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I am pondering whether to specify my new car (a BMW 3 series) in white or with metallic paint. Is it worth getting metallic paint since it will cost me £400 more. Will I get a reasonable proportion of this back when I sell the car in 3 or 4 years time? Furthermore, I understand that it is much harder to re-touch metallic paint so it may even be a liability if I want to keep the car looking good.
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White is the worst colour for holding its value. Pay the extra for metallic - you would probably get more than the difference back when it comes to resale.
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Silver grey metalic is the best for holding its price, white is death in the second hand car world.
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You want to try selling a white beemer - lol. Get metallic.
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Does increase driving pleasure though. We have two 5 series Beemers at work, one white, one metallic doom blue - Watch people scatter out of the right hand lane of the motorway when they spot the "Police" car behind them... :o)
Still, a nice metallic car 4 years down the line will probably be worth more than 400 quid more than it's white counterpart and when you pull in for a part-ex the dealer'll be less likely to suck air through his teeth. People are very picky when buying second hand cars of that kind of age and don't like solid colours...
Dan J
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White is perfectly acceptable if you plan to export the car to a hot country - like Malaysia, etc.
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Strangely white on Euro sedans is popular in the US - but then again so are chromed wheels so there's no accounting for taste!
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white cars are de rigeur here - because of the heat.
Only where they are subjected to daily driving crud do they lose their appeal. That said, mine looks like a piece of c*** 2 days after washing - all the airborne pollution, etc.
Remember, though, matching metallics is a pig of a job - especially if you live in a place where the sun fades them. That could be the reason white cars are de rigeur here ...
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John McC - With the "soft" paints in current use, the paint on a solid coloured car will tend to go flat surprisingly quickly, even on a BMW. Polish alone will not solve the problem, certainly over 3 to 4 years, and the only real way to get round this way is to have a clear coat sprayed on, costing, say, £400... So you would end up with the worst of both worlds, the cost of the clear coat, and as the boys so rightly say, a car that is very hard to shift at trade-in time. Amit's right too, but it doesn't sound as if you're planning to head for the sun. As for shifting a right hand drive car in the US, white or not, forget it even more than getting a white car in the UK!
Dan J - You're so right about white"Q" cars - I was driving briskly down the M42/M5 one night in 1988 in a white Rover 825 courtesy car, instead of my own silver one, and couldn't initially understand why everything jumped out of my way, before falling in behind me! I suspect this is something that drivers of white Omegas and Volvos in particular trade on....
Ronnie
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Metallics are worth having for the extra layer of paint protection, in the form of the clear lacquer coat, which is applied over the base coat. White is just a thin paint job - hence all those white vans.
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Looks like everyone is in agreement here. Is this a first on this forum?
White is a bad colour because it shows the dirt as, surprisingly, so does black. I like the BMW silvers but they are now very commonplace and I think are beginning to lose their appeal in the secondhand market because of this.
I particularly like the lightish green (forgotten the name) that BMW have recently introduced for the 3-Series. And the Slate Green recently introduced for the 5-Series is just -- Wow!
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White does have the extra advantage of being the safest colour. (apart from dayglo orange or something) How often have you nearly failed to spot a dark/grey car on a grey road against a greay sky?
White offers better passive safety.
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White is no problem here, you can just sell it as a taxi when the time comes.
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I'd go for the metallic personally, on a Merc or a VW or Skoda or Rover or Fiat............NURSE!!!!!!!!!
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Yes metallic is the flavour of the month, sorry, year. But what about in 3 or 4 yrs time? Remember when every second car you saw was red? If you see a red car now your instinct is that its driven by some young jack the lad. Speshly if its an old Golf.
Also, I do think that point about relative visibility is too low on the list of priorities. Silver metallic can become invisible - particularly if dirty.
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Only comment I can make on the colour white is that when I had a white Cresta many, many years ago, the glare of the sun would bounce of the bonnet and cause one's eyes to water and make things difficult to see if one wasn't wearing sun glasses. This was effect was worsened when the sun was low in the sky. Never had the same problem with the two metallic silver Volvos that I have driven over the years.
Rita
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