Car Color and Its Effect on Value

[Razorbak86]

Which Colors Help and Hurt a Car's Resale Value?
BY JULIE BLACKLEY

https://www.iseecars.com/car-color-study

• A vehicle’s color can have a substantial impact on how quickly it loses value, with the highest depreciating color losing more than twice the value compared to the lowest.
• Popular colors, including white, black, and silver, have minimal impact, meaning they won’t hurt resale value but they also won’t help a vehicle maintain its value.
• Some of the most beneficial colors for retaining value, including yellow and orange, may surprise consumers.

After comparing the prices of more than six million new and used cars between 2017 to 2020, iSeeCars.com has determined which colors help, hurt, or have minimal impact on a vehicle’s resale value. “A vehicle’s color is among the primary considerations after shoppers have decided on a make and model,” said iSeeCars Executive Analyst Karl Brauer. “With resale value being the single biggest factor in how much a new vehicle ‘costs’ over the course of ownership, consumers should carefully consider their color choice.”

Mainstream colors, including white, black, and silver, are popular because they are seen as the safest colors with the widest appeal. But are those the best colors for helping a vehicle maintain its value? “There’s a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy going on here, with many consumers picking these mainstream colors not because they like them, but because they assume everyone else does,” said Brauer. “This makes white, black, and silver appear to be in high demand, yet our analysis confirms that more obscure colors tend to hold their value better than common and popular colors.”

Vehicle Depreciation by Color
Rank	Color	Avg Price New	Avg Price Used	3-year % Depreciation	Compared to Overall
1	Yellow	$37,742	$30,027	20.4%	0.54x
2	Beige	$28,487	$22,004	22.8%	0.61x
3	Orange	$30,714	$22,400	27.1%	0.72x
4	Green	$35,012	$24,052	31.3%	0.83x
5	Gray	$35,096	$22,331	36.4%	0.97x
6	Red	$35,295	$22,255	36.9%	0.98x
7	Blue	$35,061	$22,100	37.0%	0.98x
8	Silver	$35,026	$21,847	37.6%	1.00x
	Overall Average	$37,144	$23,187	37.6%
9	White	$39,167	$24,279	38.0%	1.01x
10	Black	$39,447	$24,309	38.4%	1.02x
11	Purple	$36,159	$21,263	41.2%	1.1x
12	Brown	$42,369	$24,517	42.1%	1.12x
13	Gold	$39,868	$21,693	45.6%	1.21x

Overall, yellow is the vehicle color that holds its value best, depreciating 45.6 percent less than the average vehicle. “Yellow may not be a widely desired car color, but there are enough people who want yellow, versus the number of yellow new cars being ordered, to make yellow cars more desirable than others on the used market,” said Brauer. “In fact, yellow is among the colors with the lowest vehicle share, and is most commonly a color for sports cars and other low-volume vehicles that hold their value relatively well.”

The same holds true for orange, which ranks third and also comprises a small overall share of vehicles. “Like yellow, orange is most often found on low-volume sports and muscle cars,” said Brauer. “Orange is such a novel color that it is often the choice for popular special edition vehicles, like the 30th edition Mazda MX-5 Miata, which are typically limited production vehicles.”

Beige, also an uncommon car color, is the vehicle color with the second-lowest depreciation. “Beige cars also comprise a small vehicle share of less than one percent,” said Brauer. “Although the term ‘beige’ has become synonymous with boring, it encompasses a spectrum of hues from off-white to a light brown and stands out in a parking lot while still being a neutral color.”

However, rarity alone does not determine how much a vehicle depreciates. The three paint colors with the highest depreciation—purple, brown, and gold—also have low market share, but depreciate far worse than average. “Rarity alone does not equal value. If a color doesn’t resonate with enough used car shoppers it will hurt resale value, even if it’s uncommon,” said Brauer.

The most common car colors--black, white, silver, gray, red, and blue--are all close to average in terms of depreciation. “Because there are so many of these vehicles in the used car marketplace, buyers can shop around more easily if they're interested in these colors, reducing the amount of pricing power for dealers,” said Brauer. “This means black, white, and silver are the safe colors to buy if you're satisfied with average value retention, but not if you're trying to do better than average.”

Car Color Depreciation by Vehicle Segment:

Because car color depreciation varies by vehicle type, iSeeCars examined the depreciation of each car color within the major vehicle segments.

SUV Depreciation by Color

When examining the SUV segment, iSeeCars found that the color that holds its value best is yellow, while beige depreciates the most.

