hey everyone, been browsing a big, have an order placed for a 3 performance with white interior. Currently went with black exterior but considering switching to white or even grey. Of these choices- what’s the best quality? Who has had them or seen them? What color is the primer below the paint- what color shows through with a scratch? If I stay with black- I’ll be doing a full chrome delete- whereas white- I’d maybe keep it. Grey- I’d have to delete it. Most of the ones I see are black so that’s what I went with. Probably bc it was the free option previously.
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Which paint color to order- best quality?
- Thread starter kunzjob
- Start date
Best quality? Who knows. It's paint. I bought mine in white (when it was an add-on charge.) I like white cars; they tend to hide minutia. Matches my last car, and my wife's current car, too. I guess we have a theme.
Eh. I don't find it different than any other paint on any other car.... None of them compare to the porcelain on my Weber kettle grill. That baby takes a licking and keeps on ticking ......
destructure00
Active Member
White will hide imperfections better than either of the other colors.
Stomsf
Member
Get what you want and put PPF over it -- Tesla paint is notoriously delicate and will scratch very easily. This from someone who doesn't even have a VIN yet LOL
scubastevo80
Member
chewyc
Member
For what it's worth, I almost always have black cars. I ordered yet to be delivered/VINed Performance in MSM. Based on other people's experiences, the multi coat paints are better, hence my choice.
tbwnm
Member
I'm wondering the same thing. I guess your choice will also depend on where you live and if the car will be protected in a garage much of the time or not and how often you wash it. In Los Angeles we have always had silver cars as these tend to hide the dust and general city grime/smog the best (we tend to not wash our cars that often, maybe once a month). The Tesla Sales rep said the same thing. The Pearl White does seem like an interesting color and a good value. We have seen a few around and in the show room and they look really nice but the ones that were dusty showed the dust. Black looks really sharp but would need a lot more TLC.
EricUSC
Member
I inspected a friend's white 6/19 build Model 3 and it was almost flawless and better than anything I saw in 2018 (inspected mostly blue and red cars in 2018). Could be the color or could be that Tesla improved their paint quality.
thodgdon66
Member
+1
And to answer the poster's question, the primer is light grey (who does that under black paint). I know this because I stupidly drove my car for 2 weeks after I got it BEFORE getting the PPF on the front end. Now I have a 3 tiny chips. I should have known better. Going to drive the Wife's car from delivery to the shop for tint and PPF before it gets screwed up like the black car. Highways in this state are CRAP - rocks everywhere.
White is the trend. And since it’s free, why not get it?
At the very least least 1/4 of all cars on my daily route in my neighborhood are white. When I go to drop off/pickup my kid at school, there’s times when there is a line of 5-8 consecutive white cars lol. Especially SUVs, almost exclusively white these days.
At the very least least 1/4 of all cars on my daily route in my neighborhood are white. When I go to drop off/pickup my kid at school, there’s times when there is a line of 5-8 consecutive white cars lol. Especially SUVs, almost exclusively white these days.
srs5694
Active Member
White is the second most popular color for cars (generically) today; however, that's not true for Teslas. TeslaFi has a statistics page (I don't think it's accessible to non-subscribers), which is currently reporting the following as colors for subscribers' Model 3s:
- Solid Black: 999
- Midnight Silver: 936
- Deep Blue: 930
- Pearl White: 655
- Red Multicoat: 533
- Silver Metallic: 116
- Signature Blue: 1
- Default: 1
- Silver: 1
- Red: 1
The article I cited said that silver is the single most popular color, but Tesla's Silver Metallic is pretty rare because it was discontinued in late 2018. I don't know if Tesla's Midnight Silver would be counted as "silver" or "grey" in a cross-manufacturer color survey. Personally, I'd call it more grey than silver.
Maybe then each neighborhood area has their own trend.
In my area, white is definitely the most common car color, especially with SUVs as I mentioned.
Just today at a SC, 5 of the 9 or so Tesla’s were white. I’ll take a picture next time I’m at one.
White on white looks very crisp and nice, but maybe a tad boring. I think both MSM and Black will have issues showing swirls and scratches, obviously with black being worse. MSM you might be able to get away with just PPF on the full front end and A-pillars/rockers but with black I probably would say go PPF on the full car (~$5k). Unless you can wash/polish/dry at the detail shop level, you're going to get some swirls on the black and they just jump out at you. With PPF things are a little more forgiving and while you still should clean it to the best of your abilities and care, light swirls will either be resisted or "self heal" when exposed to heat.
(I have a blue Model 3 with PPF applied about 7 days / 100 miles after delivery to the full front, a-pillars, and rocker panels and it looks pretty darn good, but even still I've picked up a couple light swirl marks on the rear quarter panels and I've gone to great lengths to be as delicate as possible in washing it. Thankfully I don't notice them tooooo much, but once the wallet recovers I'll probably get some paint correction and PPF the full rear of the car and doors)
(I have a blue Model 3 with PPF applied about 7 days / 100 miles after delivery to the full front, a-pillars, and rocker panels and it looks pretty darn good, but even still I've picked up a couple light swirl marks on the rear quarter panels and I've gone to great lengths to be as delicate as possible in washing it. Thankfully I don't notice them tooooo much, but once the wallet recovers I'll probably get some paint correction and PPF the full rear of the car and doors)
Dan203
Active Member
I specifically ordered Red, over Blue, because I thought it would be more rare. Which according to your chart it is. But last week I was driving home from Reno and saw 5 Model 3s, 3 of which were Red. So apparently it's not so rare around here.
Actually I'm starting to see these all over the roads now. More than I ever saw BMWs. (my current car) So I'm going to kind of blend into the crowd once I get the Model 3.
I feel like I see more red Model 3's around me then any other color as well. MSM and black seems to be the rare ones around here. I've seen a decent number of blues, a handful of white, and a bunch of reds.
Similar threads
