SpareRadar Nissan Sunny GCC spec check

Nissan Sunny, Almera and Sentra: reading the VIN

One car, three or four names depending on the market, and a VIN that resolves the confusion by ignoring the badge entirely.

Runs the free GCC spec check on your own vehicle. Nothing is stored against your name.
Is a Nissan Sunny 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.

On the export-layout cars the destination code at position 10 applies. On the India-built N17 it does not: that car uses the North American layout, so position 10 is a genuine model year and there is no destination code to read.

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

The Sunny is the strongest argument on this site for chassis codes over model names. The same platform is a Sunny here, an Almera in Europe, a Sentra in America and a Pulsar or Sylphy elsewhere, and the decoder reports all the names a code was sold under rather than picking the one that happens to be on the boot lid in front of you. The Gulf-market Sunny is a special case worth calling out: the N17 sold here is built in India under the WMI MDH and uses the North American layout rather than the export one, with a real check digit at position 9 that every harvested VIN passes. The American reference returns an error for it, because Renault Nissan Automotive India is not registered there.

Codes this decoder resolves
Chassis codes the decoder resolves. The last row is the India-built Gulf-market N17, which uses the North American layout and is keyed on WMI plus positions 4 to 8.
CodeModelChassisBodyEngineBuilt
B13Sunny / 100NX / SentraB13SEDAN/COUPE1990-1994
B14Sunny / Almera / SentraB14SEDAN1994-1999
B15Sunny / SentraB15SEDAN1998-2004
N16Almera / Sunny / PulsarN16SEDAN/HATCHBACK2000-2006
N17Sunny / Almera / VersaN17SEDAN2011-2020
B17Sentra / Sylphy / PulsarB17SEDAN2012-2019
MDH BN7ADSunnyN17SEDAN
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 cars.
  • 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 Sunny 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 Micra
3 code rows
Nissan Maxima
4 code rows
Nissan Tiida
2 code rows
Nissan Murano
2 code rows
Nissan Juke
1 code row
All Nissan VINs
The full brand scheme