I previously owned a black car and now my current car is white. I would say that the black car was harder to look pristine and would show every little blemish. Something in the middle is probably easiest to live with.
Having tried many different colours of car , by far the best I’ve had for looking clean when it’s actually filthy is Metallic Gold
Seeing as we are looking at a Fabia in this colour, this is good news..
My last few cars were black. Great when clean but never clean for long. Also we live in a hard water area so always had water marks that needed polishing off after every wash if the car was just left to dry.
My next car is grey.
Current car is very shiny black, or at least it was when it was sitting at the dealership tempting me in. I knew it would look crap 99% of its life but here we are anyway
Even when they are clean most black cars look terrible due to fact that most have been washed so poorly over time. They just show all the swirls, buffer trails and holograms (as others have stated). I would never even contemplate a black car for that reason.
That Metallic Gold (is there another kind of gold?) looks more Mushroom Soup to me, maybe it's my monitor settings.
Anyway black cars, our S-Max is Panther Black (i.e. slightly speckly metallic). It looks mucky when it's mucky, which is most of the time.
I find it incredible how popular black is considering how bad it looks in the British weather. I did have a Black Audi A7 and got it ceramic coated that to be fair meant I only had to wash every other week. Most black cars look terrible brand new as first wash leaves panels covered in swirls.
That Metallic Gold (is there another kind of gold?) looks more Mushroom Soup to me, maybe it’s my monitor settings.
Looks clean though? It’s actually filthy.
Easier than a a white one.
Utter tosh.
I use to work for a building materials (including quarries) company, all company cars allocated to onsite staff were white - they just didn't show the dirt like other colours and the company didn't want 'dirty' vehicles leaving site(s).
Consequently non-onsite staff always had dark colours to show that they weren't site riff-raff 🙂
Had a black Volvo 850 T5-R (sold just before the prices started rising) years ago. It was lovely when properly clean but took a lot of effort. Put it in to a mate who was a detailer to properly clean and machine polish it and it was absolutely, mirror finish, lovely.
Then it broke down and sat in the mechanics yard for weeks to be fit in between jobs, went in to chase them up and saw it under a thick layer of dust. Phone call to say it was done so popped in to pay on the way home "We've dropped it off around at your flat for you, don't worry we've washed all that dust off", walk home was in the fear they'd used the brush lying on the ground which they absolutely had and made it worse than I'd ever had it. Complaint led to them offering to take it back in and "sort" it which I refused.
So yeah, great when it's looking good but frustrating when it's not. Next car due later this week is black so back on the merry-go round for me!
looks
dirtyfaster dirty.
FTFY. Had black cars for 20 years, and they look lovely shiny or grimy
Sorry, but that brown Fabia is 70's dog turd after a week in the grass
Bright yellow is the best for being seen thus safest as folk are less likely to drive into you. 🙂
Just as hard as any other car to keep clean. However, it shows up dirt a lot more. Nevertheless, if you are like me you would be cleaning it every couple of weeks or so anyway so it wouldn't matter about the colour.
When just cleaned and detailed black looks the best colour. 10 minutes later after a drive its the worst colour.
Are you lot SURE you've got black cars ? Or just very very very very very dark blue?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wx8-mysJG2s
I've had a couple black cars and I've found the trick to keeping them clean less painful was to get a DI resin filter to remove limescale. It means you don't need to dry it off and there is zero limescale with no extra effort. I can wash a large estate e class in under 20 minutes (with a Pre wash foam too) and it comes out looking like I've freshly waxed it as the filtered water makes the final finish amazing. Also as I never dry it down, the paint gets much fewer swirl marks and less chance of accidental damage from grit in a drying cloth.
We've had 3 black cars (and one white). Not because we like black cars. They are a pain to clean and show the dirt quickly as others have said. Look great when they are clean but need more washing than a white car.
Greys, blues, reds all generally better imo for daily use.
Current car is white, and it’s much easier to keep looking clean than the previous black car was. The black one was a nightmare - especially if you want to keep it actually clean - as others have said it takes a small amount of dirt and shows it up. If this is to be for a sports car you want to keep clean and shiny I’d avoid like the plague.
The precious two cars to these were both silver which was great - they just slowly turned a different shade of silver without looking dirty even when not cleaned for months.
