iSeeCars: The Best and Worst Car Colors For Resale Value (2024)

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ISeeCars: The Best and Worst Car Colors For Resale Value? ›

Popular colors like Black, White and Silver depreciate at a rate close to average. If resale value is important to you, you'll probably want to steer clear of gold and brown, colors that depreciate far worse than average.

Popular colors like Black, White and Silver depreciate at a rate close to average. If resale value is important to you, you'll probably want to steer clear of gold and brown, colors that depreciate far worse than average.

What the research says. For the car market in general, the above-average colors for resale value are yellow, beige, orange, green, red, white and blue. These could be good choices if resale value is a top concern.

Brown, a shade that is uncommon across most vehicle types, also happens to lose its value faster than any other color, depreciating at a rate 1.2 times faster than the industry average.

Many buyers choose to buy white, black, gray, or silver cars because they retain their value better. If your car is a flashier color, you may have difficulty selling it. There is a common misconception that brighter hues like red increase insurance premiums. This is, however, not the case.

Eminent White Pearl

White cars have a natural sense of luxury and classiness that can't be denied. So, it's a great choice if you want to keep your car color simple but not dark.

Silver. Similar to white, silver cars reflect light effectively, making it easier to conceal scratches. Instead of standing out, scratches in a silver car are more likely to blend into the paint.

If you're buying a car with resale value in mind, a bright color might be the way to go. According to some number-crunching by iSeeCars, three-year-old used cars depreciate the least if they're yellow. Gold, though, depreciates the most.

Beige, light blue, light gray, and silver are the best car color choices for those who want to keep their vehicles clean. In addition, white paint can hide dust and debris well. But, dirt that accumulates can be tough to hide on a white car.

What is the number 1 car color? ›

White is the most popular car color for car buyers, accounting for 25.8 percent of all vehicles.

Neutral colors like white, black, silver, and gray are consistently associated with luxury and elite social status. They are elegant and often considered “classy,” at least compared to “loud” car colors like yellow and red. When considering practicality, sliver and gray hues are much easier to keep clean.

A smaller supply of bold-colored paint jobs helps create a greater demand and less depreciation. A few relatively new, unusual-colored cars are available on the used market. A spokesperson from BASF tells us that purple, yellow, gold, and orange are the colors dealers are least likely to keep in stock.

It turns out that yellow cars suffer the least depreciation, while gold vehicles sink like bullion in the sea. According to research by iSeeCars of the entire three-year-old used-car market, a used vehicle with yellow paint has a 13.5 percent depreciation rate, the best of all the colors.

Value could also be called “lightness.” It refers to how light or dark a color is. Lighter colors have higher values. For example, orange has a higher value than navy blue or dark purple. Black has the lowest value of any hue, and white the highest.

Black cars are harder to see on the road, especially at night. Gray and silver cars are monochrome in a way that decreases their contrast with the surrounding environment. Meanwhile, bold colors stand out, making them easier to spot and, therefore, easier to navigate around.