SUV Depreciation by Color
Rank	Color	Avg Price New	Avg Price Used	3-year % Depreciation
1	Yellow	$24,945	$17,379	30.3%
2	Green	$33,505	$22,625	32.5%
3	Orange	$28,515	$18,321	35.7%
4	Red	$36,015	$22,175	38.4%
5	Gray	$37,975	$23,097	39.2%
6	Silver	$37,119	$22,493	39.4%
7	Blue	$37,267	$22,387	39.9%
8	Purple	$37,569	$22,541	40.0%
9	White	$41,238	$24,685	40.1%
10	Black	$41,672	$24,467	41.3%
11	Gold	$37,838	$21,778	42.4%
12	Brown	$41,446	$23,467	43.4%
13	Beige	$41,171	$22,250	46.0%

Similar to the overall list of colors across all vehicle types, flashy, uncommon colors are the lowest-depreciating colors for SUVs. “The low depreciation of yellow, green, and orange SUVs reflects the imbalance between how many people are picking these colors compared to how many buyers want them,” said Brauer. “These colors are more often associated with fast cars like sports and muscle cars and help make SUVs a less boring vehicle choice.”

Beige, which is the second-lowest depreciating color overall, is the highest-depreciating color in the SUV segment and is joined by gold and brown. “This further suggests that SUV buyers prefer bold hues if they choose to deviate from the most common car colors,” said Brauer.

The most popular colors, which are the grayscale colors of black, white, gray, and silver, each depreciates slightly faster than average. “These popular colors are abundant in the used car marketplace, and there is a balance of supply and demand,” said Brauer.

Pickup Truck Depreciation by Color

For pickup trucks, beige retains value the best while brown depreciates the most.

Pickup Truck Depreciation by Color
Rank	Color	Avg Price New	Avg Price Used	3-year % Depreciation
1	Beige	$45,272	$37,097	18.1%
2	White	$45,425	$32,369	28.7%
3	Gray	$44,056	$30,973	29.7%
4	Green	$44,971	$31,474	30.0%
5	Gold	$58,355	$40,203	31.1%
6	Silver	$44,413	$30,539	31.2%
7	Red	$46,939	$32,036	31.8%
8	Black	$48,585	$33,088	31.9%
9	Orange	$44,995	$30,572	32.1%
10	Blue	$46,161	$31,319	32.2%
11	Brown	$52,268	$34,785	33.4%

All pickup truck colors depreciate less than the average vehicle given the popularity of the used pickup truck segment. Beige is the color with the lowest depreciation, with white in distant second. “Toyota introduced a ‘quicksand’ beige hue which was exclusive to its TRD Pro off-road editions in 2016 before becoming available on all of its pickups in 2017,” said Brauer. “Because Toyota pickup trucks hold their value so well, and because this beige hue is a novelty, it helped beige pickups maintain their value.”

The next lowest-depreciating pickup truck colors are white and gray. “The low depreciation of muted colors for trucks could be partly attributed to the use of these trucks for work/fleet purposes, with neutral colors hiding wear and being easier to display company signage,” said Brauer.

[... Click the link to the article to see other vehicle segments ...]

Methodology

iSeeCars.com analyzed over 5.6 million sales of new model year 2017 cars between January and July of 2017, and over 700 thousand sales of used cars from the same model year between January and July of 2020. The average list prices of the new cars were adjusted for inflation to 2020 dollars, and then compared to the average list prices of the used cars. Data were aggregated by car color and body style.

About iSeeCars.com

iSeeCars.com is a car search engine that helps shoppers find the best car deals by providing key insights and valuable resources, like the iSeeCars free VIN check reports. iSeeCars.com has saved users over $279 million so far by applying big data analytics powered by over 25 billion (and growing) data points and using proprietary algorithms to objectively analyze, score and rank millions of new cars and used cars.

https://www.iseecars.com/car-color-study

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[Brocked]

I would not drive a yellow car if you gave it to me. Maybe they are taking into account yellow high dollar sports cars. They are the only car manufacturer that will actually paint a car yellow.

 

[Quinn_the_eskimo]

I would not drive a yellow car if you gave it to me. Maybe they are taking into account yellow high dollar sports cars. They are the only car manufacturer that will actually paint a car yellow.

All I can think of is those dumb a#& Dodge trucks with the striping and bumblebee. Like what sort of 6th grader thinks that's "cool?"

 

[rugbysecondrow]

So, does Cactus Grey count as "green" or "grey" for this study?

 

[BroncoJay]

So if you order a cyber orange (yellow) bronco you’re really sitting’ pretty ...

 

[BlazinGTO]

Lol What great numbers..... with the variety of car types: engines, doors, options, and price and certain colors only popular with certain types of people, there's not a lot to take away from this.

The data only goes back to 2017. Not very far. Color tastes change. Car trends change.

