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Comment by ThePadawan | Hacker News Reader

It might be a self-perpetuating problem.

Maybe people prefer (red, green, bright blue), but they fear that they won't be able to sell their car because of its color. So they buy white.

(I read somewhere [so take this with a grain of salt] that this effect happens with marble kitchen countertops: not that many homeowners actually like them, but they believe that potential buyers might, so an overproportional amount of people put them in their kitchens - leading everybody else to believe that they're actually very popular.)

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My current car is bright-yellow. People often ask me whether the color selection was an error, or something went wrong during the order process or whatever.

They are really confused and in disbelief when I tell them that no, it was intentional.

The advantage (other than me just liking fancier colors and disliking the prevalence of grey in cars) is that I can find my car in even the largest parking lot from very far away, and that people instantly recognize me as it's seemingly the only yellow Mercedes-Benz in the town where I live (~100.000 inhabitants) ;-)

Recently I overheard two kids (a boy and a girl, around 7 or so) who drove by my car on bicycles, loudly proclaiming "I would never drive a yellow Mercedes". I wanted to ask them why, but they were too quick (and probably embarassed that I overheard them). I would really love to know if it was their own (genuuine) dislike of the color yellow, or if it was something they acquired from their parents or something like that.

To choose both a bright color and a luxury make is signaling to people that you want them to notice your fancier than average car. They are responding to this perceived flaunting of wealth.

It's children, they most likely just thought the yellow looked jarring compared to less loud colors they are used too.

To give you my personal opinion, yellow clashes with the elegant and sleek style of the brand Mercedes is trying to present. When I see a yellow car, I either think 'cheap run down taxi' or 'high end sports car', it doesn't fit with the mid range semi-luxury vehicles aesthetically. I guess it's because what we're culturally accustomed to.

For what it's worth, I think yellow is the definitive colour for a 1970s British sports car:

https://uploads.carandclassic.co.uk/uploads/cars/triumph/118...

That's orange. (I like it)

It's macaroni yellow

> Maybe people prefer (red, green, bright blue), but they fear that they won't be able to sell their car because of its color. So they buy white.

There's definitely location/cultural variety here, people would worry a white car wouldn't sell, due to the increased visibility of dirt and scratches, so only gets 5% of sales here. The top colours here are silver (24%), black (22%) and blue (17%, mostly darker shades).

I'm not sure why silver cars escape the stigma of white cars here since they have the same issues, but they do.

After the size of vehicles and number of pickups, the amount of white cars was the next thing that stood out to me about the cars when I first went to california

The white car thing in California might just be weather related. White won't heat up as fast

steel is naturally silver so I guess that's the reason no one cares much?

> I'm not sure why silver cars escape the stigma of white cars here since they have the same issues, but they do.

Most cars ads show off new models in some variation of metalic grey. Perhaps this creates a subliminal impression in how people perceive metalic grey as an 'elegant' car colour.

White cars have two problems: damage shows, and the smallest amount of dirt shows. The silver color helps with the latter part quite a bit.

Over here, it feels like white has become a much more common car color over the past 5(?) years or so. It used to be almost non-existent outside things like rental cars etc. but nowadays it's really common.

As for showing dirt/scratches/dents, from what I've read black is the worst actually, followed by other very dark colors. Best is relatively light gray, brownish/beige kind of colors.

As somebody who has recently renovated their kitchen and bathroom, it's not that I thought potential buyers would prefer white over a colour, it's just that I thought they were less likely to NOT like white over my preference of colour, and then either be put off, or feel like "this house is perfect but we'd have to redo the bathroom right away because I can't stand the pink" and then offer less.

This comment reminds me of one of my favourite Mitchell and Webb sketches: https://youtu.be/nWoWHzq21tA

If anything that was an under-reaction.

When I redo a room it gets the colours we like. I don't care about the next owner of the house beyond keeping the house well maintained and gradually improving things like insulation and wiring. Don't like a colour? Change it after the sale.

As it is, the housing market in the Netherlands is completely overheated (seller's market due to a housing shortage), so I could paint every room hot pink and it won't affect the price one bit, but even when that settles down I won't choose boring colours just to push up the price a few thousand Euro.

My kitchen: red walls matched with off white cabinets and shelving; living room: bespoke teal wall filling book case matched with patterned wallpaper (in grays) and an oxblood red sofa and seat (a complimentary colour to the teal); and so on.

I have to live in it and maximizing the joy I get from my house is important to me.

I have this same attitude. Enjoy it while you're here and don't live for someone else's ideal.

So basically they renovate not for themselves, but for some fantasy future buyers. That's a bit sad...

What's the difference?

If I were to renovate in a style which doesn't appeal to me, but has broader market appeal, it's still for me. The only difference is that I value the long term potential future income more than I value the loss of short term adherence to my taste.

If you plan to live short term in that house, why not.

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