Very few parts come pre-painted to the body shop. If you find yourself in need of one, you'll find that they'll need to paint the panel they're replacing and do blending on the adjacent panels. As good as they are at matching color, they aren't perfect.

Also, UV fades the paint. Even if you could get pre-painted panels, they wouldn't match a car that's spent much time in the sun.

I had a rattle can tinted to match the factory color on my hood. It wasn't even close on the 12 year old car. On the outside of the hood. The inside of the hood would've been pretty damn close.

It depends on if you're getting a new or a used part, no? Most times for cars over a few years old the shop can get a used panel off of a scrap car for much less than buying a new part, and in that case it might already match... Unless they are stripping and re-painting those, I have no idea.

I know rationally why a manufacturer would want to limit their color palette. I just wonder why people were more willing to pay for color in, say, the 80s than they are now. Look at the paint colors available for an early 80's Corolla [1] compared to the same car today [2]. Perhaps I'm overanalyzing but I think it's a symptom of an increasing tendency to emphasize things like insurance premiums and resale value over any kind of humanity or personality.

We see the same thing in modern interior design. Just like many of today's cars it's black, white, and grey. If you're lucky, maybe a neutral color or two. Inoffensive, but soulless.

[1]: http://importarchive.com/toyota/corolla/1980-1983/paint

[2]: http://importarchive.com/toyota/corolla/2014-2018/paint

As far as interior design goes, I think it's pretty common for realtors to recommend repainting colored walls to a neutral pallet to maintain a broad appeal / let potential buyers more easily imagine their own style in the home. There is a "chic" trend taking this to an extreme, which might just be a reaction to that, I'm not really sure.

However, it does help explain why cars come in fewer colors today- dealerships hate having cars sit unsold on their lot, and don't want colors that appeal to a tiny percentage of potential buyers. If manufacturers struggle to push colors onto dealers, then they simply stop making those colors.

Speaking of soul... if I was given a choice between the "4C8" variety of orange and cheaper insurance premiums, I'd pick cheaper insurance premiums in a heartbeat. Maybe I'm a souless impersonal robot (I've been accused of being a robot before, not so much the rest), but I really don't feel a need to express myself with the color of my car. The extra color options are very much in the "nice to have" category.

> I personally wouldn't mind a less neutral color, but I'm not interested enough to pay more for it myself.

And thats the thing, those that are interested enough can still go and get their car repainted, without making it more expensive for the rest of us that aren't as concerned with having their cars be a unique color.

Taking a brand new car to a paint shop right of the lot doesn’t seem mighty efficient.

The premium manufacturers usually offer colors other than neutrals at a premium, and what the OP is pointing at is that economy brands don’t offer that option at all. Why can’t we have both cheap neutrals and color options?

> Why can’t we have both cheap neutrals and color options?

No one wants to bear the extra costs for color lovers. Dealers don't want to be stuck with the banana-yellow cars for months on end, and manufactures don't want to switch their painting booth paints for colors that are <1% sales when they can crank out 5 more white cars in the time it takes to switch colors.

Wraps are cheaper alternative to repainting, so those who love bright colors can get an electric blue wrap right off the parking lot.

It might be less efficient for the few consumers who do want custom colors, but it is by far more efficient for the rest of consumers and the company to limit their color choices. Their manufacturing processes aren't set up to do very small runs of specific colors, and for those premium brands that do offer custom colors, the further away from the standard offering you go, the more you pay. Custom colors on some of the premium brands can easily run into the thousands of dollars, largely because they're doing effectively what I suggested -- doing a custom paint job towards the end or after assembly.

Not to mention that even supporting the pipeline of being able to order custom colors, with all the logistics that entails after manufacture, might not be something the manufacturers want to support.

> you'd think manufacturers and dealerships would jump at the chance to offer another high margin markup line item.

for whatever reason, paint and detailing work tends not to be the strong suit of a car dealership. a lot of enthusiasts will even refuse a complimentary wash when they get their car serviced.

the higher end manufacturers do offer additional paint options. but it's really expensive (Porsche charges >$20k for true paint to sample) and it takes even longer to get your car delivered. it's hard to justify at any price, but especially for the vast majority of cars that cost under $100k.