This week, Griffin and I are driving 3,400 miles across America in the Autopian‘s Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet to take part in the Lemons Rally in Texas. Nissan’s most ignored crossover has been a surprisingly awesome steed across our first 500-mile leg from Los Angeles. Yesterday, we drove this Murano to a place where it probably has never been before and took it rock crawling in Sedona, Arizona. The awesome part? The CrossCab was so good off-road it impressed everyone, even me. Welcome to Day 2 of CrossCab CrossCountry CabCross CountryCab.
On Monday, we drove about 500 miles from Los Angeles to just south of Flagstaff, Arizona, where we got acquainted with our steed for the week. Yesterday was all about getting the CrossCab dirty and scratched up. We put a lift kit, Vredestein Pinza AT tires, and Ford Mustang wheels on this thing, so of course, we had to take it off-road.
We actually had no idea how this was going to go. The CrossCab has all-wheel drive, but it doesn’t even pretend to be off-road capable. Sure, the CrossCab looks mean on its chunky tires and lift kit, but would it be any good?
To answer that question, Griffin and I hit the trails around Sedona with a recovery Jeep going along for the ride. Our main trail of the day was Schnebly Hill. Then, we went to Broken Arrow and attempted the Devil’s Staircase. Sadly, we started our day way too late to have a reader meetup, which is sad.
Once we reached the beginning of the trail, Griffin hopped out of the CrossCab and into the Jeep, while I dropped the CrossCab’s top down. If you’ve been following our stories on the CrossCab, you know that our example has a roof that’s absolutely on its last legs. But I wasn’t about to go wheeling on a sunny day in the mountains with the top up. I put the top down and decided to deal with the consequences later on.
My measure for trail difficulty is different than most: I grade trails based on how easily a Smart Fortwo or Honda Civic could handle the terrain. If a Civic could do it, then it’s not even worth noting. Our morning started off like that. We hit some washboards and a little mud, but it wasn’t anything that a family hatch couldn’t handle.
Then it got rough. The dirt gave way to miles of rock crawling. The trails out here were driven by Jeeps, Broncos, Toyotas, side-by-sides, and one lonely Suzuki Samurai. The Nissan stuck out like a sore thumb.
I won’t reveal how the CrossCab wheeled until I write my full story about this, but I will say that it impressed everyone, even me. I’m not even exaggerating here. There were several times throughout the day when a Jeep driver or a side-by-side driver stopped and reacted to the CrossCab climbing over rocks with shocking ease. I heard “Jesus Christ” more than once, and there wasn’t a church nearby.
Griffin called this the “easy day” of our trip since we weren’t going to get any closer to Texas. But it wasn’t easy for me. If you’ve read my work for long enough, you know I live by a sort of “full send” mentality. I like to solve problems with a heavy application of my right foot, and this is bad for vehicles that weren’t built for off-roading. My unintentional destruction of our old Ski-Klasse project is an unfortunate example.
I had to fight my desire to send the CrossCab flying through the air at all costs. It’s not my car, and it still has to drive another 2,900 miles before it eventually reaches my apartment in Illinois. At the same time, I couldn’t be too timid. It takes some effort to get a car like this to rock crawl. So, I had to fight myself to reach a happy medium.
Thankfully, a little restraint and the low-key solid off-roading ability of our CrossCab meant that I concluded the day of wheeling with minimal casualties. There were only two obstacles that the CrossCab was not able to conquer, and you’ll have to read about those later. Along the way, I deleted one exhaust tip, lost about a millimeter of skin from a portion of my right hand, and beat the snot out of the CrossCab’s fake front skid plate.
About that hand: almost immediately after the exhaust tip fell off, I pulled the driver’s door handle, and it somehow sliced through the top layer of a portion of my right hand. The door handle is in two pieces, an outer decorative plastic chrome layer, and the inner black part, which appears to be the handle itself. In our CrossCab, the outer decorative plastic has separated from the inner piece. This normally has the effect of jamming the door handle, so you have to yank it a bunch of times before it’ll open.
This time, I apparently yanked it hard enough that the two door handle pieces closed on my palm.
I was also able to confirm my suspicions from Monday: The CrossCab’s right front wheel bearing was bad, and was getting louder quite rapidly. After consulting the Autopian’s leadership, a decision was made for us to march forward and monitor the situation. We were sent on our way with minimal tools as it is. Come to think of it, the guys might have also forgotten a spare tire when they lifted this thing and put giant tires on it.
Yesterday was also when – and I can’t believe I’m going to say this – I fell in love with the Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet. I spent much of Monday complaining about how the CrossCab was loud inside, had a stupidly complicated roof, had a trunk that was too small, and got putrid fuel economy. But all of that was changed when I dropped the top. Now I understand the CrossCab. Stowing the roof made the CrossCab feel like an entirely different car, but you’ll have to wait for my full love story about this thing. I think I’ll have to check with my doctor about this, because I never expected it.
