5 door Jimny common issues
While this website is really about 3 door Jimnys due to what I own, there’s probably enough reference to it by 5 door owners that it sometimes makes sense to document them too.
The 5 door Jimnys don’t really cure any of the common issues with the 3 doors, but add a few quirks of their own. If you’ve rocked up here without reading my compilation of issues for the 3 door Jimnys then you should also consider consulting that list, too.
- Death wobbles/kingpin preload/brake disc warping
- Roof tapping or cracking gutters
- Propshaft to chassis contact
- Interior metal rusting
- Insufficiently charged A/C
- Stop sale order, Australia and Japan 2025
- Engine oil burning/loss of engine oil level
- Other generic quality complaints
Insufficient kingpin preload and easily warped brake discs producing steering wobbles
This is probably the biggest of the issues. With the 5 door JC74s came a revision to the kingpins which are of a larger diameter compared to the ones used for all previous Jimnys and small Suzuki 4wds way back to the original LJ10s.
As it turns out, those kingpins appear to produce insufficient preload onto the kingpin bearings. Over time this can produce a steering wobble, especially at speed, and appears to be mostly related to slowing down. This might be related to the brake discs slightly warping. While not an official recall, there is an Indian service bulletin relating to this issue.
Cars manufactured on or after November 2024 (from approximately VIN MA3JJC74W00210xxx onwards) nominally have new brake discs and the revised kingpins (part number 45610M80T01, instead of 45610M80T00) fitted. Since it took a year or two before this started to be noticed with the first build 5 doors it remains to be seen if it’s fully solved: we’ll probably know sometime in 2026 if we’re in the clear with the first cars fixed roughly getting to the same age/km as they first experienced these symptoms. While some dealers will plead ignorance, generally it gets sorted in the end.
Some people in Australia have reported challenges with getting this issue resolved under warranty with cars with modified suspension and larger wheels and tyres. Other people have had it resolved despite these modifications, so it’s not a universal knockback. Potentially additional pressure on dealers demonstrating just how widespread this issue appears to be might help in getting them resolved in a timely fashion, even with modified cars.
No real other advice on this one: it certainly does appear to be an engineering oversight to have ended up with insufficient kingpin bearing preload, especially when that was a mistake made with some gen3 swivel hubs too.
Roof tapping and/or gutter cracking
The other big issue that people talk about with the 5 door cars is a phenomena of ‘roof tapping’. This is where, as the roof expands generally in the sun and/or heat, the roof makes some loud tapping sounds. While there is not consistency on the exact cause of this, it does appear to be the result of thermal expansion and the roof ‘oil-canning’. Anecdotally people report it less with cars with lighter coloured roofs but it can happen to everything from purely white cars through to ones with a deep black roof.
There are ongoing attempts to find a fix for this, but noone is really able to describe these. Over the couple of years this has been a known issue:
- First there were attempts to remedy it by bending part of the roof structure/adjusting the alignment of the gutters;
- Then supposedly some Indian engineers were dispatched to oversee some methods to fix it;
- After that, it was Suzuki Japan supplying dedicated engineers to resolve with a new type of fix;
- The fix was then supposed to be spot welding the roof structure to reinforce it and then repainting where it had been welded;
- By October 2025 it had evolved to being a repair involving adhesives (notably the info is about the same dealership doing the fix as the one where it was spot welded).
Some owners have elected to take a refund after trying to negotiate around a fix with Suzuki:
Sometimes these issues also occur alongside the gutters or the paint/seam sealer in the gutters cracking.
It is unclear if any fix truly works: they seem to for some, and not for others. It is also unclear as to exactly what the fix involves, too.
Rear propshaft contacting chassis at full bump
Something that was noted pretty early on in the 5 door’s life is the tendence for the rear propshaft to hit the chassis crossmember at full bump. This leaves a mark on the propshaft where it has hit the crossmember and/or a bracket that holds the handbrake cable.
This is best discussed in a dedicated thread on Team-BHP.
The issue of the rear propshaft contacting the chassis is occasionally seen on Australian cars, so it isn’t just restricted to the Indian home market for the 5 doors.
While there is no official fix for it provided by Suzuki, essentially limiting the bump travel of the suspension will fix this. A small extension to the rear bump stops would ensure that it doesn’t happen.
Interior metal rusting
Hard to understand the mechanism for this, and why it is different 3 versus 5 doors, but when the 5 doors came out there have been occasional reports of interior metal which is very rusty. The downside is the couple of prominent cases of this, involving the seat frames, adjustment levers and uncoated inside of door panels have been deleted, but you occasionally see interior rusting with 5 doors.
5 door cars do spend more time making their way to Australia. They also show much longer lead times between build and delivery, upwards of over a year in some cases, so it could be the result of just sitting around closed up in humid enviroments for longer.
No matter why it is caused, this phenomena might be something to look for on initial delivery inspection of your 5 door Jimny to make a warranty claim much easier. People who notice it much longer into their ownership journeys usually get fobbed off as having driven the car into water; if it is noted earlier then it is easier to make the case it is down to some manufacturing or storage/pre-delivery issue.
