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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QX65 will be a version of this.
Not necessarily specific to theMurano, but I am always annoyed by wheels that aren’t symmetrical i.e. they don’t look the same as their mirror image. That means that one side of the car has the wheels on backwards and it’s really annoying.
On the other hand cars like the salad shooter era Corvette that have four unique wheels each specific to its corner of the car are the other extreme.
I still think that Murano is a weird name for an automobile, I always associate with “hi we went to Venice and thought you’d like this really expensive glass paperweight”
Not quite as bad as Armada I guess.
The part about the wheels really bugged me with our Levorg. It had those turbine style five-spokes everyone had back then,but they were the same right and left so one side would point forwards and the other backwards. I wish they would bother to make them directional, but I guess that would fuck up their parts logistics or something.
OK but when are they going to reveal the production version with the real grille?
This one’s obviously a placeholder or something… right?
Looks like the Hyundai Tuscon grill but not in a good way
Those little chrome embellishments remind me of when Lyft was first starting out and all of their drivers had those big pink fake fur mustaches across the front of their cars.
We should see more facial fur on cars!
Look at the interior, bright and a little cheerful compared to all-black interior i see in other cars, i like the exterior too.
I feel like I keep up on these things, but was damn convinced that Nissan stopped selling the Murano like, 3 years ago. I haven’t seen one that looked new in ages.
I suppose this looks… ok? I’m not sure about the face.
Wait…they still make the Murano???
The full-width rear lightbar trend has already gone on long enough. So many brands are doing it and they’re starting to blend together for me.