[bem]

Got a gold SL - FWD with leather and premium package. It did include the heated seats/mirrors that were not on the sticker. Paid $1000 under sticker.

So far , love the car. Solid build quality. Tons of room. That was the factor for me to get it. I am 6'4" tall and dont fit in most cars and suv's. The MDX doesnt work for me cause my legs hit the steering wheel. It doesnt telescope. The Murano doesnt either, but for some reason there is much more clearance for me and its a great fit.

Anyway... two observations:
When you take your foot off the gas, the car seems to "brake" by itself. You feel a deceleration. I checked the parking brake and it is off. I dont know if this is something the CVT tranny does or if i have a problem.

Also, my city gas mileage is only 13mpg. Way below the estimate. My sense is this "drag" issue is the culprit. Just freeway mileage was 25mpg as advertised, so ...

Bad news is that the mechanics dont know much about these cars (or I should say transmissions yet) so it will be interesting to sort this out.

Let me know if anyone else has experienced this one. Other than that , this car is great at 4 days and counting. Already had two strangers ask about it after parking it.

 

[jaak]

Yes the CVT does use the engine to do some braking... Went down a very steep hill with the Murano, on a test drive, and although it's not quite a standard, it was definately using the engine to brake.

Conversely, it was strange driving up that same cliff, er hill, as the engine just sat at the same RPM, like I was cruising, but I had it floored and it was accelerating up the hill.

CVT's different, just have to get used to it.

My only concern, is letting off on the gas in bad weather, like black ice, and having some surprises with the engine braking... May have to retrain the brain.

 

[Taylormade]

bem,

on flat ground in normal driving, I do not notice any type of drag or slowing down of the vehicle. Going down a hill I do which is normal for the CVT. It does sound like something is creating increased resistance for you because you should be getting much better gas mileage than you are.

I haven't taken any long trips yet, but around the city, i'm averaging 18.5 mpg. Still not the 20mpg the vehicle stickers claims but hopefully that will get better. I have over 800 miles on the vehicle now so I don't know how much the fuel economy will improve. It's a bummer when you hope for the 20 to 25 as claimed for the fwd and can't even average the lower.

I'd suggest having your vehicle looked at. I can just imagine the dealership saying they couldn't find something wrong when there probably is. Call Nissan Customer Service if the dealership can't find anything and see what they say.

 

[bem]

Slowing down

thanks for the feedback. I'll wait another week to see if anything changes and then bring it in to see what the mechanics find. I did go and test drive another one at the dealer yesterday just to compare, and it did NOT slow down on flat streets when taking the foot off the gas, so something is not right. I'll cross my fingers .

 

[mtetzlaff]

Owner Comments

I've had my Murano, SE AWD, for about a month. I love it. I to have noticed the "braking" effect when you let of the gas. Doesn't seem to bad but it is different. I've been getting around 18.5 to 19 mpg around town so I'm pretty happy with the gas milage. I took a semi-major trip up into the mountains here in Arizona, lots of ups and downs with way to many hairpin turns. Got just over 20 mpg.

 

[bem]

Gas Mileage

Just did about 30 miles on the freeway at 65mph. Got 27 mpg. Two people in car, pretty flat and constant. City is still only about 14 mpg.

Still think the tranny drag is the cuprit in city driving but since you are doing better with the same issue, it may be something else. I'll keep checking.

 

[Taylormade]

I'm getting about 27 mpg at 55-65 mph as well. Drops quite a bit to 22-23 mpg at 75mph and then to 18-19mpg at 80 mph. Considering I usually drive on the faster side, I'm not going to enjoy the better gas mileage but the 27 mpg is still pretty impressive for this vehicle.

Those figures were on a 350 mile trip one way using 93 octane. On the way home, I'm switching to 87 octane to see if there's a performance difference mileage wise to justify the more expensive gas.

 

[dubfly]

you know taylormade, the faster you drive-faster than 65-(in any car) the worse in mileage you get. imagine doing 80 in "the tank" mistakenly called "H2". it probably gets 9mpg doing 80! lol.

 

[Taylormade]

Yep...I knew that.

 

[Taylormade]

Of course if I was going to hit something doing 80, I'd probably rather be in a H2!

 

[dubfly]

yeah really, that thing doesn't even need airbags!!!

 

[Taylormade]

Update on 87 octane vs 93 octane on my trip:

Same 22 mpg for both grades at 75 mph. Does anyone know why it will still be better to use the higher octane fuel if there isn't a difference in fuel efficiency?

 

[dubfly]

yeah...the higher the octane, the cleaner the fuel is.

 

[darrylburke]

Octane in Fuel.

yeah...the higher the octane, the cleaner the fuel is.

Well actually the higher octane rating has nothing to do with how "clean" the fuel is..

The more octane a fuel has the more controlled burning (explosion) the fuel has. The octane allows the fuel to burn for a longer and consistant time. with less octane you get more of a quick "bang" in the cylinder. A lot up front then not much after.. this is harder on the engine,. where as with octane you get a longer more controlled expansion. (eg. ever see the flames coming out of the back of a race car.. that is because there is so much octane, they time it to just finish before it opens the exaust valves.. so they get expansion of the fuel. all the way until the piston hits the bottom.

 

[dubfly]

Re: Octane in Fuel.

damn mechanics! :lol: that's not what they told me...bastards

so, higher the octane, better the performance. got it!

 

[Taylormade]

Thanks for the explanation! I guess there is a good reason to use higher octance then.

 

[john_bayarea]

Had mine for less than a month now (SL AWD) and already racked up 2k miles from all the ski trips to Lake Tahoe. Gas mileage started at 16 mpg and is now close to 19. Have steadily been going up. This is combined city/hwy diving and on 87 octane.

Will try higher octane soon but I'll be very (and pleasantly) surprised if I can get high 20s.

 

[mikmax1]

Premium fuel

Traditionally, cars with Higher compression using regular fuel can "Knock", which is caused by lesser Octane fuel getting hot prematurely and Pre-igniting before the spark plug fires. Change the timing of the spark by twisting the distributer cap, the knock goes away.

For newer Nissans:
Now we have computers. On many new cars, they have an Octane sensor. They automatically adjust ignition timing based on Octane. On my Maxima, if you ran regular, it adjusted the timing to fire and avoid the knock, but sacrifice power. On premium it changes the timing (since the knock won't happen) and gains power.

On my Maxima, (I assume Murano is same), the Premium did improve performace a tad...not immensely. So, I compromised and ran the mid-grade most of the time.

NOW...ON OLDER CARS....if the car was meant to run on Regular...adding Premium did absolutely NO good, because ignition was fixed for Regular.

 

[Sbikerman]

When you take your foot off the gas, the car seems to "brake" by itself. You feel a deceleration. I checked the parking brake and it is off. I dont know if this is something the CVT tranny does or if i have a problem.

I only noticed this when I shift to "S".

 

[Loren]

what octane does Nissan suggested? I'm getting mine on Monday yet. If they say 87, you have to be 87. My Explorer was been using 87 as suggested by the manual. If I use 93 octane, I can hear some pinging.