Insufficiently charged A/C or leaking A/C systems
Another quirk not seen with the 3 doors appears to be some 5 door cars being delivered with undercharged or leaking A/C systems. It’s not something everyone reports, but it’s been a couple of handfuls over the first few years of the car being available in Australia.
There doesn’t appear to be any consistency on this, either, just something that affects only some cars.
‘Stop sale’ order in Australia and Japan, mid 2025
I’m mostly writing this to provide a contemporaneous account of this happening for history, as it’s the kind of thing that evolves into myth quite quickly without reference to some primary sources. It has never been officially confirmed as to what the issue was, but many of the speculations around issues with autonomous braking or other serious safety concerns don’t stack up with the evidence.
This first came up in late July 2025 and commenced with an informal stop deliveries order by Suzuki Queensland for all 5 doors in Queensland and northern NSW. This was then followed up by a formal bulletin informing all dealers in that network to stop deliveries immediately for 5 door Jimnys.
This was followed up early the following week by Suzuki Australia who also stopped deliveries for 5 door Jimnys. Official rationale was never provided, other than some vague references to an ‘operational issue’ basically found through a stocktake of parts to a factory versus car outputs. Routinely, car manufacturers will stocktake input of materials versus cars built to ensure that there are no missing pieces from vehicles being assembled or similar. Some people received deposits back and other people cancelled their orders as a result of this stop delivery mandate.
With no official reasoning being provided, speculation ran wild as it always does, with suggestions such as the following provided:
- Safety recall because of the death wobble issue relating to kingpins
- Emissions issues, usually tied to whinging about the NVES
- Issues with the autonomous braking performance being discovered because of the need to use the 5 door system in the 3 door cars to allow them to be sold in Australia again
- Doubling up on VINs i.e. factory output not matching production numbers on VINs
- Roof tapping related issues
None of these really stack up.
The kingpin issue was known for a long period of time and the stop sale didn’t match up with new revelations about this issue. Autonomous braking performance issues would also have resulted in a much wider issue: since it is required for the 5 door’s compliance, not being compliant would result in significant fines for Suzuki and couldn’t just be handled by a simple stop sale order. Doubling up on VINs, while possible, is quite difficult with computerised manufacturing of the VIN stickers and laser stamping of the chassis. As for emissions, well, while it coincided with the month when there was the commencement of accumulating penalties with the introduction of the NVES it wasn’t like they pushed people to 3 doors which saved them a few credits… Finally, roof tapping issues have also been well known and were not the sort of immediate safety concern to necessitate halting all deliveres.
By late August 2025, the order was rescinded and deliveries were allowed to recommence.
Given the timing of both the initial order and then releasing vehicles only a month later, the official explanation of an ‘operational issue’ seems sufficient to me. It is more than possible to, say, forget a couple of interior fasteners. Halting deliveries to verify that there were no ongoing issues or that all cars with issues were accounted for is both prudent but also matches the roughly 1 month timeframe for the delivery halt. Anything further or safety related would have resulted in a wider vehicle recall which didn’t occur.
Engine oil burning/loss of level
Pretty much another thing you don’t see with 3 doors, but get very occasional reports of with the 5 doors, is the engines burning oil especially early in the life of the engine.
None of the reports seem to reach mid 00s VW levels of oil burning, but could be a couple of litres in the service interval of 15,000 km/1 year sort of timeframe/distance. While there are differences in where the powerplants for Australian delivered 3 and 5 door cars are manufactured (3 doors in Japan, 5 doors in India), it is unclear as to why this would result in them burning oil. The engines are of the same specification and type, and, Suzuki don’t specify different ring gaps or anything obvious between a Maruti and a Suzuki built K15B engine for a Jimny.
It is possible that there are different suppliers for components like the piston rings so maybe there is some difference in metallurgy, and it is also possible there are differences in the suppliers for engine oil for the initial fill for each engine plant.
Other generic quality complaints
Putting these together as they are much more minor, and mostly indicative of some differences between the two vehicles.
Chassis welds
An area of quality difference between a 3 and 5 door Jimny often pointed to are the chassis welds. These are most obvious on the front of the chassis, but there do appear to be differences along the entire chassis.
This is not to say that the 5 door welds are going to fail, but more there is less consistency between cars. While I couldn’t get any aftermarket accessory fitters to go on the record, a few I have spoken to have mentioned that they need to account for a bit more time with 5 doors due to needing to do tweaks like grinding back welds to make brackets fit correctly.
Interior plastic clip quality
This will sound like even more of a niggle than the chassis welds, but, it is mentioned by a number of interior focussed people that they’ve noticed differences in the quality and strength of the plastic clips as used in the 5 door Jimnys. Again, hard to get people on the record about this when their livelihood is modifying vehicles, but you get the occasional comment like this one which relates to the same issue:
I’m not sure it will be the sort of thing that will be a make or break for the car as it ages, but, it might save to stock up on plastic clips to freshen up the interior fasteners every few years if you are intending to keep a 5 door Jimny long term.
Cabin vent flaps breaking
Yet another slightly odd mostly 5 door issue appears to be the dash vent flaps falling out at the slighest pressure.
Can be as simple as just some differences in tolerance between parts suppliers, but certainly one of those little quirks that is a difference between the 3 and 5 door Jimnys.