Chooose the color you like, prep it properly and maintain it properly. All colors will last if taken care of. All colors have thier problems. Also, if your using a modern paint you WILL clear coat it, period. It’s not that color looks nicer with clear since there is no option, you will clear. Paint without clear looks like Harley Davidson denim paint but flatter.
black-shows every scratch and blemish from a mile away
white- there are a hundred different shades of white. Look at 3-4 white cars from different makes. Notice that one has some black in it and the other has some blue or red.
silver-lack of depth in the color and the silver will not look like factory silver. It will be darker or yellow since clear is not totally clear, it has a amber tint.
red- tons of variables on the same paint code, even when using the prime color, not primer but prime color.
Pick your favorite and shoot, no matter what you use it needs tlc
While I haven’t bought and shot paint in a number of years it could be that white is often used on commerical vehicles for a very good reason; cost.
Some colors are expensive (far more expensive) than others and it seems that in my paint buying days bland old white was cheaper than other colors.
(A few years ago on one of the TV shows about bikes (Jesse James I think) they were shooting a bike with paint that costs 4,000 dollars a quart. It had some oddball pigment in it that was made from some rare rain forest insect or something like that. Wonder what a custom paint job on a Peterbilt would run using that particular mix?)
How often did you clean and wax? I’ve never maintained a car properly and now I’m thinking about getting a gorgeous bright green one. How much of my free time is going to be eaten up by car care and I’ve never even been to a car wash place. I’m the woman that hasn’t been getting my nails done. This new car won’t help. I don’t even style my hair. I hope I’m ready for this.
Every color is bombarded with a wide spectrum of light energy from the sun. The color that you end up seeing is that portion of the energy spectrum that gets reflected. The rest is absorbed. If you see blue, than energy frequencies above about 475 nanometers in wavelength were reflected, and everything else was absorbed. White reflects almost all of the sun’s energy. Black absorbs almost all of the sun’s energy.
The more of the sun’s energy that is absorbed, the hotter it gets and the more effect it has on degradation of the paint. Black absorbs the most.
The less of the energy is absorbed, the more of the sun’s energy is reflected and the less effect it has on the paint.
Now this all assumes that everything else is equal. It isn’t. Some manufacturers do a much better job with their paint than others, and some use “clearcoat” on top of the paint, which greatly extends the life of the paint by better sealing in the chemicals. And some manufacturers had a terrible time figuring out how to use the aqueous low-VOC paints that were mandated many years ago, resulting in paint coming off in sheets.
What’s the best color? IMHO it’s the one you like. That’s the only paint characteristic you have any control of.
I like white. I drive silver. Silver is what they had on the lot, and I never order cars.
By the way, IMHO white is used for many commercial vehicles because it’s a good base to put on logos, phone numbers, images, etc.
The most important thing to keep the paint surface in good shape is to hose the car off once every week or two. Rinsing off the dust etc. No need to go to a car wash place, at least not on a frequent basis, as long as you don’t mind the less than newly washed appearance. If you like a little better appearance but don’t want to do the car wash thing, after hosing it off, let it drip-dry for 15 minutes, then wipe it off with a clean cotton towel. That will get rid of most of the water spots.
I vote against this. If the car is rinsed but not really washed, there will still be fine dirt on it. Rubbing that into the paint will cause problems eventually.
In summer I wash the car at least once a week, at home, and in winter I wash it whenever the weather permits, at a hand wash place.
At home I use lots and lots of suds and even more water. I use a soft wash brush on a pole, and I flush the brush thoroughly after every use. Soap only breaks the bond, it’s the water that removes the dirt.
I wax it at least once in spring and once in fall. When I was working, the car spent a lot more time on the road and I waxed it at least three times a year.
