AutoColorCode is a free, independent reference for car paint colors, factory color codes, and finish guides. We built it to answer a genuinely annoying problem: "what color is my car, exactly, and how do I get it matched" is harder to answer than it should be, scattered across owner forums, dealer parts counters, and inconsistent online sources.
What's Here
The site is organized around a few core sections: a color code lookup tool for finding your vehicle's factory paint code by make, color guides covering popular shades with on-screen swatch references, finish guides explaining candy, pearl, metallic, matte, satin, and gloss finishes, color statistics drawn from the database, and practical repair, paint job, and technique guides covering how paint actually works and how repairs are done.
Who Runs This Site
AutoColorCode is an independent project — not affiliated with any paint manufacturer, dealership network, or parts retailer. No brand has a say in what gets listed or how colors are described. And because the site is run independently, corrections don’t disappear into a ticket queue: if you report an error, it gets reviewed by a person and fixed directly in the data, usually within a few days.
How the Data Is Built and Checked
We take the accuracy of paint code data seriously, since getting it wrong has a real consequence: someone ordering the wrong paint. Our color code database covers 32,465 factory colors across 65 makes, compiled from public reference listings (chiefly the ChipFixx paint-code catalog) and reduced to factual fields only: make, model, color name, paint code and model years.
Before anything is published, the raw listings go through a normalization pass: duplicate color/code pairs are merged, model-year ranges are reconciled, and model names are checked against real production models. This is ongoing work, not a one-time import — in November 2026, for example, we removed five entries that turned out to be misspelled duplicates of real models (a “Wranger,” a “Fontier”) and merged their colors into the correct pages. Each brand's pages show when its color data was last updated.
Reference lists can still contain gaps and errors, so we always recommend verifying against your vehicle’s own door jamb label or VIN before ordering paint for an actual repair. If you spot a mistake, please tell us.
How Often Things Update
The color database currently covers model years up to 2026 and is extended as manufacturers publish new colors. Guides are written to stay accurate rather than chase news — how clear coat works doesn’t change monthly — but they get revised when products, prices, or techniques meaningfully shift. The statistics page is regenerated from the live database whenever the data changes, and its dataset date is shown on the page.
Color swatches throughout the site are on-screen approximations, not exact digital reproductions of paint — no screen can perfectly replicate how automotive paint looks in person under real light, and we say so clearly wherever a swatch appears.
Who This Is For
Whether you're trying to order touch-up paint for a chip, researching a color for a custom project, comparing finish types before a repaint, or just curious how clear coat actually works, this site is built to answer that specific question directly rather than burying it in unrelated content.
Have a correction, a suggestion for a color or code we should add, or found something that doesn't look right? Get in touch.