Does the Color of an HD Pickup Make a Difference?

If I am buying a new or used vehicle yes, NO black, white, silver. As far as resale value or time to sell I suspect color doesn't have much effect. Obviously lots of people like the colors I don't like based on colors I see.

atreis wrote:
But how many of the trucks were beige? It's not the total size of the sample, but the size of the sample of each color for each type of vehicle that matters.

And as someone else pointed out, what's "beige" exactly? Does off-white count? It doesn't to me! That's just a shade of white.

It would matter if you were trying to find out something unique to beige vehicles, but when you’re looking for the effect color has on depreciation and resale value (something that’s common across all vehicles), you count how many of each color are in the total sales for the time period being analyzed. Setting an arbitrary sample size for each color would defeat the purpose of the study, since supply and demand play a definite role in resale values for all colors.

My take is that supply and demand for white, black, and silver are balanced for most vehicle types. There is little to no effect on the used value of a vehicle in those colors.

Apparently, whatever you want to define as beige and yellow for particular vehicles are not in balance regarding supply and demand. The demand is higher than available supply, so they command a higher price. The same can be said for beige, gold and brown on other vehicle types, but for them, the supply/demand relationship would be flipped.

In the case of trucks, I’m quite certain that the number of white work trucks sold is responsible for that color ending up in the number 2 spot. But as I said, look at the difference in depreciation between the number 1 and number 2 colors. That says there’s a huge supply, and equal to slightly lower demand.

As for how you define “beige”, it doesn’t matter as long as you use the same sorting criteria for new sales and used sales.

Now that you mention it, I used to own a vehicle that was variously described as “white”, “off-white”, “cream”, and “beige”, depending on whether it was the DMV, my insurance company, a LEO, or a friend doing the describing. I loved that color, and would buy a truck painted that color today, so I guess I WOULD buy a “beige” truck after all.

:):)

NRALIFR wrote:
“six million new and used cars between 2017 to 2020”

Doesn’t sound small to me.

But how many of the trucks were beige? It's not the total size of the sample, but the size of the sample of each color for each type of vehicle that matters.

And as someone else pointed out, what's "beige" exactly? Does off-white count? It doesn't to me! That's just a shade of white.

I think solid white with no metal flake is the best for resale as well as damage repair. It is easier to color match without needing to match the direction of the metal flake.
Curly

2012Coleman wrote:
My 2017 Ram 2500 was a white Bighorn. Took it to the dealership and had them paint the silver two-tone option. Looked pretty sweet.

You're absolutely right.

When I was in the business, many a time did we buy or take in on trade a solid white truck that looked like a commercial vehicle, and 2-toned (usually the rocker panels) in silver or champagne gold, then laid a wide double pinstripe on it at the beltline, matching the 2-tone color, and they literally flew off the lot (and brought more $$ as well). It turned' plain Janes' into very classy looking trucks.

atreis wrote:
Beige ........ Small sample size? White yes, but not beige ...

Ford used to have both a bright white and a very slightly tan white. I wonder if the slightly tan white qualified as beige. It was a close match to the Chrysler spinnaker white from the 60's and 70's. I had Ford and Chrysler products in the off-color white and found them very easy to keep up. Didn't fade and didn't show dirt nearly as much as most colors.

My 2017 Ram 2500 was a white Bighorn. Took it to the dealership and had them paint the silver two-tone option. Looked pretty sweet.

Bionic Man wrote:
Look at the average price listed for SUVs. Seems way low to me. Which makes me question the overall data. And the top 4 colors listed for cars are all ones I wouldn’t buy.

I don’t believe the data.

1. The average SUV price looks very accurate to me. For every $60,000+ unnecessarily large SUV that's sold, I'll bet 4 or 5 Kia Souls, Ford EcoSports, or Hyundai Venues are sold. It all averages out.

2. If you don't believe it, then it can't possibly be true, right? :h

Per the website:

iSeeCars.com analyzed over 5.6 million sales of new model year 2017 cars between January and July of 2017, and over 700 thousand sales of used cars from the same model year between January and July of 2020

I suspect the data is faulty since COVID was in full swing for the "sales of used cars...between January and July of 2020".

Also, looking at new sales between Jan and Jul 2017 for model year 2017 wouldn't take in the higher paid prices for many of the "exotic" colors that would be custom ordered. Yet, the used sales between Jan and Jul 2020 would include those custom ordered vehicles. So that would skew the resale values also.

Look at the average price listed for SUVs. Seems way low to me. Which makes me question the overall data. And the top 4 colors listed for cars are all ones I wouldn’t buy.

I don’t believe the data.