VIN decoding for Australian delivered 4th generation Jimns
After pulling together a compilation of VINs for Australian delivered JB74s, I thought it would be interesting to look at build dates versus production numbers. I’ve now expanded the dataset to have good coverage for the 5 door Jimnys as well.
Note that this will not be accurate for overseas models nor will it be 100% complete. Especially for early (pre mid 2022) cars there’s only so much info out there that I have time to compile, and without direct access to internal databases there’s only so complete anything can be. Consequently, some of this discussion is more statistics based rather than exact down to the final car.
Sources
I have sourced these data from a few places:
- Sales listings when they come up in various Jimny groups or elsewhere
- Listing by wreckers (especially on ebay)
- Wreck auctions
- RAV Public Search for VINs for 2022 onwards vehicles: lets me verify build and compliance dates plus the Tare weight allows for interpreting transmissions
- Recalls notices including VIN listings: this lets me understand some of the pre-production, MY18, MY20 vehicles
- A Russian website providing breakdown of Jimny VINs and versions: not entirely accurate based on my analysis, but provides another angle on different build types.
- A survey for Australian JB74s to submit build date and VIN information for me to add to data I’ve collected.
Overseas VINs and types
I just wanted to touch on some of the other VINs, but this leans entirely on a Russian website providing breakdown of Jimny VINs and versions. I don’t have the time or energy to compile a VIN database for all gen4 Jimnys, so I’ll lean heavily on external information.
Based on the info I can get my hands onto, the following markets should follow the same series as the Australian delivered Jimnys:
- Africa
- Australia (presumably also New Zealand)
- Germany (potentially used for all of Europe)
- Hong Kong
- Israel
- Nigeria
- Pakistan
- former Soviet Union countries
- South Africa
- Taiwan
- UK
However, Europe and UK VINs might also reflect build years (separated out to make it more obvious):
| Year | VIN |
|---|---|
| 2018 | JSA GJB74V K5 100001 |
| 2019 | JSA GJB7V 7V 100001 |
| 2020 | JSA GJB74V 05 100001 |
| 2021 | JSA GJB74V N1 000001 |
| 2022 | JSA GJB74V P5 100001 |
Other VIN ranges are as follows:
LCVs in Europe/UK get vins JSAHJB74B00100001 from August 2020 onwards; possibly follow the same VIN structure as the 4 seater variants with denoting model years
South American cars look like they’re build in a different factory, with VINs commencing JS3JB74VK5100001 reflecting 2018 cars, L5 in the VIN for 2019 cars, M5 2020, N5 2021 and P5 for 2022. Suzuki have a range of plants so it’s not surprising it’s shared around.
Maruti sourced 3 door cars appear to kick off in MY2021 with VIN MA3JB74VN0100001, then change to MA3JB74DN0100001 for MY2022 and MA3JB74DP0100001 in 2023.
Sections
- 3 door Jimnys (JB74)
- Build number sequencing
- Compliance information
- 5 door Jimnys (JC74)
- Differences between the cars
- Total numbers of Jimnys in Australia
3 door Jimnys
Build number sequencing
The 3 door Jimnys are pretty even in their build numbers against production dates.
JB74 production rates
The first thing we can do is look at production rates inferred by build # versus build date statistics. Note that this is effectively only for JB74s: I think some of the dips are where other types (e.g. LCV 3 doors) are produced in preference to ensure sufficient supply near the end of runs.
Early in the JB74 life there were high production rates at the facility building Jimnys destined for Australia and similar markets, with around 2000 cars per month produced. It has then slowed down to around 1000 cars a month, but production picked up as European models were dropped in the latter half of 2024 and briefly returned to the same production as the introduction of the model to ‘catch up’. It’s slowed back down again with the introduction of the MY26 model with the revised autonomous braking system.
Yes, that analysis does include some over simplification of rates. Nevertheless I just wanted a rough idea of trends over time rather than very specific data.
Versions of JB74s
There’s some obvious breaks in clusters of build numbers/dates which relate to changes in sub-models; interestingly, the change to the MY2026 3 doors and their revised autonomous braking is not denoted by a change in build numbers. Previous versions have a break of slightly more than 10,000 units to ensure there’s clear VIN separation. This matches model ‘versions’ which are mentioned by other sites. This correlates with other information indicating that there’s 3 ‘versions’ of JB74s, albeit with them virtually identical.
None of the breaks correlate with major feature changes in Australia either. An example of these feature changes are MY20 cars having electric folding mirrors, introducing the lite (GL) model to Australia, late MY21 and MY22 GLX cars having a different 9″ headunit (reverted back to the Bosch head unit sometime in 2023), or the change from a flatter white to a pearl white in 2023. There’s also no break in build numbers to match the change to the autonomous braking system for MY2026 cars.
The only obvious change that I can relate to these numbers is that the door harness wiring recall only affects type 1 vehicles and just into type 2 (vins < JSAGJB74V00164091 and below, effectively). This puts it as September 2020 and earlier built cars; obviously issues were spotted and remedied on the production line before a fix was brought in for earlier cars.
Don’t read too much into these differences in VINs, in other words.
Although there’s a couple of large step changes in 3rd generation Jimnys (e.g. G13BB to M13A engines in 2005 along with manual to press-button transfer cases; facelift in 2012; introduction of ESP to Australia for 2015 model year) there were around 11 version over the 20 years of the model run, most of which are indistinguishable variations, so there’s no reason to expect every VIN gap/new variant is a major change.
There is a major jump in the production rate of 3 door Jimnys from mid 2024 onwards. This represents potentially a focus on these cars with production shared elsewhere e.g. more of the developing markets receiving a Maruti built JB74 instead of a Japanese built one. Interestingly it also accounts for a stockpiling of more JB74s built in the latter half of 2024 to account for the ADR compliance cutoff date of end of Feb 2025 for the first iteration of autonomous braking in the 3 door Jimnys. We’ll return to stockpiles later in the article where I’ll try to estimate the evolution of any potential stockpile.
Pre-production JB74s
VINs JSAGJB74V00100001 through JSAGJB74V00101000; January 2018 to October 2018
Pre-production VINs appear to be in the range of JSAGJB74V00100001 through to JSAGJB74V00101000 i.e. build numbers 1 through 1000. This includes the earliest JB74 into Australia, which has a build number of 91 and was built January 2018. There appears to only be a single pre-production Jimny in Australia. The compliance photographs in RVCS for JB74s are a black Jimny (with silver wheels, like used on lower specification JB43s); there’s no need for these photos to have been taken in Australia.
Not much more we can shed on this. Many pre-production models get used for engineering signoff, e.g. the Australian pre-production car was used for OME suspension engineering and ARB product development. Plenty of others were likely just drive around for engineering development and these are often scrapped or put into museums as they reach the end of their useful life as a product development showcase. Others will have gone to be crash tested by Euro NCAP or similar bodies, but ultimately it appears only one is in Australia and it’s owned by Suzuki Australia.
Type 1 JB74s
VINs JSAGJB74V00101001 through JSAGJB74V00150000; November 2018 to August 2020
My car is of this type (built March 2019). This is the only type for which we have complete numbers for: 3377 of these type were delivered into Australia based on VIN listings for recalls, from production numbers 7582 through to 48721 (41,139).
Type 1 JB74s in Australia begin with build 7582 (November 2018 and ends with 48721 (August 2020). We can be quite sure of this VIN range as it is provided in the breakdown of affected VINs for a couple of recalls. This isn’t to say that ~40,000 type 1 JB74s have been sold in Australia: they simply weren’t. Between November 2018 and August 2020 a total of 2562 JB74s were delivered out of these ~41,000 built in the same time period. Assuming these would need to be complianced on or before July 2020 to be sold, then production number 7582 is the first sold in Australia and production numbers in the range of ~44000 are the last of this type.
Importantly to note that this highlights the first caveat around VIN databases: not all JB74s in the build sequences depicted here go to Australia. There are other right-hand drive markets (Japan, the UK, South Africa, and New Zealand primarily) plus also European 4 seater cars that are in the same run of VINs. Other markets appear to get different VINs, as discussed above, so this isn’t a proxy for total JB74 production. It does, however give a view of the share Australia has in global Jimny markets. Around 8-10% of all Jimnys made in this sequence have been sold in Australia.
Press cars
All of the press cars used in Australia do not appear to be pre-production examples but instead are from the run of type 1 JB74s and built in November 2018, for a launch event which appeared to be early January 2019.
There was quite a variety of cars used for the launch event:
I obviously don’t have access to all of the press fleet information, but here’s what I know:
| Importer | Original plate (if known) | VIN |
|---|---|---|
| Suzuki Queensland | 267XWW | JSAGJB74V00107670 |
| JIMNY (Kinetic yellow) | Unknown | |
| Suzuki Australia | AYC178 (Kinetic yellow) | JSAGJB74V00107584 |
| AYC176 (White) | JSAGJB74V00107599 | |
| AYC169 (Chiffon ivory) | JSAGJB74V00107680 | |
| AYC165 (Kinetic yellow) | JSAGJB74V00107694 | |
| AYC179 (Chiffon ivory) | JSAGJB74V00107696 | |
| AYC180 (Medium grey) | JSAGJB74V00107703 | |
| AXO288 (Brisk blue) | JSAGJB74V00107713 | |
| AYC170 (Kinetic yellow) | JSAGJB74V00107733 | |
| AYC182 (White) | JSAGJB74V00107751 | |
| AYC177 (Brisk blue) | JSAGJB74V00107752 | |
| AXO334 (Medium grey) | JSAGJB74V00107765 | |
| AYC181 (Jungle green) | JSAGJB74V00107767 | |
| AYC183 (Jungle green) | JSAGJB74V00107627 | |
| AYC185 (White) | JSAGJB74V00107755 |
A couple of these were used as long term test cars: AXO334 by CarSales and AYC181 with Unsealed4x4. Whichcar also long-term tested AYC165, and JBOX is effectively the Suzuki Australia super long term test car (and the only pre-production Jimny that appears to still remain in Australia). AYC185 was the 2019 Melbourne Storm car; the 2024 Melbourne Storm car was BIS427, kinetic yellow, with VIN JSAGJB74V00148056 (August 2020 build).
Unlike many typical car launches, these press cars & most of the Suzuki promotional fleet have been sold into the open market. This is especially true due to lack of supply of vehicles in 2019; these press cars were all offloaded late 2019. You might well have a press car yourself, e.g. if you have 1HYK743 in Western Australia, you have the car formerly known as AYC180.
Type 2 JB74s
VINs JSAGJB74V00160001 through JSAGJB74V00180000; September 2020 to February 2022
The next run of Australian delivered JB74s follow on immediate from the previous variation but there is an obvious VIN jump from different build numbers. This doesn’t appear to have any significant differences; there are just different parts catalogues for these VIN ranges. A quick look at the parts doesn’t really show any areas of suddenly different parts being used. It could even be just down to a reconfiguration of the build structure/assembly line in response to covid restrictions in Japan brought in sometime in 2020.
Type 3 JB74s
VINs JSAGJB74V00190001 through ~JSAGJB74V00224000; March 2022 to November 2024
These are probably continuing on, but the last JB74 with the original autonomous braking system I can seem to dredge up appears to be build 123125. This car was built November 2024, complianced mid February 2025.
MY2026 JB74s
There is no VIN break for the revised MY2026 cars with different autonomous braking. They do have a fleet of new press cars for this change:
| Importer | Original plate (if known) | VIN |
|---|---|---|
| Suzuki Queensland | 100NQ2 (Brisk blue) | JSAGJB74V00229413 |
| Suzuki Australia | DRQ505 (Black) | JSAGJB74V00229389 |
| DRQ506 (Brisk blue) | JSAGJB74V00229074 | |
| DRQ507 (Medium grey) | JSAGJB74V00229235 | |
| DRQ511 (Chiffon ivory) | JSAGJB74V00229177 | |
| DRQ513 (White) | JSAGJB74V00229230 | |
| DRQ514 (Kinetic yellow) | JSAGJB74V00229124 | |
| DRQ515 (Kinetic yellow) | JSAGJB74V00229112 | |
| DRQ516 (Kinetic yellow) | JSAGJB74V00229094 | |
| DRQ646 (Brisk blue) | JSAGJB74V00229059 | |
| DRQ656 (Jungle green) | JSAGJB74V00229288 |
There were at least 17 press cars at the Suzuki Australia launch, but I haven’t been able to verify numberplates for all of these cars.
The first VIN in the RAV for the 2026 build JB74s is JSAGJB74V00228960, a white automatic sold by Newspot Suzuki in Adelaide. Suzuki Queensland’s first VIN for MY2026 JB74s is JSAGJB74V00228972, first registered as 672A3C and is (based on VIN data) a medium grey automatic.
Compliance info
Once it gets to compliance dates it gets a little messier: Australian compliance timeframe is a factor of when the car arrives in the country and also when it can be dealt with. With small batches coming in, often of particular colours, earlier cars might get complianced slightly later.
Note that the groups based on build number are still apparent here, though there is greater spread between build and compliance in a couple of points. We’ll touch in that in a minute, but we’ll also look at a couple of fun outliers. The main one is that there’s currently 5 personal import JB74s in the database of approved vehicles. These are overseas vehicles that meet Australia’s relatively high bar for allowing international cars to be imported, with at least one arriving in mid 2025 while new ones could not be sold.
Back to the compliance lag thing: you can receive a JB74 complianced mid 2022 which is the 3rd revision of Jimny before an earlier type of production was complianced. The greater spread here shows that around the end of 2022 and the end of 2024 are the timeframes where there was the greatest lag between build and compliance. 2024 is understadnable: Suzuki were stockpiling 3 doors ahead of their pause in sales due to needing to update the autonomous braking system. 2022 is less understandable, other than a surplus of supply as demand slowly lessened while supply also caught up.
Importers: Suzuki Australia versus Suzuki Queensland
There’s a couple of ways to assess this, either by looking at the split of VINs provided by Suzuki Australia and Suzuki Queensland issued recalls or by looking at the state of first registration as a proxy for delivery info.
These data indicates that Suzuki Queensland accounts for a little over 30% of JB74s and Suzuki Australia just under 70%, irrespective of what recall notice you look at or based on sales data. Given the population of Queensland (~5.5M: 20% of the total) relative to the population of the rest of Australia (21.16M: 80% of the total) then one could say that relatively Queensland has ended up with more Jimnys.
Despite this, plenty of the Queensland delivered VINs have arrived in other states after their first ownership (or some dealers have sold them out of region). Correspondingly, there appears to be fewer rest of Australia VINs that are now in Queensland based on looking at sales listings and first VINs for cars where we have a full breakdown of VINs for each importer from recall notices.
Transmission, trim level and colour statistics
Colours
One of the things I really wanted to look at with these data is the spread of colour choices and therefore what have been the most popular colours, or, alternatively, what is the share of colours delivered to Australia. Wait times vary significantly based on colour choices which could represent just fewer cars being built or shipped to Australia with these colours.
The breakdown of colour popularity in Australia from late 2018 to 2025 is quite interesting as the ‘hero colour’ of kinetic yellow is not the most popular. White, then jungle green, followed by medium grey, are the most popular colours. Black was introduced late, but is on par with blue.
| Colour | Market share |
|---|---|
| White | 31% |
| Jungle green | 20% |
| Medium grey | 19% |
| Kinetic yellow | 10% |
| Chiffon ivory | 10% |
| Brisk blue | 5% |
| Bluish black | 5% |
There is one silver car which snuck into Queensland in the first batch of cars, but I don’t have a full record of its VIN, but otherwise it has not been offered as a colour in Australia.
Trim level
Lites are surprisingly rare. Introduced in September 2021 for the 2022 model year along with the sourcing of a different head unit for GLXs, lites are a manual only option with a few features dropped from the higher specification cars. Around 6% of all JB74s are lites, though if you just count from their introduction point it is 8% of all 3 door Jimnys.
Given lites are only manuals, this seems like a good time to look at transmission choices.
Transmission variations
Amazingly this is close to a 50:50 split! 50.6% of Australian JB74s are manual and 49.4% are automatic. If you take out lites (i.e. only count GLX transmission splits) then automatics are marginally more popular (47.5% manual, 52.5% automatic).
This means, even accounting for trim level, manual Jimnys are much more popular than manual cars are in general in Australia. Even where manuals are offered in other cars, the vast majority of those cars sold are automatic transmission vehicles.
Up the 3 pedallers!
Pre-registration GVM upgrades
It’s a bit hard to track these until vehicles make it onto RAV, so this is not authoritative in terms of numbers pre December 2021 (builds ~October 2021 onwards), however, it is possible to get an idea of the number of SSM GVM upgrades that have been performed while they were available. The key thing here is that Ironman SSM GVM upgrades were available from October 2020 onwards, though tracking them is almost impossible before the introduction of the RAV at the end of 2021. Tough Dog GVM upgrades were only available from July 2023 onwards; both ceased to be valid after the revised autonomous braking system rules came in from March 2025 onwards.
The raw numbers are that there are 528 Ironman SSM upgrades in RAV and 17 Tough Dog; this represents almost 3% of all 3 doors for Ironman and about 0.1% for Tough Dog for entries in RAV until March 2025. Accounting for the shorter availability of the Tough Dog upgrade, though, and it’s 0.3% of vehicles in that timeframe, and for the corresponding period it’s 1.8% of all cars for Ironman. Ultimately, SSM GVM upgrades have become less popular over their period of availability and to date none have been created for the MY2026 3 doors & they were only available for a relatively brief period for 5 doors.
5 door Jimnys / Jimny XL models?
In general, since I have a 3 door not a 5 door Jimny, I’ve put in a little less towards compiling databases of them. There was sufficient interest out of my VIN compilation for 3 door Jimnys that I’ve done the same for 5 doors.
Press cars
Press cars are a bit harder to track down, but here’s what I’ve seen in images from launch events in Queensland and also across Australia. VIN decoding these is easy as they are in markets where the VINs are available with rego lookups.
Suzuki Australia’s launch event was held at Sydney Motorsport Park in late November or early December 2023. The car # in the notes relates to a number on the windscreen of some cars: this helps you track things through some of the shots of the cars 4wding.
Suzuki Queensland held their launch event for the XL on Moreton Island, with only a couple of cars:
| VIN | Registration | Colour | Transmission | Build mm/yyyy | Compliance mm/yyyy | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CCP805 | Jungle green | A | Car #2 | |||
| MA3JJC74W00135107 | CCP806 | Red | M | 07/2023 | 11/2023 | Car #1 |
| MA3JJC74W00135142 | CCP807 | White | M | 08/2023 | 11/2023 | Car #4 |
| MA3JJC74W00135143 | CCP808 | Black | M | 08/2023 | 11/2023 | No car number at launch |
| MA3JJC74W00135160 | CCP811 | White | A | 08/2023 | 11/2023 | Car #8 |
| MA3JJC74W00135169 | CCP812 | Granite grey | A | 08/2023 | 11/2023 | Car #5 |
| MA3JJC74W00135175 | CCP815 | Red | A | 08/2023 | 11/2023 | Car #10 |
| MA3JJC74W00135176 | CCP816 | Ivory | A | 08/2023 | 11/2023 | Car #3 |
| MA3JJC74W00139565 | CCP817 | Jungle green | M | 08/2023 | 11/2023 | Car #6 |
| MA3JJC74W00140282 | CCP819 | Ivory | M | 08/2023 | 11/2023 | Car #7 |
| MA3JJC74W00135134 | CCP821 | Jungle green | A | 08/2023 | 11/2023 | |
| MA3JJC74W00146424 | CCP833 | Ivory | A | 09/2023 | 11/2023 | |
| MA3JJC74W00146317 | CCP835 | Ivory heritage | M | 09/2023 | 12/2023 | |
| (QLD) SUZUKI | Ivory | Suzuki Queensland long term demo | ||||
| (QLD) J1MNY | White | Later this car seemed to wear the SUZUKI plate, now late 2025 this plate is on a Fronx | ||||
| (QLD) SUZ260 | Jungle green | Now on a 2025 demo car | ||||
| MA3JJC74W00144051 | (QLD) 607IL3 | Granite grey? | A? | 09/2023 | 11/2023 | Seen in a couple of social media posts about the launch |
A notable 5 door Jimny is the NSW Police Jimny, on loan from Suzuki Australia. This Jimny is originally a white automatic, with VIN MA3JJC74W00195800 and built in August 2024.
Because they have been on sale for less time, and their sale time coincides with having better access to build and compliance info, the dataset is a bit more complete. Offsetting this, there’s no recall notices for me to obtain a full listing of VINs for particular year ranges so I also can’t say I have a complete listing of every car even for a particular model year.
In some ways these data are simpler to understand. There’s no obvious break in production, though there is a break in Australian deliveries. This break coincides with increase in 3 door production and delivery to Australia ahead of ADR98 autonomous braking changes, so presumably building that stockpile was a priority.
Speaking of stockpiles though, 5 doors have a much longer lead time from build to compliance.
This might represent longer shipping timeframes out of India to Australia versus the more routine shipping Japan to Australia. A more likely scenario, however, is there has been a degree of stockpiling & cars are complianced as needed. There are cars, in particular manual cars, which are built all the way back in late 2023 but complianced May 2025. This means they can be sold as a 2025 car in Australia despite being a 2023 build.
This is not necessarily an issue, since there’s no changes as the cars have progressed through production, but it is something to note.
There are new 2025 build cars in Queensland: all the way through to March 2025 builds can be found in Queensland alone. The rest of Australia, where Suzuki Australia is the importer, have cars built to the latter part of 2024. Anything built November 2024 or beyond, so far, appears to be Suzuki Queensland imported only. Again this probably speaks to the building of a bit of a stockpile of 5 door cars by both importers, and then they bring in shipments only as the stockpile draws down.
Likely this will change into the future, but at the time of writing (early June 2025) this is the state of build play for 5 door Jimnys.
Total 4th generation Jimnys in Australia
Short answer: as of October 2026, there’s probably a bit over 41,000 4th generation Jimnys of all types in Australia, around 14,000 4 doors and the remainder (27,000) are 3 doors.
With semi-reliable stats about how many have been complianced, there’s a couple of other statistics we can draw on to estimate how many Jimnys are in Australia at any given time:
- Sales figures
- Recalls
- Number of complianced vehicles
- BITRE road vehicle entry statistics
I’ll explain each one of these in turn then cover the stockpile of Jimnys in Australia and how that’s evolved over time.
Sales figures represent a minimum number of Jimnys in Australia. These represent how many vehicles have actually been delivered; in order to do this, they have to have been imported into Australia and complianced and delivered from a dealership to a customer.
Recalls also give an interesting measure, although it is again a minimum number and the actual number will be higher than this. There’s a few appropriate recalls, but the most useful is the ‘door wiring’ harness recall. Recalls REC-001624 (Queensland) and REC-001620 (rest of Australia) represent the most useful marker for the number of 2018-2020 Jimnys in Australia: 1231 imported by Suzuki Queensland and 2806 by Suzuki Australia. This recall was issued for build numbers up to and including 64091, roughly compliance through to November 2020. Fuel pump recalls for MY18 (211) and MY19 (1013) cars give us a marker for cars built through to about November 2019, too.
Complianced vehicles is only something we can estimate prior to the introduction of RAV. Jimnys only started getting placed onto this in late 2021, at which point around 6700 vehicles had been sold. There were very minimal additional vehicles available at this point, so somewhere just north of this is where the actual number of Jimnys in the country was at. After late 2021 we can use RAV to confirm how many vehicles are in the country and complianced.
The final measure, which is actually noisier than I would have liked, is to use the monthly statistics published by BITRE for ‘road vehicle entry’ statistics. I believe this is vehicles that have made it to import at a port in Australia, but not necessarily complianced. We don’t know how many Jimnys were in the country prior to the introduction of these statistics and they aren’t always consistent. Recently, however, they are beginning to be more consistent although they provide a high water mark for total vehicle rather than an absolute value.
Pulling all of that together has allowed me to estimate how the number of generation 4 Jimnys has evolved over time in Australia. This doesn’t take into account how many have been wrecked/written off, but it does give us a good picture on how things have gone.
There’s a few things to note here:
- The BITRE statistics are way higher than the compliance numbers early on in its life. This might represent some form of ‘catch-up’ from the changeover from the ABS to BITRE capturing these statistics. It’s also begun to be higher than complianced cars again, which might be a sign of cars waiting at docks to be complied; this is only about 600 cars at present though and the statistics do lag reality by a couple of months
- Until November 2021 I have to estimate numbers based on recalls and other statistics, but essentially sales are very close to actual numbers all the way through to the start of 2024. This reflects reality of huge wait times on Jimnys until that point.
- There’s a much larger gap between complianced and delivered Jimnys with two markers.
- The first is the introduction of the 5 door in late 2024.
5 doors are much more available for export than the 3 doors so essentially they can actually build together a stockpile. This matches the much longer lag time between build and compliance in Australia for 5 doors - The other is the stockpile of 3 doors built up ahead of the compliance pause for MY18-25 cars due to needing to update the autonomous braking system. This happened in December 2024-February 2025, and about a year’s suppply (~3000) 3 doors were brought in. This stockpile of 3 doors did get mostly exhausted by the end of 2025 with MY26 cars only turning up in late February 2026. While supply never got as tight as it did earlier in the Jimny’s model run, essentially from the latter half of 2025 there were practically no 3 doors left in the stockpile.
With much more reliable estimates of the total number of 4th generation Jimnys in Australia available through combining multiple data sources, we can actually start to pull together the expected stockpile of Jimnys which will help to understand pressures on supply and demand.
‘Stockpiles’ of Jimnys
This maths is relatively simple: number of complianced Jimnys minus confirmed deliveries/sales from VFACTS. I’ve plotted it first on the same graph as the number of complianced Jimnys to help build a full picture. Due to uncertainty prior to the introduction of RAV I’ve not included this, instead I estimate the number in Australia prior to the introduction of RAV and go from there.
What’s interesting here is the slowdown in late 2026, starting to erode the stockpile. My best guess is this represents Suzuki trying to mostly move on 2025 and 2026 complianced vehicles (especially 5 doors), but will probably build up another stockpile with November-December 2026 complianced vehicles.
Doing so has some benefits under the NVES: the compliance year is the one that sets your emissions targets. Pre July 2025 vehicles had no target, 2nd half of 2025 vehicles got a 2025 target, and vehicles complianced in 2026 only need to meet the 2026 target. Sell a 2026 complianced vehicle in 2027 and you’re judged on the 2026 figure. This is why there can be savings on 5 doors that don’t exist for 3 doors: all 2025 complianced 3 doors are essentially sold, but there’s still stock of 2025 complianced 5 doors out there.
This becomes more apparent once you plot it all up on its own.
1000 cars represents a bit under 2 months of current Jimny sales (averaging about 600 a month in 2026 year to date). This makes sense as a stockpile: it takes about that long to actually move vehicles around the country, potentially have some floor stock in dealerships etc. The peak of nearly 4000 cars in a stockpile at the start of 2025 represents all of the 3 doors they could sell in 2025, which is why it erodes down to around 1000 by the end of the year.
It remains to be seen if the tightening seen at the end of 2026 is a return to the levels of stock that Suzuki wants to carry in Australia through its two importers or represents a tightening ahead of getting a bunch more cars to offset the emissions profile. With Jimnys representing around half of all Suzukis sold in Australia, it does have a big bearing on the profitability of the model when they receive compliance.