Changing Vehicle's Color

I've installed the 2008 Tahoe, but would like to make it an add-on vehicle, with no vehicle graphics, and use it as an unmarked, slick-top vehicle.

I've added it to mpchristmas2, have all of the carvariation and vehicle.meta info in there, but can't seem to get the ability to change vehicle color through the trainer.  I've tried removing the tahoe_skin.dds file from the .ytd files, as well as creating a transparent tahoe_skin file...and neither seem to work.  I created a .dds file in a color I like, but it comes across as flat, like someone used a can of flat spray paint to paint the vehicle.

Any way to do this (if what I'm asking makes sense).  Tried pulling some carvariation data out of a couple other mods that I can change vehicle colors with, but nothing seems to work.