Where to find the VIN on a Nissan Sentra B17

Location 1: the plate at the base of the Sentra B17 windscreen

Every Nissan Sentra B17 US owner’s manual for the 2013 to 2019 model years lists the VIN as “attached to the top of the instrument panel on the driver’s side”, and the identification drawing shows a plate on top of the dashboard at the base of the windscreen, beside the windscreen pillar. Nissan says this number “is the identification for your vehicle and is used in the vehicle registration”. On a left-hand-drive UAE car, read it through the corner of the glass at the driver’s door. The plate’s position is also a US legal requirement for cars made for that market: Part 565 of title 49 of the US Code of Federal Regulations (49 CFR Part 565) says the VIN must be legible through the glazing to an observer outside the car beside the left windscreen pillar.

Two sketches are used, one in the 2013–2015 and 2019 manuals and one in 2016–2018; both show the plate in the same place.

Location 2: the chassis number on the engine-bay bulkhead

The second Nissan Sentra B17 VIN is under the bonnet. Nissan’s manuals head it “vehicle identification number (chassis number)” and say only that it “is located as shown”. The drawing, the same in every manual from 2013 to 2019, shows the bonnet open and an arrow pointing up at a marked strip on the bulkhead, the wall between the engine bay and the cabin, just under the panel at the foot of the windscreen. The 2012 B16 manual uses the same sketch, so treat it as a guide to the area rather than a picture of a B17 engine bay. No side is named, so look along the bulkhead.

With the engine off and cool, use a torch. The same pages show a separate engine serial number, which Nissan says “is stamped on the engine as shown”; it is not the VIN, so do not compare it with the VIN.

Location 3: the certification label on the driver’s centre pillar

On a US-market Nissan Sentra B17, the third place is the Federal/Canadian Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (F.M.V.S.S./C.M.V.S.S.) certification label. The specification pages of the 2013 to 2019 manuals point to it “on the center pillar between the driver’s side front and rear doors”, and Nissan says it contains the “month and year of manufacture, Vehicle Identification Number (VIN), etc.” The label is a US requirement: 49 CFR 567.4 makes a manufacturer fix it next to the driver’s seat on vehicles certified for the US.

Nissan’s drawings change part-way through the generation. The 2013 and 2014 manuals draw the label about halfway up the centre pillar, just above the door-latch striker, and the 2015 manual’s new drawing keeps it at about that height. From 2016, Nissan uses a drawing it also prints in the 2012 (B16) and 2020 (B18) manuals, with the label low on the pillar, just above the sill. Whether the label itself moved is not shown, so check both heights before deciding it is missing.

Reading a Sentra B17 VIN: 3N1, 1N4 and the B16 and B18 neighbours

A Nissan Sentra B17 VIN has 17 characters, and the first three are the manufacturer identifier, usually called the world manufacturer identifier (WMI). The register of the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) lists 3N1 as Nissan Mexicana’s identifier for passenger cars and 1N4 as Nissan North America’s, and almost every partial VIN in NHTSA’s 2013–2019 Sentra complaint records starts with one of the two. The first character is a region code, not proof of origin: in a 2024 interpretation letter, NHTSA said a manufacturer identifier need not show the country where a vehicle was built.

Under the US rules, the tenth character is the model year and the eleventh the assembly plant. Given partial Sentra patterns rather than real VINs, NHTSA’s Product Information Catalog and Vehicle Listing (vPIC) service reads D in position 10 as 2013 and K as 2019; it reads both L and Y in position 11 of a 3N1 pattern as Aguascalientes, Mexico, and N in a 1N4 pattern as Canton, Mississippi. That fits Nissan’s September 2012 release for the 2013 cars, which marked the start of production at its Aguascalientes 1 plant and said Canton would build the car too; the release does not explain the second Aguascalientes code. In NHTSA’s complaint records, 1N4 Sentras of this generation appear only for the 2013 and 2014 model years.

These are NHTSA decoder readings, not a rule Nissan publishes. The decoder also returns a 2020 Sentra for the first three prefixes with an L in position 10, so read position 10 too, and confirm the model and year on the US title.

No official source we found covers the VIN of a Sentra sold new in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries: neither where it is marked nor how it begins. Gulf News reported in April 2013 that the Sentra launched by Al Masaood, Nissan’s Abu Dhabi dealer, was sourced from Thailand. If the papers show a Gulf-market Sentra, ask Nissan’s UAE agent where its VIN should be and what its characters mean.

Five places, one Nissan Sentra B17 VIN

Plate, bulkhead number, pillar label (on a US car), registration card and US title: five places, one 17-character VIN; Nissan says the VIN is the number used in the vehicle registration. Expect the pillar label’s month and year of manufacture to predate the model year by some months: Nissan’s September 2012 release says the first 2013 Sentra was produced on 30 August 2012, and its 2023 bulletin lists the potentially affected US 2018–2019 Sentras as built from 18 September 2017 to 23 November 2019. A label years away from the model year needs an explanation.

Stop negotiating if a Nissan Sentra B17 shows any of these: a dashboard plate that moves or whose two fixings look disturbed; filler, fresh sealer or grinding marks around the bulkhead number, or new paint there that the rest of the engine bay lacks; a pillar label that is torn, painted over or looks like a reprint; or two marks that differ by even one character. Get the seller’s explanation in writing, and hold the money until an inspector and the traffic authority have seen the car.

When a Nissan Sentra B17 VIN is worn, corroded or different

No official UAE source we found sets out a procedure for a Nissan Sentra B17 whose VIN marks are worn, corroded or different from the registration card. So ask before you pay, either the police or the traffic authority of the car’s emirate; in Dubai that is the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA). The RTA describes a mandatory inspection appointment in Dubai that checks roadworthiness at approved centres, with a re-test for cars that fail and an appeal route. Never have a number re-stamped, a plate replaced or a label reprinted to make the marks agree.

On a Sentra B17 brought in from the US, the VIN also has to agree with the US title, the customs and import documents and any US auction listing that turns up. Nissan’s US manual says that when a vehicle is taken into another country and registered, “its modifications, transportation, and registration are the responsibility of the user”.

How to check a US car’s history in the UAE