Would you buy a red car?

[Anglersvista]

I have a mate, and I trust his opinion on cars (he's that sort of know it all). He said that he would never buy a red car, regardless of make or model. This isn't due to the pre-conceived ideas that it attracts attention from the police, but something about the sunlights reaction with red paint (and this ONLY works with red paint) according to him. Is this true, in today's day and age? Will a nice new red car deteriorate faster than other colours. Is this why we see boring coloured cars on trhe road these days? I'm asking because I'm looking, and I like red.

[HeadingNorth]

I can cobble together a plausible scientific explanation of how sunlight might affect red paint more than others; a substance appears red because it absorbs the shorter, more energetic, wavelengths of light and reflects the longer, less energetic ones. This could mean that the extra energy has deleterious effects.

 

 

That said, I've never actually heard of such a thing and I'm not making any claim that it actually does happen. Even if it did happen with older paints, I would have thought that modern technology would have nullified the effect; and frankly, if someone gave the above argument to me I would think it was a pile of rubbish.

 

 

Incidentally, our planned next car is going to be red... unless this thread persuades me that it's a bad idea.

[cressida]

I read that a yellow car is less likely to be stolen as fewer people choose that colour, maybe a red one is more popular and that's the reason not to buy one

 

Personally a red sports car is the dream car

[Total Chaos]

Yellow too,it is supposed to fade the roof and bonnet,but as said above about modern technology it may have only been the old paints.

[Mmrraww]

Possibly a coincidence, but many older red cars i've seen seem to suffer from this. A friend of mine's Toyota had this happen really bad, but i dont know if it was due to the sun or what it had been washed with for years. They were quite hopeless with cars to be honest.

[HeadingNorth]

Certainly if you go back far enough, bright coloured paints used to fade badly over time, but dark paints, or pastel shades, fared much better. I very much doubt that this is a consideration nowadays.

[rosemary19]

I have a red one and i love it.

[ronthenekred]

I'm well endowed, I don't need to prove a point.

[vwkittie]

As the long suffering owner of a 20 year old red car, I can assure you I would never have another.

 

It is a *constant* battle with the elements to keep it red, rather than an unattractive patchy pink. It requires endless polishing and waxing.

 

Old red paint does suffer very badly indeed. Newer ones are probably absolutely fine however, I wouldn't worry about buying a new red car.

[Resident]

As the long suffering owner of a 20 year old red car, I can assure you I would never have another.

 

It is a *constant* battle with the elements to keep it red, rather than an unattractive patchy pink. It requires endless polishing and waxing.

 

Old red paint does suffer very badly indeed. Newer ones are probably absolutely fine however, I wouldn't worry about buying a new red car.

 

This. I was out T-cutting and polishing mine every week. Both cars were early 90s models.