The year 2014 feels like a lifetime ago. Obama was in the Oval Office, “vape” was Oxford’s word of the year, “Happy” by Pharrell Williams haunted Top 40 radio, and Nissan launched the third-generation Murano. Ten years later, we’ve certainly seen some changes, and now that last point is coming full circle — the fourth-generation Nissan Murano is finally here, and it’s about to make the Infiniti QX50 almost irrelevant.
Can you believe it’s been 22 years since the first Nissan Murano rolled into showrooms? This experiment in crossing a few 350Z sports car styling cues with the bones of a Maxima to make something unlike all the off-road-posturing crossovers on the market at the time made a splash and sold well enough to justify an evolutionary second generation for 2008. Six years after that, the swoopy third-generation Murano took the reins, and that’s what we’ve been stuck with for an entire decade — until now.
Upon first glance, the new Murano looks kind of like a blend between an Ariya and a Kicks. On the one hand, you have a rotund silhouette with sweeping trim forming an arc over the entire greenhouse. On the other, the front end features a very split set of headlights, with rows of horizontal daytime running lights in the grille. It’s a long face, but something has to wear it, I guess.
Mind you, there are some details to the design worth giving Nissan props for. The committee for exhaust tip honesty will likely be pleased that Nissan specified hidden turn-downs rather than fake exhaust tips, the everything-all-at-once alloy wheels are arrestingly funky, and the layering of vertically finned, diffused elements inside the full-width taillight treatment is so choice.
Under the hood, you’ll find Nissan’s controversial VC-Turbo two-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine. It makes 241 horsepower and 260 lb.-ft. of torque and comes paired with a proper nine-speed torque converter automatic transmission, the same sort you’d find in a Pathfinder. No CVT here. Sure, the engine has a historical reputation of occasionally blowing up, but at least the gearbox probably won’t fail in the same manner a neglected continuously variable transmission would.
While the lack of a hybrid powertrain option does feel like a miss compared to the hybrid-only Toyota Crown Signia and hybrid-optional Hyundai Santa Fe and Kia Sorento, the decision to go purely combustion probably won’t matter much to the target audience of the Murano. Instead, Nissan’s spent the money where fuel-agnostic buyers will notice it the most — in the cabin.
Open the door of a loaded 2025 Nissan Murano and you’ll be greeted by quilted leathers, warm neutral tones, and a two-spoke steering wheel that lays out the order of business — this thing isn’t sporty, it’s about cruising in comfort. Mind you, the capacitive-touch climate controls likely aren’t the most comfortable things to use if experience with the Ariya electric crossover is anything to go by.
Speaking of tech, how about that digital gauge cluster and that infotainment screen under one panel of glass? Two 12.3-inch screens that largely eschew flat design will happily give you more information than you ever knew you wanted, while a sleek hood for the screens ought to enhance legibility in bright conditions. Of course, Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are on deck for SV and up trims, while SL and higher trims get Google Maps built-in, if you might find that useful.
Add in available 64-color ambient lighting, optional ventilated and massaging front seats, an available 10-speaker Bose sound system, and a new exterior camera view that effectively lets you see through the hood, and it’s hard to think of any extra gizmos you might possibly want.
The 2025 Nissan Murano promises to be a perfectly cromulent two-row crossover, but it also puts its upmarket cousin, the Infiniti QX50, in a bit of a tight spot. Like the Murano, it’s a two-row crossover with the two-liter VC-Turbo four-cylinder engine built by the Nissan Motor Company. Unlike the Murano, it has a CVT, clunkier tech, and decidedly premium pricing. While we don’t know how much the new Murano costs just yet, the QX50 starts at $44,350. While the Infiniti is 7.9 inches shorter and 3.1 inches narrower than the Murano, most Americans aren’t space-constrained that hard, and with more Nissan and Infiniti franchises sharing showrooms, the QX50 could be a hard sell.
Still, for Nissan, that’s not the worst problem to have. Expect pricing to be announced closer to early 2025, when the new Nissan Murano is expected to roll into showrooms. It’s been an automotive eternity between model changes, and while we welcome the new Murano, we also hope it won’t be sticking around for a full decade like the last one did.
(Photo credits: Nissan)
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This is a pathetically inferior product. Why move away from the pinnacle of automotive engineering for a clunky 9 speed transmission? A Jatco CVT has infinite speed.
My guess is that they’ve reserved the infinite ratios of the Jatco Xtronic Continuously Variable Transmission for the Infiniti to create some space between it and the inferior Murano.
Well now I know what I will be driving out of the rental car building at Orlando airport, but in obligatory white.
If it’s the same trans as the Pathfinder, I believe it’s a ZF transmission which is even better. The exterior I’m not sold on but the interior does look nice.
A normal automatic transmission? Huzzah! Give that decision-maker a raise.
I can enlighten you
Ooh, is that the time? Gotta go but best of luck.
“Let’s design the most intricate and complex wheels possible for our new pretend-luxury CUV”
“Okay – Here you go”
“Great – Now paint them black”
“?!?!?!?!”
Exterior and interior styling look pretty good to me. But they’re releasing an all new vehicle in 2025 without a hybrid option???