The most annoying thing I've found since buying a black car last Spring is how quickly it can look crap in summer, a few days of pollen and a light shower and it looks like a barn find. I was prepared for it to look crap between washes over winter but thought it would hold up better over summer. That said this is my first winter owning it and I'm already caring a lot less about it's appearance so maybe by summer it won't annoy me either...
My last 3 cars have been black, every time I say I wont get another then the next car ends up being something hard to find with a particular engine/spec/age/condition and colour is always the bottom of my priorities.
It's actually pretty near the top of my list and I still can't understand why brits are so averse to having any colour in their life. Is everybody's life so full of joy and colour that they just don't need any more in their life? I've looked at a few cars that seem to have the right specs recently only to find that they are offered in six different colours none of which are actually colours at all. Black, white, various shades of grey. OK some may contain the merest hint of a colour but that seems to be as radical as the average British car buyer is prepared to get these days.
So, no, I'd never buy a black car, or a white car, or a grey car, or silver or any insipid shade of pseudo-grey. At leadt it narrows my options down to something more manageable 🙂
It’s actually pretty near the top of my list and I still can’t understand why brits are so averse to having any colour in their life.
Not averse, just prioritise condition/age/milage over colour.
1st black car was due to my (blue) VRs Estate being written off. Needed something that day, local, vaguely interesting for peanuts. Black Focus ST - super chavy, made a great noise and sold for a profit.
Next was an imported JDM van that only came in 4 colours. Perfect vehicle came up in a unique spec (real leather, 3.5 v6, AWD, electric doors) from a highly regarded importer so again... black.
Current car, try finding a clean, low mileage E91 335d lci m sport with dark interior and no sunroofs... would rather Le Mans blue but only 1 car ticked the boxes in the few months I looked so ended up with black again.
Not averse, just prioritise condition/age/milage over colour.
That makes sense and I'm sure you are not alone. In fact I'm sure it is me being weird in prioritising colour over almost anything else. I don't care what the condition, age, specs etc are. The thought of having to walk up to a black, white, silver, grey or any insipid colour car every day of my life is just too depressing to contemplate. I look at car parks sometimes and am depressed by how boring my fellow human beings seem to be. Row after row of shades of grey. People who work hard to earn good money and actually aspire to own a grey audi/bmw or whatever, just like everyone else in the car park. Slaving away just to conform.
Same with bikes really. If I'm spending that sort of money then it has to be nice to look at too and that means that it has to at least be in colour.
Each to their own though 🙂
But you can't see what colour it is when you're inside it, so surely it's better to have a car thats nice inside??
Dont get me wrong, if I had the choice I wouldnt chose black (i'd have metallic Orange), but I'd rather have a car thats in good condition and comfy to drive than a certain colour.
Ah my bikes are always pretty colourful, currently have a metallic baby blue hardtail and clear coated my enduro bike with holographic purple metallic flake over raw carbon 😆
I tend to agree re. colour - some cars look great in a 'big' colour (orange McLaren and pea green or yellow GT3/4/etc for example) but there can also be an element of 'look at me' also, which I hate.
MrsSB's current golf is blue and she's had it for about 10 years so anything blue is a non-starter and white is a bit of a fashion colour - at the end of the day the car has to be sold to someone and it's always easier with a 'safe' colour.
I could have gone with the Sao Paulo Lime …
Bugger to keep clean though.
I've got a black car, replaced a red car which replaced a blue car. All look crap in winter but OK when the road filth stops. Winter washing consists of cleaning lights and plates and once a month through the car wash.
2 black vans, they get cleaned maybe once or twice a year .. not sure what all the fuss is about? The worst thing about black is people seem to think you are invisible and pull out in front of you a lot ..... but then silver is probably the worst colour for that, and those vehicles always seem to be ones driving with no lights on when it's poor visiblity ....
2 black vans, they get cleaned maybe once or twice a year .. not sure what all the fuss is about? The worst thing about black is people seem to think you are invisible
If they only get cleaned once or twice a year (assuming they get used in the uk), they’ll be more Matte dark grey in colour. Which might be part of the problem.
If they only get cleaned once or twice a year (assuming they get used in the uk), they’ll be more Matte dark grey in colour. Which might be part of the problem.
Nope, they just look black with a bit of dirt on them ... :-)!