Maybe the CrossCab appreciated the love, too, because when I closed the top last night, not only did the top quickly close entirely on its own, but the convertible top error light extinguished. Jason Torchinsky told me that, until just then, the light had always been on. Maybe all the CrossCab needed was a bashing off-road and a driver who now seriously loves it. And maybe my blood sacrifice on the door handle was a factor, who knows.
Anyway, today is going to be the actual easy day. After I finish writing this, Griffin and I will take off toward Lubbock, Texas. We’ll be spending most of our time on I-40, sort of tracing much of the old path taken by Route 66. I expect a whole lot of nothing to happen today. Or, at the very least, I hope nothing too exciting happens.
Oh, one more thing: you wanna hang out? Come and see me and Griffin tomorrow in Texas!
For those of you who aren’t familar with Sedona, Broken Arrow is a legit trail. In one of these vids Mercedes is taking the detour up to Submarine Rock and I occasionally drag skids on my lifted 4Runner there.
I somehow managed to remove a chunk of skin from my right hand this morning while searching my Jeep for an ice scraper. They do demand sacrifices every now and then.
And I have to say that the CrossCab has really grown on me. There’s at least one in my area; I see it in the grocery store parking lot occasionally (never with the top down!).
Bet a lot of people have been cut before — look at the colour. Was probably yellow out of the factory.
“Good car!” Ha, I say that to vehicles all the time. Well, the good ones, at least.
I can’t unsee that the tape line isn’t quite centered.
I love that the Murano CrossCabriolet is getting so much love, but I would strongly suggest replacing that wheel bearing sooner rather than later. If it seizes and pops the wheel isn’t going to stay aligned to the hub very well, which can be catastrophic at highway speeds.
You have a few thousand miles of highway driving ahead and that constant friction on a bad bearing is going to test its limits. Looking forward to reading about the rest of your adventure and stay safe.
Agreed. Had a rear wheel bearing seize at 70MPH in my Ford Festiva. Lost the battle against the tank slapper and skidded backwards down the interstate into the barrier.
I’m curious if having a CVT is beneficial or a hindrance for off-roading compared to a conventional automatic?
It was a hindrance, but that’s for the full story. 😉
I fully expected the first story to be about the CVT barfing all its guts out on the mountain. And I love the intentional desert pinstripe applications! Nice work!
What Would Herbie Do? You showed the car some love and it loved you back.
I’m pretty sure you and Griffin will drive through where I live today. I’m on the NM side of the TX/NM border. I’d love to meet you both but I’m stuck at work unfortunately 🙁
Have wheeled with Mercedes at Holly Oaks in Michigan. Can confirm, full send is the only way she knows.
Congrats on showing restraint!
I said I didn’t like purple on cars and was taken to task. I like the purple on your Murano cross dresser. I hate to admit this but it does actually look kind of ‘cool’, ‘tough’, ‘OK’ with the top down, the lift kit and even gold wheels, and fuck I hated disco, cause I grew up with Cream, Led Zeppelin et al. If these are going cheap, this may be a thing to snag and dress up like yours. I would say thank you Autopian, but not till I see my psychologist to make sure this is early winter onset neuralgia
Why did no one think to apply XPEL to the fake skid plate prior to wheelin?!
Apply it to the wheel bearing too. Find out it’s limits 😉
“I had to fight my desire to send the CrossCab flying through the air at all costs.”
Emperor Palpatine: “Give in to your feelings!”
No, seriously. Now that you’ve taken it wheeling, it’s time for wheelies!!!
“Jesus Christ” – take this thing to Moab during Easter, go “full send”, and see if you can get so many of these comments that you trigger the rapture
If there is a single complaint I could have about Autopian, it’s that the team seems to keep their fleet of cars intentionally shabby. I’m not sure if it’s for views or the drama of it all, but honestly – fix the door handle, fix the top, fix the wheel bearings, put in a fresh battery.. I mean, come on. It’s kind of the same thing over and over, especially with David who is by far the worst offender, where drama is created from some of the most mundane and easy to fix things..
Become a member and we’ll use your money to fix the door handle! In all seriousness, for the partner post cars, it doesn’t make sense for them to fix stuff when they are just going to auction post-experiments.
Personal cars are another story – the flywheel with missing teeth was by far my favorite, though I’ll give that one a pass because it’s a PITA to replace.
If the Autopian gets 1,000 new members by Dec 31st Jason will finally fix his Beetle!!!!
I’ll give you the door handle and the battery, but the top is shabby because it’s essentially unfixable, which they’ve reported on a couple of times. I don’t remember the details, but it’s something like a $17k assembly and there’s only replacement in the country. It’s part of the overall madness of this car, which is why it was an interesting pick at all.
The wheel bearing sounds like a new issue, and it’s just the result of being an old car (and maybe the lift and tires lol).
I’ll also stick up for DT a bit, because while he could certainly be described as shabby, he goes through some serious effort in his new purchase tuneup for his personal cars.