I guess they’re betting all their money on the Arrrghiya
They also announced yesterday that they’re bringing a PHEV Rogue for the 2026 model year and finally bringing over their e-Power hybrids to the US soon.
I like this front end on the Kicks, but on the Murano it might have a bit of a problem with scale. Having said that, when was the last time you saw a car with headlights in the traditional headlight position, instead of way down on the grille? They also finally got rid of the floating roof. Other car companies should be so lucky.
Overall, I don’t see how reactions can be both “Gah, this is hideous!” and “Yawn, it looks just like every other crossover”. Pick a complaint, and stick to it. (Mine is, “NO, not the VC turbo!!”)
It’s got a face that only someone with bad credit would love. 🙂
Or at least mildly tolerate. It is ugly from all angles.
The New Nissan Murano Will Make You Wonder Why Anyone Would Buy
An Infiniti QX50A Nissan Murano (fixed that for you)Nissan VC Turbo engines are hybrid. They run on gasoline and tow truck.
VC seems like one of those executive mandates which has proven to be a very bad decision but can’t be overturned because of institutional politics. From a hardware standpoint it doesn’t seem like a huge change to go back to conventional.
I think it’s more or less the sunk cost fallacy at this point. They invested an inordinate amount of money in developing it and unfortunately it sucks ass…which is honestly kind of a shame, it seemed like a really cool idea on paper. But they’re so deep in the red at this point that I assume they’re going to keep shoving it in things until they get some return on their investment.
It really is bad technology though. It doesn’t do what it set out to do (improve fuel economy) and it’s significantly less reliable than a normal turbo 4 cylinder….which aren’t the most reliable things in the world to begin with.
Imagine if they’d put those resources into developing a hybrid powertrain. Ugh. Nissan gonna Nissan, unfortunately…
I don’t think it’s necessarily institutional politics or sunk cost fallacy, but simply the fact that they don’t really have another option to replace it with. The VQ engine has been succeeded by the VR engine (V6 turbos) and the KR engine (the VC engines), the MR engines are too weak, and the QR engines are outdated and underpowered. The VQ may require more engineering work to keep it emissions compliant, which they were planning not to do since it was supposed to be replaced.
The VC engines can deliver great fuel economy in some applications (the Rogue’s 30/37/33 is best in class for a non-hybrid), and perhaps the new generation’s increased size, weight and lack of CVT are masking the gains made over the last gen’s VQ. As for the reliability, they might be expecting/hoping that the issues have been worked out by now since its been a few years; IIRC the issue might have been similar to the Hyundai Theta engines where shavings were not properly cleared out of oil channels, which is more of a manufacturing process issue than something needing a redesign.
Additionally, it’s probably just been too late in the development cycle to change things around.
Nissan’s lack of hybrids is starting to get wild
Yep, are the rental car companies asking for non-hybrids?
It doesn’t take a new Nissan Murano for me to wonder why anyone would buy an Infiniti QS50.
Infiniti seems like a current day version of Oldsmobile. I expected it to fold a decade ago but it carries on.
Infinitis look great, they have nice interiors, they have great lease deals, and they offer the same “if you’ve got a pulse you’ve got a car” financing as Nissan. That’s why people buy them IMHO.
They also depreciate absurdly, to the point that you can get a lightly used one for the same price (or even less) than comparable appliance cars. For normies/people that are ballin on a budget there’s a certain appeal to that.
Would I recommend one? Lmao of course not. But I understand why people do…they’re essentially the easiest way to get into a new or new ish luxury car. Good luck with the CVT/VC Turbo combination though. Woof.
I can’t see buying this over a Crown Signia unless it is significantly cheaper.
The front end is so ugly. I hate the trend of super thin headlights that leave designers to fill the rest of the space with crap.
the rest of the car is fine, looks good from the rear 3/4. It will nicely disappear into the sea of boring crossovers.
front end looks like it ate a Ferrari 365 GTB/4
What’s the status of the NHTSA’s investigation into Nissan’s VC engine failures?
Is that not still open?
I want to move the Nissan badge to the body color strip between the “grilles”. I think that would clean it up well, though it might make it too Chevy.
No hybrid no care…and while the torque converter is a massive step in the right direction the absurd VC turbo engine is not.
Couldn’t-care-less-cakes.
Unless they made a convertible version…
If that front end didn’t look stacked up on another front end….
And the VC Turbo…”let’s take out the CVT because of its reliability issues and put in our hugely unreliable engine.”
I am willing to bet creating a DI head for an updated SR20dET would have given them similar results with less headache for all involved.
to me it looks like a Land Rover puking a SantaFe
An exterior that’s not gray. An interior that’s not black. I’m impressed with that alone.
Paging The Bishop, we need a new crosscab
It appears to have what the kids call “derpface.”
It only took Nissan a decade to design a new generation, and they decided to immediately saddle it with one of the least reliable engines they’ve made in forever, but at least ditched the CVT I guess. It seems like a good improvement, but it’s yet another Nissan product with a critical flaw that would keep me from ever recommending one to someone in the market.
I don’t know, it seems to me that glass blowers are pretty tiny market.