Following those charts, beige is the best or the worst. Depends what type of vehicle you have.

Less common colors will have skewed results. If only 3 cars were offered in yellow and all 3 cars have good resale value, it makes yellow look like a good resale color. But in reality it was the vehicle that made yellow the good resale color.

Something like silver gets the average of basically every car on the road. Even the absolute worst resell valued cars.

As the color becomes less common, the base resale value of the car hold much more weight in the calculations.

If one single car was offered in every color, then you could accurately compare a colors impact on resale value.

 

[Cheshire]

Yellow Defender 90's were selling at prices WAY above all others for many years before they all started going up like crazy. Yellow is still at a good premium.

I bet Cyber Orange Broncos in good condition will be worth most.

 

[*T2*]

I pick the vehicle and color I want whether it be for my practical purposes or just pure enjoyment....maybe it is just me, but I don't buy something for its "potential" resale value. I can care less....

 

[Nellman]

I am questioning this analysis. Beige is a color considered not tan but greens and blues are lumped together? Also brown, how many people have seen brown vehicles? I mean a true brown colored vehicle. I can only think of seeing one. Grouping green together means that horrible green that Jeep had is viewed the same as every other green that is darker. Same goes for vibrant blues and dark blues.

I get the different colors used and why, but to include beige but not tan is very specific. Then they added brown, two colors arguably the same, one lighter the other darker. Should have just said brown if you are going to lump colors together for the rest of the analysis. Because then beige, tan and every other brownish color would have been together. But that didn't show the point as well because brown is ranked last and beige is first in trucks and close to same for vehicles over all but both last for SUVs.

Point is this one example of the same color shows the shade of it changes the outcome.

 

[mkennedy009]

That article seems like a waste of words.

 

[BrentC]

Buy what you like - what makes you happy. I usually keep my vehicles for a minimum 8 years and I find by then, given that I’m a maintenance nazi, it’s more about the condition of the vehicle that makes the sale vs the colour.

That being said, bright colours make me happy and I’ve never considered resale when I’ve had the chance to order the vehicle in the colour I like. The last 6 new Fords I’ve bought have been, in order: Race Red, “2005 Focus Yellow”, Ruby Red, Tangerine Scream, Velocity Blue, and upcoming Cyber Orange (or maybe the MY22 mystery green if it’s like the jerry can colour).

I don’t think colour matters much if the vehicle’s old enough.

 

[Lowcountry Bronco]

The funny thing is that black, white, and silver have been low take rates for the forum per this:

https://www.bronco6g.com/forum/threads/📊-submitted-bronco-orders-tracking-list-stats.11453/

So maybe those will have a lower depreciation rate in our market with A51 and CG the highest since so many are being ordered in those colors.

 

[AZ_Liberty]

Color tastes change and are highly regional. Few people in Minnesota want a white car, nobody in Phoenix (with brains) wants a black one.

 

[Username_not_found]

Color tastes change and are highly regional. Few people in Minnesota want a white car, nobody in Phoenix (with brains) wants a black one.

I'm not sure why a white car in Minnesota would be problematic. Living in Minnesota I can say several things:

1) white cars are super popular here, along with grey/silver, and black.

2) in the winter roads are a mess with salt and grime that often can't be washed off for some time when it's too cold for the carwashes to operate. White hides this or hold out against looking dirty from it way way longer than dark cars. With my black car I get 3 miles from the carwash and my car looks like shot again in winter.

3) when it's cold out enough to matter, it doesn't matter if you've got a white car or a black car the amount of sun isn't going to be enough to make it comfortable. Having heated seats and a good heater are the only thing that matter here.

4) it still gets pretty damn hot in the summer. In my experience dark leather interior + black paint in summer has much more noticeable effect than cold leather interior + white paint in winter.

 

[Bituman]

Lol What great numbers..... with the variety of car types: engines, doors, options, and price and certain colors only popular with certain types of people, there's not a lot to take away from this.

The data only goes back to 2017. Not very far. Color tastes change. Car trends change.

Following those charts, beige is the best or the worst. Depends what type of vehicle you have.

Less common colors will have skewed results. If only 3 cars were offered in yellow and all 3 cars have good resale value, it makes yellow look like a good resale color. But in reality it was the vehicle that made yellow the good resale color.

Something like silver gets the average of basically every car on the road. Even the absolute worst resell valued cars.

As the color becomes less common, the base resale value of the car hold much more weight in the calculations.

If one single car was offered in every color, then you could accurately compare a colors impact on resale value.

Yeah, every bit of this. They need a professional statistician to review this data. For example, @BlazingGTO has a good point re: yellow cars.

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