What's a good color to paint a car for resale?

[Mike Self]

Since it's apparent that you're not gonna make the car factory original--and that's fine--after all it's your car! the proper answer is "whatever color you want to paint it." 

 

I will agree with several other posters that the body better be nearly perfect if you're gonna do black, as it will show the slightest blemish, ding or wavy spot.  I did an antique Fiat with a tan (VW Savannah beige, close to Nevada) body and black fenders, and I spent a lot more time getting the fenders as perfect as possible than I did on the body, as I knew the lighter body color was more forgiving.

 

But do it what you like. if you're not gonna limit yourself to original 2002 colors... I'm kinda partial to E36 Boston Green, or Z3 Evergreen myself,

 

mike

[adawil2002]

Go for Shwartz, then Ceramic Coat it really helps cut down on constantly cleaning. This is 02P Lisa's Tesoro which has the best black paint job on a 2002 I have ever seen. All the refections line up across the panels with no waves ripples or flaws of any kind. Let this be your inspiration & ultimate goal for your build. To get the car to this level of finish, as I recall, took over a year.

 

Here's the Petrolicious link: 

 

[AustrianVespaGuy]

I'd suggest you stick to one of these:

[MitchaPaLoOza88]

Just pick one of the rare colors.

Then in the sales AD you say, "its a rare color"

 

For the love of god, do not do Silver, White, or Black. Its a cool car why blend it in with the sea of boring colors already on the road.

 

Florida, Turf, Caribe are some cool colors.

[Jim_75Sahara]

Rare vintage BMW colors appeal to me as well.... but it’s your car, your dreams...

[zinz]

It's called "Resale Red" for a reason...

 

As been said already, black is the hardest color to pull off correctly.  It shows every ripple, dent, and imperfection.  Lisa's car took many weeks of fiddling and block sanding before the paint was applied.  That level of work will be very expensive to replicate.

 

Do it right, though... trunk, engine bay, door jambs. Tape off the windshield wiper nozzles, hood latch bar, and wiper motor. Not sure why folks never tape those off...

 

Good luck with it.  It will probably be so nice afterwards, you won't want to sell it, so choose a color you like.

Ed

[AustrianVespaGuy]

6 minutes ago, zinz said:

Tape off the windshield wiper nozzles, hood latch bar, and wiper motor. Not sure why folks never tape those off...

Or better yet, just remove it all and spend the time cleaning all that stuff up while the car's in the paint shop!  

[AustrianVespaGuy]

1 hour ago, MitchaPaLoOza88 said:

For the love of god, do not do Silver, White, or Black. Its a cool car why blend it in with the sea of boring colors already on the road.

I ❤️ you, @MitchaPaLoOza88! We are of like minds!

 

 

[Mike Self]

1 hour ago, AustrianVespaGuy said:

Tape off the windshield wiper nozzles, hood latch bar, and wiper motor.

Even better than tape for odd-shaped things like the wiper motor and hood latch bar:  use aluminum foil.  Easy to mold to odd-shaped things, (usually) doesn't need tape to hold it in place, and no sticky residue to remove.  

 

I did that to the steering column on an old car I was repainting at an auto body class I was taking, and my instructor had never seen that done before and said "why didn't I think of that?"  Dunno where I learned it, but it works...

 

mike

[NYNick]

Have you done the cost/benefit analysis? What's the car worth in its current condition? A proper paint job is expensive. Will you get at least the cost of the paint job above its current value?

 

I'd be doing that math before trying to choose a color.

[Robert Kyle]

Black is awesome, but a lot of work, which is a problem for potential buyers. 

 

Many do like turkis 

 

 

[Gordon]

Original color it left the factory with, Sahara. 

 

Edited August 18, 2020 by Gordon

[jp5Touring]

Friend of mine did his in Turkis turned out beautiful.  He did almost all the body work except spray it IIRC.

He added a little more turquoise to the color.  Car is stunning in person.

 

[MitchaPaLoOza88]

I did not realize how cool Turkis was till this thread.

 

One other piece of unhelpful advice... I've found that a picture on the computer of the paint color can never fully do the color justice.

Some of the colors look very different in person, and very different depending on the lighting.

[BarneyT]

Turkis can make an automatic cool...