The Murano was Nissan’s first crossover built specifically to appeal to the North American market. It’s been a strong seller for much of its history, with Nissan routinely pumping out over 50,000 a year to customers looking for a comfortable mid-sized crossover. However, the fourth generation is apparently failing to connect, and prices are dropping in turn.
Murano numbers have been sliding for years, but they’re getting more awkward right now. As per CarEdge figures, there is 234 market days of supply currently sitting at Nissan’s US dealerships. A massive 20,602 Muranos are currently in stock and on sale, with only 3,957 sold in the last 45 days.
Some might speculate the Murano isn’t as appealing versus its current strong rivals in the midsized segment, others will argue that sales have stalled due to a lack of a convertible version. For dealers, though, the only real move at this point is to discount, and discount hard. We’re talking five-figure sums here.
The fourth-generation Nissan Murano lineup begins with the SV, available in front-wheel-drive or optional all-wheel-drive. Entering production late last year, it abandoned the long-running V6 and the infamous CVT, replacing them with a 2.0-liter turbo inline-four and a traditional 9-speed automatic transmission. It’s good for 241 horsepower, which is plenty enough to propel it up to highway speeds in a reasonable amount of time. Front-wheel drive is standard on the SV, but you can upgrade to AWD if so desired.
If you’re looking at the base model, MSRP starts at $41,860. However, you needn’t pay such a lofty price at this current moment. After all, Newton Nissan of Gallatin, Tennessee, has a 2025 model for just $30,625, a discount of $12,000 compared to sticker. It also has a bunch more for under $33,000. You can find similar deals in Florida, too, while Ziegler Nissan in Illinois has an AWD model for just $33,997.
If you want, though, you could consider the SL. It’s a boring letter combination, but the higher trim level does come with AWD as standard, as well as luxury touches like heated mirrors, a panoramic sunroof, and a 360-degree parking camera—all stuff that makes it feel like a more modern, complete vehicle.
The SL does also come with a higher sticker price, but you’re not Hank Hill, so you’re not even considering paying sticker price. If you’re down in Wisconsin, Van Horn Nissan of Sheboygan has a 2025 model for just $40,071, a discount of $8,824 below MSRP. As a bonus, you get to tell all your friends you’re going to Sheboygan, which is a very fun name to say. In Tennessee, those larrakins at Newton Nissan of Gallatin will do you even better, charging just $37,320 for a white example, while John Roberts Nissan in Manchester has a pretty similar deal, too.
Perhaps you desire the greater sophistication of the Platinum trim. You get standard AWD, rad 21″ wheels, as well as massaging front seats that are heated and ventilated, plus a motion-activated liftgate, among other upgrades.
Once again, the cheapest examples are at Nissan of Gallatin in Tennessee. The dealership has a Platinum in stock for $39,845, a discount of $12,000 compared to the sticker price of $51,845. In Missouri, you can get almost $10,000 off at AutoCenters Nissan, with a similar deal on offer from Old Orchard Nissan in Illinois.
It’s almost a shame to see things go this way. Nissan went hard on the Murano’s redesign, bringing it thoroughly up to date in both aesthetic and equipment. And yet, the nameplate is continuing its slide into irrelevance. In 2024, the final year of the third-generation model saw sales slide beneath 20,000 for the first time since the crossover went on sale partway through 2002. Things are doing better this year, with Nissan shifting 18,228 units of the new model up to the end of Q2. Still, the glut of product on dealer lots tells us it’s a long way from the glory days when Nissan was selling over 80,000 a year. It’s not exactly the strong start Nissan would have hoped for when dropping the new model.
The model does have its drawbacks, too, which might be dimming enthusiasm. Sticker prices start higher than competitors like the Hyundai Santa Fe and Chevrolet Blazer, while few are impressed by an SUV recording 21 mpg in the city and 27 mpg on the highway.
Nissan has been working hard to refresh its lineup, and its fleet is no longer looking out of date and tired compared to the competition. Models like the new Murano and Kicks look sharp and should be drawing eyes, but Nissan will have to implement an excellent ground game if it’s going to shift its narrative and get customers surging back into dealerships again. In the meantime, pricing will reflect its desperation.
Image credits: Nissan, Cars.com via screenshot
Whacking what off now?
I think dealers spend more time doing that than anything else.
They’re trying to appeal to the street takeover crowd.
come again?
My local Nissan dealer claims they’ll beat anybody.
Jack, pulling out his Wiz hat: “They’re bringing me back. Yeah. I’m the Wiz again.”
Elaine: “What?”
Jack, dancing around: “I’m the Wiz! I’m the Wiz!”
Elaine: “Well what, what about your fact-checking job?”
Jack, dancing around: “Oh… here’s a fact. Uh, I’m… the Wiz! I’m the Wiz
and noooobody beats me!”
$30-33k is a pretty good deal for one of these.
I think Nissan saw that sales of the mid-size segment were going pretty well overall and with the car-like Murano before it got old, which is why this gen of Murano exists. However, things have changed, since now most mid-sizers sell off either their off-roady aesthetics or is an EV, while most of the carlike ICE ones have died off (the Venza/Crown Cross caters to the Toyota-loyal Avalon crowd). A pretty terrible misread of the market, possibly made worse by development delays.
