1996 Nissan Sentra car wont start

If any of your dashboard lights come on when turning the key your voltage should be fine. There are several causes for you situation. The starter, distibutor, injectors/carborator, and spark plugs. All of those will give the same problem. I have just replaced all of those in my sentra. Check all those first. The starter will normally give a sign its bad as well as spark plugs and injectors. The starter will start then die when givin gas and spark and injectors will normally start to missfire when the go bad. Check your sparks then distributor then go from there. You can find pictures of what your sparks should look like in a hanes book. Or take one in and ask a person a autozone if it looks bad. Hopes that helps

If this is the 1600 cc engine, yes, the starter can only be reached by one hand at a time from under the car, which makes it pretty hard to test safely in situ. Absent a proper tester/analyzer. So. I'd start by making sure the battery is fully charged and connections clean and tight. If you can get the car somehow to an auto parts store that does electrical system testing for free, they can tell you whether the starter is bad.