Protyre News
How Important is the Colour of your Car?
By Adam White
When you are looking at buying a new car, the colour you choose is often down to personal preference, nostalgia, a reflection of your personality, or, for some, it is not important at all…but what if it is?
Last year Protyre uncovered the MOT failure rates across the UK to determine which region failed the most MOTs. While researching the statistics behind this, we learned some interesting facts in relation to the colour of a car.
Have you considered that the colour of your car might give it a better or worse chance of passing its MOT test? During our research, it struck us that green cars failed an average of 31.94% of tests, making it by far the worst-performing colour followed by yellow, with an average of 26% of cars failing their MOT tests. From the data pulled, we also revealed that the Black Nissan Qashqai passed 83.52% of tests, making it the best performing car from the top 20 most popular model and colour combinations.
Recent statistics released by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) revealed that the most popular new car colour of 2018 was grey for the first time in history. Half a million UK drivers chose a grey new set of wheels - is this a reflection of the typical British weather stereotype where it is always grey and gloomy?
The UK’s top ten most popular car colours in 2018 (by % market share)
| Car Colour | % Market Share |
|---|---|
| Grey | 20.9% |
| Black | 20.2% |
| White | 18.3% |
| Blue | 16.1% |
| Red | 10.0% |
| Silver | 9.3% |
| Orange | 1.1% |
| Green | 0.9% |
| Bronze | 0.4% |
| Beige | 0.4% |
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So, by comparing the data from MOT failure rates with the most popular new car colour, Grey seems to pip the old favourites of Black and White for popularity and high MOT pass rates:
In 2017, Grey Vauxhall Corsas and Black Vauxhall Astras were in the UK top 10 most popular cars to buy. However, in the same year, they failed 26.51% of MOTs on average.
Nationwide data suggests that grey is the most popular colour for MINI buyers and that only 18.14% of grey MINIs fail their MOTs.
Red cars are popular in the UK but they failed 25.32% of tests nationwide.
Green cars in the North West fail 31.94% of tests (highest failure % of any car in the UK).
Click the button below to get more fun facts from our MOT Failure Hotspots interactive:
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