and I feel it is worth some hassle to get it right.

 

[xSkyDrAx]

At that point I would think it's mostly a matter of personal preference as functionality-wise they're pretty much identical. Neither will show dirty easily nor are huge attention grabbers.

I believe alabaster is the one that looks closer to silver. Also go look on some dealer websites that took pictures of the real car instead of the CG one on the website for a better idea of the color.

 

[Jimzz]

Which color option on the Accord is the darker grey? The hematite metallic or the modern steel metallic? I am guessing the latter...but both look similar on Honda's site.

And it will not be the 2013 Accord but the 2014 model.

Both of those are not bad, on their site. But I prefer the darker myself.

 

[dbk]

Welcome to da club. I would say grey.. Either Alabaster Silver Metallic (light grey) or Modern Steel Metallic (dark grey). Only downside is that you will see a lot of the same colors on the road. Personally, i like the Basque Red Pearl (very luxurious looking color, imo) but it not an option for manuals.

 

[dbk]

Both of those are not bad, on their site. But I prefer the darker myself.

Hermatite will appear green during the day, not my cup of tea

 

[Jimzz]

Hermatite will appear green during the day, not my cup of tea

Well I like green so that only solidifies my stance then

 

[thedarkwolf]

My parents had a 77 mercedes in avocado green that never showed dirt. It just always looked like crap. My last two cars have been white and I've been pretty happy with how well they hold up.

 

[dbk]

My parents had a 77 mercedes in avocado green that never showed dirt. It just always looked like crap. My last two cars have been white and I've been pretty happy with how well they hold up.

My last car was a white Honda Fit and it got pwnd by rock chips. Hondas has crappy paint so take that with a grain of salt, I suppose. Nonetheless, I will never buy a white car (or black, for that matter).

 

[cyclistca]

Silver is good for hiding dirt.

 

[bamx2]

I prefer white.

 

[Scarpozzi]

I have a dark gray car and a silver car. Both don't have to be washed as often as my wife's black 4Runner.

 

[Crono]

Blue, Silver, or Grey

White actually hides dust fairly well, but dirt and mud will show up on it.

Black is the worst. I love my car and the color, but dust, swirls, water spots, etc show more easily. I have to wash it every other week to keep it looking clean. Almost every other color seems not to look unwashed as black. Gold actually works pretty well, too.

 

[ElFenix]

But every single dust speck is visible. Black solves this somewhat

you have this backward. black shows pretty much all dirt and defects. white hides it pretty well.


blue is almost as bad as black, so i don't know where crono is going with that.

 

[JCH13]

Metallic gray. My metropolitan gray mica MS3 gets filthy, but usually looks pretty decent.

(not my car)

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

I would go with white or silver/grey. With white you don't really notice, it just goes a slightly darker colour and if you're living with it you can't tell, and silver/grey hides dirt quite well. Unless you have this really annoying bird who keeps pooping on your car. Like I seem to have.

 

[NutBucket]

Color choice should be an opinion. Get the color that works best with the car. I'm partial to white (conveniently) so I get to have my cake and eat it too. For me it has little to do with practicality...nothing beats a nice pearl white on most vehicles.

My Corvette/Lotus would definitely be yellow though