The Best Car Colors for Your Wallet: Which Ones Offer the Most Value?

You may not realize it at first, but car colors can have a direct impact on its value when it’s time to sell. According to a study conducted by iSeeCars.com, the sales data of over 1.3 million 3-year-old pre-owned vehicles was analyzed to determine how much of a difference the color of your vehicle can have on its worth. As it turns out, it can matter quite a lot.

Because there is a wide range of car colors out on the market, with some models having a bigger selection than others, some colors can affect their value by up to $5,000.

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Car Colors with the Best Depreciation Rate

On average, the value of a new car depreciates 22.5% of its value after three years. But depending on its color, that rate can be lower in the same amount of time. Based on the data, yellow cars hold onto their value the best with a depreciation rate of 13.5% after three years, which is 60% less than that of the average vehicle. This means that owners can save an additional $3,000 above the market value of their vehicle when compared to other colors. Some other car colors that have been proven to retain their value over time include beige, orange, green, and red.

“Yellow cars continue to represent the greatest disparity between how many are produced and how many people want one,” says iSeeCars Executive Analyst Karl Brauer. “While not many people want a yellow car, there are clearly more people who want one than exist, which is why yellow performs so well on the secondary market. The same can be said of orange and green, colors you don’t see often but are obviously in higher demand than supply.”

Best Car Colors for SUV Resale Value

Overall, yellow proved to be the top color for a vehicle to retain its value over time across all vehicles, and it placed first again by a landslide with the sales of pre-owned SUVs. Ranking at the top of the list with a 3-year depreciation rate of only 9.1%, sellers were able to see a difference of only $4,500 from its original MSRP. Meanwhile, vehicles of the same age that were either green, orange, purple, red, or beige would see a depreciation rate of 20.4% to 23.7%, which calculates a difference of $8,807 – $13,120 less than the original MSRP of the vehicle when it was brand-new.

For Trucks, Beige is Best

Beige is a color that is as exciting as the waiting room at the dentist’s office. But for truck owners, especially those that like to go off-roading in models like the Jeep Gladiator Mojave or the Toyota Tacoma TRD, beige and tan are able to retain a truck’s value greater than the rest of the color spectrum. With a 3-year depreciation value of only 7.9%, beige trucks will see a difference of only $3,640 when compared to their original MSRP. Other colors that ranked high among trucks with low depreciation rates include orange, green, brown, gray, and white.

Brown Takes the Crown Among Sedans

Generally speaking, the depreciation rate for sedans is significantly higher than that of SUVs and trucks. However, the color of your car can certainly soften the blow of what you can expect to get for its resale value. Brown, just like beige, doesn’t deliver the same kind of first impression as an all-black sedan. But on the plus side, it does seize the top spot for car colors with the lowest sedan depreciation rate of 16.8%. While that rate doesn’t sound very exciting either, it is certainly much better than a purple sedan, which has a depreciation rate of 24.6%, which is basically a quarter-less of the car’s original MSRP after three years.