Yellow, orange surprise as best paint colors for car resale value

Published by Mike on June 22, 2014

Filed under: Car Buying, Earnings/Financials

It might be worth choosing a color other than the standard black or silver next time you’re car shopping. A new study conducted by the used car search engine iSeeCars.com of over 20 million previously owned vehicles last year finds that less popular shades lead to lower price depreciation than the usually more favored hues. Yellow and orange show the lowest price drop in the analysis versus black, gray and silver with the biggest dives.

The difference isn’t just a few dollars, either. Yellow cars depreciate 26.2 percent on average from their original MSRP over 5 years (adjusted for inflation), compared to 34.4 percent for a black vehicle. For example, for a typical $40,000 model, with all else being equal except for color, the yellow one loses $10,480 of its value over the half decade, and the black one drops $13,760 from its initial purchase price.

iSeeCars.com CEO Phong Ly speculates that the difference may be down to simple supply and demand. With new vehicles, the price of different colors is all about the same (unless you opt for a special paint), but the used market can more freely adjust price depending on the variables. Ly claims that only 1.1 percent of the cars on the road are yellow or orange. Therefore, it makes some sense that there’s a premium for them over more common colors.

The study asserts that the results are true regardless of vehicle type. So if you’re really trying to maximize your purchase and don’t mind being a little bit different on the road, it might be worth considering a rarer color for your next purchase. Scroll down to read more about the study and see a full table of the shades by depreciation.

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Yellow, orange surprise as best paint colors for car resale value originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 18:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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