Every used-car conversation eventually gets to the paint argument: white and black hold their value, and anything odd costs you thousands at resale. I've repeated it myself. So I went into our 306,046 listings to prove it, and for about ten minutes the numbers agreed with me.
Across the whole market, white averages $19,577 and brown averages $13,047. A $6,530 gap on paint alone. Case closed, right?
| Color | Listings | Avg price | Avg model year |
|---|---|---|---|
| White | 34,720 | $19,577 | 2017.1 |
| Black | 21,487 | $17,113 | 2016.4 |
| Red | 8,266 | $15,589 | 2016.0 |
| Silver | 13,587 | $14,450 | 2015.7 |
| Brown | 1,808 | $13,047 | 2014.7 |
White cars aren't worth more. They're newer.
Look at that last column before you discount your brown sedan. The average white listing is a 2017.1 model year. The average brown one is a 2014.7. Silver sits at 2015.7, red at 2016.0, black at 2016.4. The color ranking is almost perfectly the model-year ranking, top to bottom. White took over new-car lots over the past decade, so white sits on the newest, priciest end of the used market. Nobody's paying for paint. They're paying for a car that's about two and a half years younger.
Same model, same year, and the pattern collapses
The honest test is to hold everything else still, so I locked the model and the model year and compared colors inside that group. If paint carried a premium, the same colors would win every time. They don't.
On 2018 Camrys red leads at $19,625, then black at $17,264, white at $16,677, grey at $15,139 and silver at $14,874 — white finishes third, mid-pack. On 2018 RAV4s white does win at $19,859, but red comes dead last at $14,859, the exact reverse of the Camry order. On 2018 F-150s grey takes it at $27,278 while white lands second from the bottom at $21,555.
| 2018 model | Priciest color | Cheapest color | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|
| Toyota Camry | Red $19,625 | Silver $14,874 | $4,751 |
| Ford F-150 | Grey $27,278 | Silver $20,445 | $6,833 |
| Toyota RAV4 | White $19,859 | Red $14,859 | $5,000 |
Three vehicles, three different winning colors, and white ranks first, third and fifth depending on which one you look at. That's not a pricing rule. That's noise.
What's really moving those numbers
Mileage. Red 2018 Camrys average 94,345 miles; silver ones average 117,094 — 22,749 extra miles on the cheaper group. Same on the RAV4: white averages 92,496 miles, red 115,153. The color column was standing in front of the odometer column the entire time.
So buy the color you want to look at every morning. Price the car on the things that actually move money instead: year, trim, mileage, history. You can check what your car is worth on those inputs, and before you pay for someone else's, run the VIN. Colour aside, the number that really decides what you get back is depreciation — we ran the models that hold their value against the ones that don't.
Frequently asked questions
Do white cars really sell for more?
Across our whole database white listings average $19,577 versus $13,047 for brown, but white cars also average a 2017.1 model year against 2014.7 for brown. The gap is model year, not paint.
Which color holds value best?
There isn't one. Inside a single model and year the ranking changes every time: red leads on 2018 Camrys, grey on 2018 F-150s, white on 2018 RAV4s. No color wins consistently.
Should I avoid an unusual color when buying?
Our data gives you no pricing reason to. The price differences we found inside one model and year track mileage — red 2018 Camrys average 94,345 miles versus 117,094 for silver ones.
Denis Kataev is a serial solopreneur and the founder of ForCar. With 15+ years in software engineering and 10 years in SEO, he builds data-driven products end to end — backed by a sharp eye for design. At ForCar he mines proprietary vehicle datasets, turning raw numbers into buying advice you can actually trust.
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