I get all of that, but I guess for me it’s.. everything is fixable. That car doesn’t need an entire top assembly to be repaired. For example, I rebuilt all of the hydraulic rams in my SL500 (there are 10) which are extremely difficult to get to but the parts were only $100. It was just a ton of labor – I would be much more interested in someone on the Autopian team tackling the repair of this top vs. just trashing this thing at Moab where it’s surely going to be destroyed.
DT, yes, of course I agree with you – no question. I’ve even met DT and we hung out at his gathering in Michigan before he left for California. He’s a wonderful guy – but writing things like “I’ve done something crazy, who would have thought AIR SHOCKS could help with my Jeep?” I mean come on man… everyone has heard of and/or used air shocks. I’m much less interested in your road trip to get parts than I am in seeing some actual progress on the Jeep, some updated photos, etc., which is a really neat project I’m excited to see come together as many of us are.
Stuff like this keeps me from joining.. it’s all a bit childish sometimes, and I would really like to see the staff and writing move in a more … I don’t know… “I start what I finish” kind of direction, without losing the enthusiast “edge” or “spice” and content for the everyman this site is built on and that I love.
Anywho just Thursday ramblings.. I don’t disagree with anyone’s comments here.
I think the number of us (and also not us – they have to attract new folk too) that would be interested in this is small. The return on the effort (doing the labor-intensive job and then writing about it) would be miniscule. They’re competing against people that use AI to churn out ””’articles””’.
IIRC, there was a piece on the CrossCab top that got into the details of the mechanism and why even rebuilding hydraulic rams may not do the trick if it’s even possible without a full-blown customization shop.
That’s valid, and I do agree with the overall thought there. I think sometimes I look at how hard it is to keep something like this running in the age of AI bullshit and 20 second video level attention spans and try not to “demand” too much of the good people here who are trying to make it all happen.
That said, I totally agree that I would love to see more regular, detailed updates on build projects and at a more professional level than “goofing off with shitboxes.” I’ve read the Crosscab articles, but I’d be more interested in seeing some kind of “build” out of it than seeing Torch try to jump on the hood in a cop costume.
But the core of the site is still really good news analysis from Matt, super interesting design details from Adrian, the Bishop, and Torch (along with the batshit insanity), detailed engineering writeups from David, deep historical dives on trucks, RVs, motorcycles, etc from Mercedes, nice build/project writeups from SWG and David, etc.
Now that I list it all out (even missing some parts), the core of the website really is super solid. It’s just tough to keep harder hitting pieces like that coming out day after day, and sometimes you just need some articles to keep the engagement up.
I bet your a ton of fun at parties! jk, some of this is very valid, but its good to have “fun posts” in between the updates on projects
And as others have said it keeps site engagement up, in an era with shity AI pieces written (calling the old site out here!), its nice to have humans writing even silly articles!
The nice cars in people’s fleets are… Well… Boring. You can look at them, and some people are into that, but it’s not like you can truly share the experience of driving one of the nice cars. However, wrenching is something that makes a good narrative.
I have nice vehicles for daily driving. The only discussion I and my fellow gear heads have about those are: what fuel economy does it get, is it reliable, is it comfortable, how’s the space for the family? Mundane car-and-driver or consumer reports type stuff. But our projects? What broke? How’d you fix it? What’s next for it? Tales of misery and woe, triumph and glory, aspirations and sad financial truths.
I don’t know if it’s intentional. My issue with my beaters is that there are only so many hours in the day, so I get it. My poor, neglected personal cars suffer so I can get some sleep, and then I remember that I was totally going to check out that weird noise the day of the next event with one of them.
I totally agree – but does every car have to be a beater? Why not rescue a beater instead of taking a nice-ish car that really could go either way and turn it into a nice car vs. thoroughly thrashing it into beater territory? It kinda gets long in the tooth.
Nice cars cost more mone, and thrashing is fun.
Someone else commented that the wheel bearing failure, if it occurs at higher speeds, could very well be catastrophic. Now that’s putting one of our favorite authors at risk! And I’ve had wheel bearings replaced before; it’s not *that* expensive. I would encourage that to be fixed before they try driving another 2K highway miles.
Totally agree – but again, is it better content for it to fail catastrophically on the road vs. just changing it and making it safe?
I am pretty sure Schnebly Hill has a Jeep Trail Badge of Honor. Please, someone order one and put it on the Cross Cab!
Lubbock, huh? If you run into my ex, don’t say hi for me.
Do all your exes live in Texas? (sorry)
Considering I only have one, yes! And coincidentally I do in fact hang my hat in Tennessee.
Ha! I too have cut myself on a car door handle. The “chrome” was flaking off the handle and sliced all too willingly into my finger as I reached past it.
I do love it when wheeling solves a problem with a car. I swear every time I took my XJ’s off road they drove straighter after the fact.
A dirty Jeep is a happy Jeep
Italian tuneups exist for that exact reason.