SpareRadar Nissan Maxima GCC spec check

Nissan Maxima, Teana and Cefiro: reading the VIN

The same large saloon has carried at least three names, and two different chassis codes cover the same years.

Runs the free GCC spec check on your own vehicle. Nothing is stored against your name.
Is a Nissan Maxima GCC spec?
The honest answer, before anything else on this page.

GCC specification is decided per vehicle, not per model. Two cars of the same model and the same year, built in the same factory in the same week, can go to different markets. So no page can tell you whether yours is a Gulf car, and this one does not try. What it can do is show you exactly what your own VIN encodes and where that stops.

Position 10 is a destination code on this car. U covers Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, A is Australia and general export, and Z is the rest of the world. U is the value a Gulf car carries, and because it also covers Europe it narrows the answer without settling it.

What this decoder reads from a Nissan Maxima VIN
Specific to this model, not to the brand.

This is the one Nissan page where two different chassis codes overlap in time rather than following one another. The A34 and the J31 both cover 2003 to 2008 and both resolve to the Maxima and Teana names, because Nissan ran the platform under different codes for different markets in the same period. That is unusual and worth stating plainly, because it means the chassis code here separates market variants rather than generations, which is the opposite of how the Patrol or the X-Trail codes behave. The A32 and A33 before them are the Cefiro-era cars.

Codes this decoder resolves
Chassis codes the decoder resolves.
CodeModelChassisBodyEngineBuilt
A32Maxima / CefiroA32SEDAN1994-2000
A33Maxima / CefiroA33SEDAN1999-2006
A34Maxima / TeanaA34SEDAN2003-2008
J31Maxima / TeanaJ31SEDAN2003-2008
How a Nissan VIN is laid out
Summary. The full explanation of each position is on the Nissan page.
7 to 9
The chassis code, spelled out literally
9
Not a check digit on the export layout
10
A destination code, not a model year
What the VIN cannot tell you here
Stated because a decoder that never says this is not worth trusting.
  • No model year on the export layout.
  • No engine and no trim.

A VIN describes how a vehicle was built. It cannot describe where it was shipped, and no decoder anywhere changes that. The free GCC spec check reads your VIN, gives a verdict with a certainty score and the evidence behind it, and lists the physical and documentary checks that settle what the VIN cannot, starting with the GSO conformity lookup. The full VIN decoder returns every attribute the decode resolves, and the Nissan page explains the scheme above position by position.

Common questions

Does a Maxima VIN show the model year?

Not on the export layout. Position 10, which is the model year on an American car, is a destination code on an export Nissan: U for Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, A for Australia and general export, and Z for the rest of the world. A 2003 and a 2012 car can carry the same letter. The model year lives on the chassis plate and in Nissan's own build records, not in the VIN.

Other Nissan models

Nissan Patrol
4 code rows
Nissan X-Trail
4 code rows
Nissan Navara
4 code rows
Nissan Urvan
3 code rows
Nissan Qashqai
2 code rows
Nissan Pathfinder
3 code rows
Nissan Sunny
7 code rows
Nissan Micra
3 code rows
Nissan Tiida
2 code rows
Nissan Murano
2 code rows
Nissan Juke
1 code row
All Nissan VINs
The full brand scheme