Check vehicle information with Nissan VIN
Looking for the VIN?
Here is there you’ll find it:
Nissan is one of the oldest Japanese car brands, with roots dating back to the beginning of the 20th century. Fearing the failure of their first venture into the American market, the company sold their cars under the name “Datsun” until 1983. They didn’t need to worry: the brand found massive success in the 1970s with their Z sports cars, while their trucks have always been strong sellers. In 2010, they released the Leaf, the first modern battery electric vehicle sold worldwide. Today, they are one of the largest electric vehicle manufacturers in the world and the twelfth largest car manufacturer.
How do you know the vehicle you’re looking at is genuine? When Nissan builds their vehicles, they issue each one a unique VIN number. By using our VIN check, you can decode this number to learn the information it contains, including manufacturing dates, equipment and the location where it was assembled. This makes it easy to verify the vehicle is represented correctly. Want to know more about a used car before buying it? We also offer full VIN reports that gather information from databases connected to the car. This lets you see title information, as well as loans, accident reports and theft reports.
With a length of 17 characters, there’s more to a VIN than just a serial number. The VIN also includes government and company-mandated information, including where the vehicle was built, and what equipment it came with. This helps you verify the authenticity of the vehicle. For example, if you’re shopping for a 300ZX, you’d want to know it came with a turbo V6 and a manual, instead of having those parts installed by a former owner. The difference in value between a genuine car and a replica can be thousands of dollars.
Since the VIN is needed to identify the vehicle throughout its life, Nissan puts this code in several spots on their vehicles. Most of these areas are out of the way, so it’s unlikely that they will be damaged or removed over the course of the car’s life. Your Nissan should have the VIN number in at least a few of these areas:
A vehicle identification number is more than an identifier. It’s written in a way to record factory information, including where and when a vehicle was built, and its original equipment. This information is encoded in 11 of these 17 characters. Here’s what you can learn from each character.
The first character is the country where the car was built. 1, 4 and 5 is used for American-built vehicles, 2 for Canada, 3 for Mexico and J for Japan.
The second character is the manufacturer. Although Nissan uses different characters for their internal divisions, nearly all North American vehicles use an “N” for this character.
The third character is the manufacturing plant. Numbers and letters used in this place are repeated for different countries. You can find more accurate information on manufacturing using other characters in the VIN.
The fourth character is the engine. Characters are frequently reused: “A” alone has 5 engines assigned to it. OurVIN decoderuses this character in connection with other characters to figure out which engine was installed in your Nissan at the factory.
The fifth and sixth characters identify the model. These are the most common model designations:
| Code | Model |
|---|---|
| A0 | Armada and Titan |
| A2-4, J0 | Maxima |
| B3-5 | Sentra |
| C1 | Versa |
| D0 and D2 | Frontier and earlier compact pickups |
| L0 and L1 | Altima |
| N0 | X-Terra |
| N1 | Quest |
| R0 and R1 | Pathfinder |
| S3 and S4 | 200SX and 240SX |
| S5 | Rogue |
| V2 | Quest |
| Z0-Z2 | Murano |
| Z2 | 300ZX |
| Z3 | Z350 |
Character 8 is the security code, which is the safety equipment installed at the factory. Modern cars will have one of these four characters:
| Code | EQUIPMENT |
|---|---|
| B, H | Front airbags |
| E, F | Side curtain and front air bags |
Character 9 is a check digit, which verifies the authenticity of the VIN.
Character 10 is the model year. This alternates between numbers and letters. To avoid confusion, it doesn’t use “I”, “O” or “Z”. 1-9 were last used from 2001 to 2009, and will be used again in 2031.
| Code | Country | Code | Country | Code | Country | Code | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| E | 1984 | R | 1994 | 4 | 2004 | E | 2014 |
| F | 1985 | S | 1995 | 5 | 2005 | F | 2015 |
| G | 1986 | T | 1996 | 6 | 2006 | G | 2016 |
| H | 1987 | V | 1997 | 7 | 2007 | H | 2017 |
| J | 1988 | W | 1998 | 8 | 2008 | J | 2018 |
| K | 1989 | X | 1999 | 9 | 2009 | K | 2019 |
| L | 1990 | Y | 2000 | A | 2010 | L | 2020 |
| M | 1991 | 1 | 2001 | B | 2011 | M | 2021 |
| N | 1992 | 2 | 2002 | C | 2012 | N | 2022 |
| P | 1993 | 3 | 2003 | D | 2013 | P | 2023 |
Character 11 is the manufacturing plant. These are the 5 main plants where vehicles are built for the North American market:
| Code | PLANT |
|---|---|
| C | Smyrna, Tennessee |
| N | Canton, Mississippi |
| M | Tochigi, Japan |
| T | Oppama, Japan |
| W | Kyushyu, Japan |
What kind of information will you get when you look up your VIN on our website? Here are three examples:
Want to know what happened to the vehicle after it left the factory? By ordering a VIN report, you’ll get a complete legal history, including title changes, insurance claims and more.
Locations vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. However, there are three places you can find the code on most vehicles:
- Look through the windshield at the dashboard. On the driver’s side, you should see a small metal plate with the number stamped into it.
- Open the driver’s door. Look at the front and side of the door pillar for an I.D. sticker. It usually has the manufacturer’s logo on it. The code should be on this sticker.
- Open the hood. You may see a sticker on the firewall or near the passenger’s side strut tower. Some cars have the number engraved in one of these areas.
Since this number is used to identify the vehicle on official documents, you can also find it on the title, the window sticker, and on insurance policies.
We also decode numbers for RVs, heavy-duty trucks and motorcycles. If you need to decode an RV number, make sure it’s the one issued by the chassis manufacturer, not the RV outfitter.
No. Canadian and Mexican cars usually use the same format. Other countries use their own formats.
It’s up to the manufacturer to determine what they want to include for some parts of the number. For example, some companies don’t include information about transmissions or trim levels.
Usually, no. A few manufacturers stamp the code into the engine. If the VINs on the engine and car match, then it’s the original engine. On most vehicles, there isn’t anything that ties an engine to a specific vehicle. At most, looking up the vehicle on our website will tell you if a different type of engine was installed. For example, if someone swaps a V8 into a Ford Mustang, our site will tell you it originally came with a V6.
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Read moreLooking for the VIN?
Here is there you’ll find it:
