Suzuki Jimny JB23 / JB43

Suzuki showed the third-generation Jimny at the 1997 Tokyo Motor Show, and it went on sale in Japan in January 1998 as the 1.3-liter Jimny Wide. While rivals were turning small 4x4s into crossovers, Suzuki kept the separate ladder frame, the solid axles and a two-speed transfer case. It then built the thing, mostly unchanged under the skin, for twenty years. It replaced the Samurai in most markets and carried the Jimny name around the world. America was the one big market that never got it new, and Suzuki stopped selling cars in the US altogether in 2012.

KEI CAR, WIDE CAR

There are really two trucks under one badge. The JB23 is the Japanese kei car: 3,395 mm long and 1,475 mm wide, with no fender flares, small bumpers and a 658 cc turbocharged K6A three-cylinder. It reached showrooms in October 1998, months after the bigger car, because it was designed around new kei rules that hadn't yet taken effect. Everything else is the 'Wide' car, with flares, bigger bumpers and a 1.3-liter four. That's the JB33 with the 80 PS G13BB, then the JB43 with the M13A from January 2000 in Japan. Japan revived the Sierra name for the 1.3 in January 2002, and Australia adopted it in 2007.

The family spread wide. Santana Motor in Spain built the Canvas Top from 1999 to 2009, and its soft tops kept the old G13BB until 2005. Europe got the JB53 diesel, a Santana- and Suzuki-built Jimny with Renault's 1.5 K9K, from 2004 to 2011, though never in Britain or Ireland. GM Colmotores assembled a 'Chevrolet Jimny' in Bogotá from 1999, and Mazda sold the kei car as the AZ-Offroad. Brazil kept building the facelifted 1.3 until 2022, when new rules caught up with the M13A.

COILS, VACUUM AND A DRY KNUCKLE

The mechanical recipe is old-school 4x4 at three-quarter scale. Both axles are solid beams located by radius arms, and apart from the late SJ 'Coily,' this was the first Jimny on coil springs at all four corners after decades of leaves. Steering is recirculating ball. Drive is part-time with no center differential, so 4WD is for loose surfaces only. Vacuum-locking front hubs let you shift from 2WD to 4WD at up to 100 km/h (62 mph), while low range needs a stop. From about 2005 a push-button, motor-driven transfer case replaced the lever. BigJimny's owners compare the layout to a shrunken Patrol Y61, which is fair, if generous.

The weak point is where the front wheels steer. Each front hub swings on a pair of tapered kingpin bearings inside a knuckle that BigJimny bluntly calls 'poorly sealed by design.' Water and grit get in, the lower bearing wears, the halfshaft seal follows, and the result is the notorious 'death wobble' at around 45–50 mph. Unlike a Land Rover swivel, the Jimny's is meant to run dry with grease, not oil. Fresh Koyo bearings, a new seal and good waterproof grease fix it, and owners who wheel hard do this job often.

THE M13A YEARS

The engine most export Jimnys carry is the M13A, a 1,328 cc all-aluminum DOHC 16-valve four with a timing chain, so there's no belt to budget for, unlike the G13BB it replaced. The original version made about 82 PS (60 kW). The 2005–06 update added variable valve timing for 85–86 PS (63 kW) and 110 Nm at 4,100 rpm, and from 2007 every petrol Jimny used the VVT engine. BigJimny's verdict is that the G13BB and M13A are 'generally very robust' and mostly suffer sensor and electrical niggles. The gearbox paired with the VVT engine, the R72, is a different story: early boxes, roughly 2005–2008, are known for bearing failures.

Suzuki kept freshening the outside. A deeper front bumper arrived around 2006 and cost some approach angle. In 2012 a squarer grille and a fake hood scoop appeared, and late cars added ESP, TPMS and a traction-control mode that only works in low range. Production ended worldwide in 2018, except in Brazil, as Suzuki retooled for the fourth generation.

RUST, AND HOW AN AMERICAN GETS ONE

The thing that kills Jimnys isn't the drivetrain. BigJimny's wiki says every generation left the factory with 'particularly poor rust prevention,' and lists the usual spots: body and spring mounts on the chassis, factory welds, the boot floor and the floor under the rear seats, the panels behind the plastic cladding, and the cavity behind each headlamp. Its rust article shows a ten-year-old car with only 60,000 km, mostly on salted alpine roads, and a chassis rail weakened enough to keep a truck off the road. Buy the driest one you can find, then rust-proof it.

For Americans, the clock is the attraction. NHTSA lets anyone import a vehicle that is 25 or more years old, measured from its date of manufacture. That covers every 1998–2001 Jimny today: the first JB33 Wides turned 25 around the start of 2023, the first kei JB23s in late 2023 and the first M13A JB43s in 2025, and each later truck qualifies on its own 25th birthday. That's why US auctions are full of right-hand-drive JB23 turbos, while the 70 Series follows the same path a few sizes up.