Paint code lookup trick saved me 3 hours on a 2017 Civic

Was matching a silver Civic at a shop near Tacoma and kept missing the shade. Turns out you can read the door tag code with a UV light when the sticker is faded, got it in 10 minutes. Found out from an old timer at a NAPA run, swear I'm using this on every older car now. Anyone else got a trick for faded tags or do you just strip and scan?

1 comments

1 Comment

emma76818h ago

Three cars in a row I had to strip the whole tag with a razor blade and pray the paint underneath wasn’t already gone, so this UV trick is honestly a gift from the car gods. I tried it on my buddy’s 2004 F-150 last weekend, faded to basically a white square, and bam, the code lit up like a bad neon sign. My only screw-up was I used a blacklight keychain from a concert, took me twenty minutes to realize it was too weak and I needed the actual UV flashlight from my toolbox. Now I keep that thing in the glovebox next to the spare fuses, and I feel like a proper detective every time I pull it out.