Part fitment, why so complicated? - Part 1 - Build Country
Part fitment, why so complicated? - Part 1 - Build Country
One of the most common things I hear day in and day out, is "Will this part fit my vehicle?", you would think this would be such a simple question right? WRONG!!! haha
Just because your vehicle is the same make/model and made in the same year span does not necessarily mean a part will fit your vehicle, a perfect example of this is the Nissan Navara D40, I would say once one the most popular utes of its time, the D40 ran from 2005 To 2015, looking at them on the road they all look pretty much the same in terms of build right? But what you may not know is the Nissan Navara D40 was built in two different countries Thailand and Spain, but hey that isn't uncommon, Nissan even did that with D40s predecessor the D22 (built in Thailand and Japan), but what catches most people out is the fact that the Thai and Spanish builds are actually very different meaning very few of the parts are actually interchangeable.
I know what your thinking, well how does one buy parts for a D40 and know that they are going to actually fit? Well there are couple of ways you can tell.... First do you know if your Navara is a Spanish or Thai build? The Spanish built D40 has a VIN that begins with VSK while the Thai build has a VIN starting with MNT. Nissan did give us one way to identify a parts fitment, for example if you saw a shock that said suitable for a Nissan Navara D40M it would be suitable for the Spanish build, D40M = Spanish, D40T = Thai.
Now this is not always fool proof meaning the only way of really knowing for sure is calling through to a dealership in this instance obviously Nissan and speaking with their parts department, most of them are pretty great and will actually be able to take your VIN and actually give you a genuine part number, the D40 in particular is an older vehicle now and there is a good chance that most dealerships will no longer carry replacement parts but try chucking that part number into Google (and of course Half Price Parts haha), it should bring up any parts available for sale (both genuine and aftermarket).
Nissan weren't the only ones over the years that outsourced the building of their vehicles to multiple countries in order to fulfil the global demand of the vehicle, but it did often result in slightly different builds and parts, have you researched your vehicle? Where was yours built?
The more you know.......
Until next time.....
Happy Buying