Vauxhall Touch Up Paint: Paint Codes, Astra, Corsa and Common Colours

Few cars are as common on British roads as the Vauxhall Corsa and Astra, selling in their millions over the decades, before you even count the Mokka, Insignia and the fleets of working Vivaros and Combos. With that many Vauxhalls about, paint damage is only a matter of time, and when a stone chips the bonnet or a trolley catches a door, one thing matters most in putting it right: matching your colour exactly. The correct Vauxhall touch up paint makes the damage disappear, while a shade that is even slightly off catches the eye every time. It all starts with your paint code, so this guide shows you where to find it, how to read it, and the colours owners search for most.

The short version first. Vauxhall paint codes are usually three characters, often a letter followed by two more, like GAZ or GBO on modern cars, or three digits and a “Z” prefix on older ones, like Z163. The code is normally labelled “Body Colour” and sits in the bottom-left corner of an information sticker. And as with any car, your V5C logbook will not give you the code, only a vague colour description like “silver,” which is no use for ordering paint.

Where to Find Your Vauxhall Paint Code

Here is the Vauxhall-specific quirk that catches owners out and that most guides miss entirely. Vauxhall has moved the sticker around across model generations, and it uses different sides of the car on different models. So if it is not where you expect, it has not fallen off, you are just looking on the wrong panel. The realistic spots, and when each applies:

The driver’s side door jamb is where to look on older models, including the Corsa D and earlier, the Vectra, the Astra G and H, and older Insignia and Meriva.

The passenger side door jamb is where many newer Vauxhalls keep it, including the later Insignia, the Astra J onwards, the Zafira Tourer, and the modern Corsa E and F, Mokka, Crossland and Grandland.

The engine bay, on the strut tower or slam panel, is the place on older cars like the Corsa B and C, the Cavalier, the Calibra and the Astra F.

Inside the fuel filler flap is where some Adam, Astra K and Corsa E models hide it.

The boot lid or boot floor near the spare wheel occasionally carries it on some Insignia, Zafira and older estate models.

If the sticker is missing or unreadable, contact your Vauxhall dealer, whose parts department can confirm the code from your vehicle details, or use our colour-match tool to pull it straight from your registration, which is the fastest route of all.

How to Read the Vauxhall Sticker

The Vauxhall information sticker is usually black and white, sometimes white, and carries several codes at once. The paint code is the one in the bottom-left corner, often labelled “Body Colour.” It is typically three characters, sometimes preceded by build sequence information or a digit and a slash, and the colour name is sometimes printed alongside in English to help you confirm it. Read the labels rather than grabbing the first code you see, because the others relate to trim and factory options.

The Opel and Vauxhall Code Overlap

This is the single most important Vauxhall point to understand, and it trips up more orders than anything else. Vauxhall and Opel are the same cars built in the same factories under two brand names, sharing the same paint. The catch is that the identical colour often has a different code under each brand, and many touch-up databases list the Opel code. Some Vauxhall stickers show both.

For example, White Jade carries 42M as the Vauxhall code and EWP or G20 as the Opel equivalent. Lightning Silver shows as 163 on the Vauxhall side and 4AU on the Opel side. They are the same paint, just labelled differently.

The practical takeaway is simple. Ordering by colour name alone is risky, because the same name can map to more than one code. Always order by the exact code printed on your sticker, and if it shows both a Vauxhall and an Opel code, either will get you the right colour through a system that recognises both.

Iconic Vauxhall Colour Codes

These are the Vauxhall paint codes owners search for most, across the popular models. It is a reference list rather than the full palette.

For the full list matched to your exact model and year, head to the Vauxhall touch up paint page and search by registration or model.

The GM to Stellantis Transition

A short bit of background that has a real bearing on which code you order. Vauxhall was owned by General Motors until 2017, then by PSA, and now sits within Stellantis. In practice this means pre-2017 Vauxhalls use GM-era codes, which are well documented and widely matched. Post-2019 Vauxhalls, like the Corsa F, Mokka B, Grandland and Astra L, share platforms with Peugeot and Citroen, and sometimes carry both a Vauxhall code and a Stellantis code on the same sticker. If yours shows two codes, the Vauxhall code is the one to order against.

Special Cases Worth Knowing

Two-tone roofs, found on the Adam, Mokka X and certain Astra GTC and Corsa special editions, mean the roof is a different colour from the body. Each has its own paint code, so you will need both if the damage spans the two.

VXR and GSi performance models often carry exclusive colours not offered on standard cars, though the sticker sits in the same place as the equivalent base model.

Commercial Vauxhalls, the Vivaro, Combo and Movano, make up a huge slice of UK Vauxhall ownership, and most are Olympic White (GAZ) or a specific commercial white. They are well worth touching up rather than leaving, since chips on a working van rust just as readily as on a car.

Resprayed used Vauxhalls are common in the lower used market, and a respray in a non-original colour means the sticker no longer matches the panels. The sticker shows the factory paint, so on a resprayed car confirm the actual colour before ordering.

Very old Vauxhalls, broadly pre-2000 from the Astra F, Corsa B and Cavalier era, sometimes use codes that are not in modern databases. If the sticker is illegible on a car of that age, your Vauxhall dealer’s parts department is the most dependable route.

Why DIY Touch Up Makes Sense for Vauxhalls

For the standard Vauxhall palette, doing it yourself is the obvious choice. The most common colours, Olympic White, Carbon Flash, Magma Red, Vertigo Blue and the Switchblade Silver metallics, all match cleanly, so a colour-matched kit handles chips and scratches on your own driveway for a fraction of a bodyshop visit. The case is strongest of all for commercial operators: repainting a Vivaro or a fleet of Combos at a bodyshop adds up fast, where a kit covers chip after chip across the whole fleet from a single purchase. Match your colour, order the kit, and the repair is sorted without booking the van off the road.

Going the DIY route? Here is how Chipex works in three easy steps, so you know exactly what the repair involves before you start.