by Wallace Wyss –
It was a car, or van or SUV or Crossover, that should never have been built. Oh on paper it looked interesting — a four seater convertible, four wheel drive (but never actually meant to go off-road).
But in the second decade of the 2000s this car turned out to be terrible in person — a curse to own. The Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet has several flaws, including:
Parking: Doors too long so they prove difficult to open in tight spaces. Ironically a prototype had four doors which would have worked better.
Handling: Those who drove it said it was ungainly compared to other convertibles and the regular Murano SUV.
Price: The CrossCabriolet had a relatively high sticker price of close to $45,000 when Infiniti was supposed to be the expensive brand from Nissan. When you are making cars you never want one of your lower class brand cars to be higher priced than your high class cars.
Storage: The CrossCabriolet has little storage space–sort of silly when you consider it invited four people to go touring but where would you put the luggage?
Visibility: The rear deck is higher than normal, making it difficult to see when backing up. The top was so hard to see out of when up they added a gunslit-shaped second rear window in the roof.
But the biggest flaw was the maintenance of the convertible top. When owners took it back to the dealer with a top problem, reportedly the dealer’s mechanics would run and hide when they saw one coming. There were, as it turns out, no convertible top parts on dealer’s shelves. Oh a few owners persevered and had a machine shop make a part but you shouldn’t have to do that in a car that’s only 10-12 years old and from a major brand.
In sum, we as consumers are going to be distrustful of Nissan cars now that we see how they deserted CrossCabriolet owners. A car company should be willing to take a financial hit if they goof up.
Now here’s the kicker. I am writing about this car because I saw a used one for $11,000 plus and I thought this is a deal because they are usually twice that. But then I researched it and discovered a replacement convertible top is $10,000. So that would mean, if I bought this $11,000 convertible, and the top self destructed I’d have to spend roughly 90% of my purchase price to buy a replacement top.
The Murano CrossCabriolet was discontinued after the 2014 model year due to low sales. But I think there should be a class action suit on behalf of all the owners, requiring Nissan make new tops available at a reasonable price, say $3,000 and required to put the parts that break on their shelves.
What say you?
Let us know what you think in the Comments.
THE AUTHOR Wallace Wyss a former ad copywriter, has authored 18 books on cars.
Photos compliments of Nissan.
Great idea. Class action.dogdoc
Nissan’s equivalent (ugly wise anyway) to the Pontiac Aztek, in my opinion.
Wallace,
I don’t know much about the NIssan Murano, the sedan or convertible. All I know is when all the Muranos of this era were in production, they were incrediby popular going by on flatbed trucks I used to see on the streets back for repair. That was all I needed to know.
Glenn in Brooklyn, NY.