Black means safety, blue is calming and red equals strength – the colour you pick for your new car is supposed to be a reflection of who you are. But it could cost you more than you expect.
UK “75” number plates are being rolled out from Monday and “new reg day” is traditionally a busy time for car dealers. Depending on the make and model you are buying, picking a blue paint job rather than red or a matt instead of a metallic finish could add thousands to the cost of a new vehicle.
Many car manufacturers now only offer one “free” colour as standard.
A Nissan Qashqai, for example, will come in red, and if you want it in silver, black, white or metallic blue, you will have £745 added to your bill.
An Audi Q3 comes in white at no extra cost, but an extra £575 gets you a range of colours – from “progressive red” to “navarra blue”. White is also free for a BMW X3, but go for “dune grey” and you will have to pay £875, while “tanzanite blue” costs £1,725.
Earlier this summer, the motoring website Auto Express surveyed the costs of paint colours across a range of cars from different manufacturers.
“We’re seeing huge discrepancies in paint pricing between manufacturers and they’re not always obvious at first glance,” says its editor, Paul Barker. “It’s catching people out and can turn what should be a fun part of car buying into a bit of a nightmare.”
If you are comparing the cost of two different vehicles and have a colour in mind, you need to make sure you know how much the manufacturers will charge for it.
There are four main types of car finish. From the cheapest to the most expensive, they are: solid, the most basic; metallic, which has tiny pieces of aluminium in it to reflect light and give a shine; pearlescent, which shines even more brightly; and matt, a modern non-reflective look.
More elaborate paint jobs can cause other headaches. When you choose to sell your car, a bold colour will probably be harder to shift.
Jonathan Such, of First Response Finance, a vehicle financing company, says white, black and silver cars are timeless and tend to hold their value better.
“Cars that have come in the colour of the ‘moment’ or a trending colour tend to depreciate quicker, so will lose their value quickly, meaning a lower price,” he says.
Barker says you will be unlikely to make your money back from an expensive investment on a unique or niche colour scheme. There is one exception, he says, in the bright yellow Renault 5 – a colour that has been synonymous with the car since the 1970s and adds £800 to the cost of a new vehicle.
The more elaborate the type of paint used, the more expensive repairs are likely to be. James Harris of Slim’s Detailing, a car care retailer, says speciality finishes such as metallics or pearlescents are costly if they have to be touched up.
“A small scratch can become a big hassle and matching that paint exactly will cost more than your standard job,” he says.
You may also find you need to have work done more often.
“Darker colours such as black or deep blue are beautiful when they’re polished, but they’re like a magnet for every swirl mark [light scratches] and water spots,” Harris says. “You need to be on top of it with regular detailing to keep them looking their best. If you’re after a low-maintenance option, then lighter colours – think silver or white – are the way to go. They hide imperfections much better.”
Martijn Versteegen, the founder of Imagin Studio, which creates images of vehicles for car companies, says expensive matt finishes are more prone to visible scratches and cannot be polished out like conventional paint. “Even a small scratch can mean a full respray,” he says.
And just to add to the complication, red cars can cost more in repairs as they may need to get resprayed more often, says Such. “This is because red car paint fades over time at a quicker rate than any other colour,” he says.
Insurers say the colour you choose will not affect your premium, but if you change the colour after you have bought it, that could be classed as a modification, so you need to inform whoever provides your policy.
While £745 may sound a lot to get a Qashqai in anything but red, spare a thought for prospective supercar owners: opting for a new Maserati GranTurismo Folgore finished in “azzuro astro glossy” will cost you £15,840. Then again, if you can afford the £182,000 price tag, perhaps it is not so painful.