When we are gazing at a brand new car on the showroom floor, sometimes we are just dazzled by its beauty, and just forget how much work will be involved in keeping it looking as shiny and clean as it does brand new. Once we stop daydreaming and step back into reality, the question is, which car color is the best when it comes to maintaining the appearance of your vehicle so that dirt and damage doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb?
Some cars look exceptional regardless of which color they are painted in, but as far as the car colors that remain popular year after year the top choices are black, silver, white, and red.
We live in a world where dust and dirt is everywhere. Do we really want to have to wash our cars every single week just to protect ourselves from the judgmental eyes of those around us? Whether you are buying or leasing an automobile, how clean it is will still be a reflection on you whether you like it or not, so if you’re not willing to spend the time and money on upkeep and keeping the car clean, you may want to opt for a car color that hides dirt better for longer before visibly needing a wash.
How Quickly Can Cars Get Dirty?
Whether you wash and wax your car every weekend, or run it through an automatic car wash every couple weeks, the color of your vehicle can affect how frequently you need to do this. It isn't strictly the car color that influences how quickly a car gets visibly dirty--it could also be because of where you live, how often you drive, or even where you park.
If you would rather spend your time away from constantly cleaning your car, then having the ideal car color to hide dirt will make your life a whole lot easier. The less time that you have into washing your car means that you’re saving on cleaning supplies or car wash visits, water usage, and you’re paying yourself back in both money and time!
If you have owned a white car, you know first hand it is difficult to keep them clean. It may be one of the hardest car colors to hide dirt, but the truth is that it isn't actually the absolute worst color to choose when it comes to getting visibly dirty.
Top Car Color To Hide Dirt
When we talk about car colors that hide dirt, we don't mean that dirt is going to mysteriously disappear. The grime just won't look so obvious and noticeable. The right car color can actually enable the dirt to blend in rather than stand out, allowing you to go longer periods of time without having to wash it.
That being said, ideally, you will want to buy a car that comes in some tone or shade of brown. You can go with beige, champagne, light brown, or tan, though you do want to avoid darker hues because, like black cars, light-colored dirt splotches and water spots become more easily visible.
Light brown is actually pretty obvious if you think about it, since light brown looks similar to dust and dirt. But, even with this common sense, customers typically go for the more popular colors like black, red, white, and blue. After your tan or brown cars, shades of gray and silver vehicles also do better than other colors when it comes to appearing clean, even if there is actually a decent amount of dirt on the surface of the car.
While buying a brown or grey car is all fine and dandy, there’s a much easier way to combat the appearance of dirt--by keeping your vehicle's exterior surface properly waxed. This makes it difficult for the dirt to stick as readily, and you don’t have to wax that often to reap the benefits of its protective coating. You can also have your automobile detailed if you are in need of saving yourself some time in the manual labor department, but you’ll save a lot of money and get comparable results with the help of modern high-quality home detailing products!
What Color Shows Dirt the Most?
Now that we have clarified that light brown, gray, and silver are the best car color picks for hiding dirt, what are car colors to avoid? Like we mentioned, the car color that shows dirt the quickest is black. In addition to black, all of the darker colors have a hard time looking clean for long, making light brown an even more ideal choice to reduce your need to make trips to the car wash.
Reiterating what we said earlier, the problem is that dark colors tend to accumulate water spots after they have been exposed to rain or even light mist. Black and dark-colored cars also seem to more obviously show other substances such as bird droppings, pollen, and dirt. In addition to dark colors, depending on where you live, a region that has a large amount of red clay or a lot of dirt roads can become a problem to a white car when it comes to keeping it clean.
Black or White
With the realization that black is typically the hardest car color to keep looking clean, it raises a debate about which car color works the best between black or white? Currently, trends have shown that when it comes to choosing car colors, the top of the list tends to be white, then silver, followed by black. But a trend reflects what is best for other people. Which car color will be best for your personal needs?
With white being the most common car color, the struggles of keeping it clean like the day that it first rolled off the auto lot has not been a deterrent for them getting sold. The same could be said for black cars, even though they are the hardest to keep clean.
A Couple Last Thoughts
In addition to being concerned about your car looking dirty, there is also the very real reality that your car can get dented or scratched. Your car could get dinged in a car accident while driving in the midst of traffic, and there is also the occasional misfortune of having your vehicle innocently parked in a full lot, just to have you return to find a new scratch or dent.
When you pay your hard-earned money for a new or used vehicle, you want a color that you actually find appealing. But, just like keeping your car or truck looking clean, you also want to choose a color that makes it harder to notice imperfections that may occur along the way.
Which color is the easiest to maintain and hide small scratches? The answer is white. The reason is that white is a bright color that is able to minimize the appearance of dents, especially when it is a particularly sunny day. But, if you are concerned about keeping a white car clean in an area with a lot of dust or dirt, you can't go wrong with other really light colors, such as silver.
So, all in all, lighter colors blend into the paint job and lessen the chances of subtle dirt or mild imperfections being too noticeable, so keep those tans, beiges, and silvers at the top of your list when you’re on the hunt for a new ride. Or, give yourself a little freedom and just take advantage of detailing products instead that add a protective coating to whatever color vehicle you want--seems like a lot simpler solution to us!
SOURCES:
https://www.consumerreports.org/buying-a-car/understanding-the-colorful-world-of-automotive-paint/
https://www.kbb.com/car-advice/what-are-the-best-car-colors-to-buy/
https://www.topgear.com.ph/features/tip-sheet/which-car-colors-are-easiest-to-maintain
