Nissan GA16DE (GA family, 1.3–1.6)

Nissan's 1.6 four — in the Primera, Sentra, Almera and Sunny.

It is a chain-driven, port-injected, unremarkable engine that lasts — which is the whole reason it is worth a page: most of what brings one in is not the engine, and knowing that saves chasing it.

Two recurring faults account for most complaints. The distributor — on the engines that have one — fails from heat and gives an intermittent stall that clears when cool; and the idle air control valve carbons up and produces a hunting or stalling idle that reads as something worse. Both are cheap and testable.

A rough idle with no code is very often the inlet manifold gasket, which hardens with age on these and lets in unmetered air.

The GA14DE and GA15DE are the same design in smaller sizes and their results apply directly.

Its successor is the QG family, which is a different engine despite sitting in the same cars — see nissan-qg18.