Do Muranos just suck?

Random thought/question-

I was driving behind a Murano today and it struck me that I almost never see these things on the road. Considering plenty of them were made over the past 20 years, seems to me there should be more of them out there - no shortage of Rav4s, Highlanders, Pilots, and other similar-era older SUVs I see all the time. But not Muranos (side note, I was amazed to look it up and see Nissan STILL sells new Muranos, who knew?)...

My time in the Nissan community in the early 2000s led me to think they were generally pretty decent vehicles back then (at least in terms of drivetrain), but do they have some fatal flaw that has relegated all of them to the junkyard and few on the road - or are they just so bland that I simply don't even notice them when I see them (seems odd, I notice other bland things like Highlanders and Pilots)? 

Yes. they suck. Fatal flaw is the CVT trans. 

I too liked my past 4 Nissans (and 3 Infinitis.) Newest was a 2007, first year Versa with a cvt but we sold it at 80k largely because I feared cvt trouble which is so popular in them. (Though, we never had cvt trouble.)

I had a rental for about a month while they fixed my wife's car around '06-07. I thought it was ok except for the transmission, it was AWFUL. 

It made me swear off CVTs until recently when I drove a new Honda Accord. That CVT is the first one I've driven that doesnt make me want to drive the car off a cliff. 

In reply to John Welsh :

kinda a pretty nice ride. I recall thinking it was quite fancy inside, but yeah that was not a good time for CVT's.  It was to big/heavy of a car with too much power for a early cvt. 

I agree that the early Muranos were attractive for their time. 

In reply to John Welsh :

I always thought they looked like an angry hand appliance.

When I was a service writer, I always saw Nissans of that approximate era nickel and diming owners to death with electrical BS.  Couple that with a crappy CVT trans, and I could see not a lot of them surviving.

A quick look at the local junkyard online inventory and it seems like there are more of them out there than there are of my generation F150s, which is surprising.

I mean, yeah, I remember the early CVT issues, but they've made these things for 20 years now, have they solved the issue or changed transmissions? Because I really don't see newer Muranos either.....

Not that I'm interested in getting one in any case, but it's just an annoying mystery to me lol. 

Not sure how the figures compare to other vehicles

https://carfigures.com/us-market-brand/nissan/murano

I see not one but two convertible Muranos a few days a month during my commute. One of the ugliest modern cars I've seen. Both are owned (or at least regularly driven) by women that look to be in the 50s-60s and enjoying the weather when they can.

A family member had one, it was always a pretty crap car - I don't remember the interior, driving experience, or anything else being above "meh". Lasted ~15 years of little, easy driving before it was basically junk. Can't remember what went wrong but it wasnt worth fixing.

These days, is there anything in the Nissan lineup that's actually good? My impression as of the last decade is that they are all E36 M3boxes,  driven poorly by those that don't at all care about cars, but could afford a new Nissan after agreeing to outrageous loan terms. Partial exception for the Z.

The early Rogues seem to have mostly disappeared as well.

Nissan target customer + failure prone transmission with expensive repair = lots of junked cars

I think the Koreans have really taken a lot of Nissan's market share among consumers in the last 10 years. If it weren't for rental car companies buying them, their numbers would be even worse.

Nissan likes to think they are Toyota. They are much more like Mitsubishi, which is not flattering.

ddavidv said:

Nissan likes to think they are Toyota. They are much more like Mitsubishi, which is not flattering.

probably won't make "Say What?!?!" but definitely worthy.

The Nissan Frontier is probably the one Nissan that's been decent and sold well in private sales for Nissan 

ddavidv said:

Nissan likes to think they are Toyota. They are much more like Mitsubishi, which is not flattering.

Are they the Michael Jordan (of baseball) of automobiles?

Another Nissan I rarely see anymore; the Juke.  Remember those?  Probably the same issue, but compounded by adding a turbo to the potential maintenance mix.

Last Nissan that interested me was the 350Z.

Muranos are bad.  Like many other vehicles Nissan made in the past 20 years, they saddled them with that godforsaken CVT that not only saps all of the fun of driving away, it's spectacularly unreliable. Add to that the 1st gen cars and their electrical problems, I'm honestly surprised there are any left running. Design-wise, they were ahead of their time, but ultimately, they were the harbinger of doom for the "good" Nissan we all knew and loved.  

Side Note: Someone mentioned earlier in the thread that there are very few 1st gen Rogues left running. I knew quite a few people that bought them new. None made it to 80k before the CVT grenaded. That's incredible. 

Oh, and there's one of those NISMO Jukes that appeared around here recently! Man, they are weird. IIRC, you could get one with a MT and they had overly aggressive seats in them. 

Rust and neglect.  Murano or Rogue attracted an extra mechanically insensitive clientele.

I will allow that I did have someone spend close to $2k on one last year to fix an evap leak.

My daughter bought a Rouge, the only thing that hasn't needed replacement is the damn CVT (knocks wood).  I've never seen subframe bushings fail on a car before, ever.  These ones on this thing have, twice. The interior is falling apart, and theres a dent in every panel (well that's her fault). Biggest POS i've ever had the misfortune to work on.  

A coworker had a Murano some years ago. She traded it in for a Rouge when the AWD system started failing. She liked the car otherwise and would have bought another new Murano if she could have afforded it (happed while she was getting divorced). 

Not much to add, other than taking secret pleasure when a particularly offensive co-worker would once again experience grief when the POS Murano he had sufferered yet another problem.  Yes, that likely makes me a jerk, but in this case I don't care.

It's a Nissan. That's all you need to know.

My mom has a 2005 Murano that she bought new. It only has like 70k miles on it now. Luckily, she hasn't had any trouble with the CVT but I'm sure that it's due to the low mileage. I hate driving it. It gets pretty abysmal gas mileage, the seats suck and the rearward visibility is non-existent. But she likes it.

Weren't the Nissan CVTs manufactured by Jatco?

I always thought the Juke NISMO RS was an interesting vehicle. You could get a 6 speed manual or AWD but not together. 

stanger_mussle (Supported by GRM undergarments) said:

Weren't the Nissan CVTs manufactured by Jatco?

I believe Nissan still holds a majority stake (75% ??) in Jatco, so probably 'yes'.

I find it funny that Nissan is so disrespected these days that the Rogue is consistently called the Rouge (unless you're all being ironically incorrect on purpose)....