Best Of

my wife is also picky and will spend much time agonizing over it. Good thing is she would never pick black.

Which begs the question - how many of us actively chose the color of the cars they bought/leased, and how many settled for colors that were on the lot?

I know the Subaru was specifically chosen by my wife - she only wanted the Wilderness Green. On the Sportage, however, the daughter bought the car I brought her to test drive - was not a color that was on her radar.

I definitely pick the interior color first as I prefer lighter colors. The exterior can follow along as I have a much wider tolerance there.

Color is secondary, but can be a deal breaker.

Equipment is more important

Thinking back, it has been a mixture of picking my color and taking what’s on the lot. The current Tacoma I got in Black because it was literally the cheapest truck the broker had on the lot. On my Prelude, the Milano Red was my 1st choice. Although the car had been discontinued when I was shopping for it, so I had to take what I was able to find. I got lucky with my 1st choice being available. The Highlander I wanted an XLE with a Black Interior and captains chairs. It was during Covid so I was fortunate to get an SUV at MSRP.

Good question. It really depends on the situation. I'd say most times I shop the deal with a range of colors I'd accept. The only times I can recall looking for and finding a specific color was the WRX and the Charger. My wife did it twice with the Pilot and Pacifica. We ordered a specific color for the Sprinter, but since the order never got processed, that didn't happen. The CTS just happened to be the color combo I would have chosen. I accidentally picked the grabber blue Mustang (thought I was getting the dark blue). I think that leaves a good 90% of the time where we took what they had. Right equipment and right price means far more to me than what color it is.

For the Elantra N and WRX I was very particular on color. And all my wife’s cars she cared deeply.

Re. car colors: when I was shopping for my current ATS in 2017, I was coming out of a lease of a 2014 that was painted Red Obsession, a color virtually identical to Mazda’s Soul Red, so I didn’t really want another in that shade. I was really smitten with this one I spotted on their lot:



I had never seen that shade before and I think it was one year only. Unfortunately for my color preference that car had a black interior which I didn’t want plus they made me a great deal on the one I ended up buying, which you can see in the background. Wish it was this color outside though. I’ve never seen this car around here in the years since.

@corvette said:
The Maverick put in some work this afternoon. Picked up 16 bags of mulch on sale at Home Depot, which is as much as you can comfortably stack on one of those roller carts (a shame they don't offer drive-through loading like Lowe's does [or used to]). That pretty much filled the bed area to the brim. That did maybe 1/3 of what I need to put down. Thankfully, there's an Ace close to my house that also has mulch on sale at the same price. To be continued...

The most mulch I’ve ever picked up at one time was in the Wrangler. I think I got 40 bags piled into it. Once the back door closed, I was sliding them in through the open sky roof 1 by 1.

These days there are so few on the lot that we take what we can get as long as we don’t hate it.
The Volt was white with a tan interior, which I really liked. Good thing, as it was the only Premier trim on the lot. PHEVs in particular seem to be scarce.
If you want a traditional sedan I imagine there is much greater variety.