My next door neighbor has been in a Rogue since we moved in 2 yrs ago. Last week she comes home in a brand new Murano. My wife finally gave her the “hey nice new car” and the response was “yeah, my son works in the finance dept at Napoli Nissan. He got me into this for $20 less a month than I was paying on the Rogue”.
Nissan, like Mitsubishi, has become the brand that people have to drive because they can’t afford or qualify for anything else. They’re not buying them cause they want them but because they NEED a vehicle and it’s their only choice. Nissan’s only viable product right now is the Frontier.
And, frustratingly, the Frontier is SO GOOD at its price point. Why is the rest such garbage?
They should rename the Rogue to the Burano, then the Kicks can be the Torcello.
Italicize all the things!
I’ll bitale at 12000 total, not 12000 off.
As a premium-ish 2-row midsize SUV, it seems to me the closest competitor to the Murano is a Lexus RX. The RX may be 5ish grand more than a mid-level Murano, but given the Lexus’ stronger resale I imagine the TCO on the two would be pretty similar.
So you have to ask…who is this imaginary empty nester who’s driving past the Lexus dealership to buy a fancy Nissan?
There isn’t even a hybrid available! In 2025! Just Nissan’s abysmal VC turbo 4….because nothing says fancy like the 4 cylinder from a goddamn Altima!
My takeaway is that Nissan has been asking about $12,000 too much for every Murano. The Rogue is close enough in size to make the Murano expendable, and it’s a major own-goal of Nissan to waste money on a new generation. Even Ghosn era Nissan had the good sense to recognize the Maxima was just a slightly bigger and very overpriced Altima.
It’s just such a puzzling decision. While I get that corporations in 2025 are only focused on their next earnings call and that CHARGE MOAR, GO PREMIUM was free money for the last couple of years it was never going to be sustainable. The average Joe may be easy to talk into a dumb financial decision but a $50,000 “premium” Nissan was a bridge too far.
Kind of reminds me of yesterday’s “What bad decisions did AMC make?” article, but we’re watching it live.
It’s a lackluster redundant product no one asked for
I now feel like it’s okay to walk into a Nissan dealer and ask them how much they’ll willing to whack off to make this deal happen.
You’ll probably get an answer you weren’t expecting.
$25k and I’d seriously consider signing on the dotted line. $30k won’t even get me into the showroom.
The sales increase this year is significant, it’s doubled from the same point last year. But I suspect a lot of Murano sales in the last few years were to rental fleets, and they’re trying to shy away from that, producing more of them, making a double whammy dumping them on dealers.
Someone looking at a Rogue might be flipped in to one, but they’ve had trouble moving those too. For the money I think anyone in a Nissan showroom would just go for a Pathfinder, which has more of the look buyers have been trending toward. Only a few players remain that aren’t butched up in design. Edge is gone, GM flip-flopped on keeping the Blazer around…Murano and Cross Sport seem to exist more as something dealers can report as sold at the end of the month, flip as service loaners, then sell as CPO a few thousand miles down the road.
Makes sense, they’re selling close to what they probably should’ve been listed for in the first place. $42K starting MSRP is an incredibly tough sell for a five-seater crossover that isn’t luxurious or high performance. This also has the added baggage of being a Nissan, which has essentially nonexistent or quite possibly negative brand equity at this point. Almost every other similarly spec’d crossover from a mainstream (non-luxury) automaker starts around $35K, and their three row crossovers start at $40-42K. Who exactly is this for?
Also, the sales have never been good. If they truly peaked at 50,000 units a year that’s absolutely terrible for a midsize crossover from a large/mainstream automaker. They should just end this thing and put their effort into making the Pathfinder as much as much of a segment leader as possible.
50k would be okay for most of these that exist in the shadow of larger 3-row crossovers. Murano crested 80k in 2016 & 2018, 2017 was just under it at 76k. That’s been on the higher side, usually just shy of the Edge which was almost always over 100k. Most others haven’t been: Passport has only broken 50k once (will almost surely do it again this year with the new model and more investment). Blazer hit 94k its second year but has fallen every year since and GM almost walked away from it. Cross Sport only broke 40k one year. Santa Fe might have gotten cross shopped but was smaller and cheaper serving as a core model, so all things weren’t really equal there; similar if you throw Outback in the mix.
Nissan didn’t seem committed to bringing this out to begin with, the old one came out 10 years ago which is long even for Nissan’s too-long product cycles of late. My theory is they were too far along in development that the amount they invested was too much to make scrapping the project a better choice over making it at whatever cost (or discount).
I checked my local market Valley high Nissan, a Victorville, still wants 42004th a base model and almost 50000 for the S.L model. Cerrotos Nissan will give you a discounted price in exchange for more of your info. So read these articles with a grain of salt.
Wait they dropped the JATCO?! Someone here needs to change their username to 9-speed Automatic Transmission
They finally learned their lesson on CVT but then just created new issues with the VC motor. Sounds like dealer mechanics hate them.
It’s the ZF 9-speed that had a rough launch in the ~2014 Jeep Cherokee, known for its slow and rough shifts when crossing above 5th or below 6th; as in, exactly what you’d need to make when downshifting to make a gap on the freeway.
No CVT is a Good thing, certainly helps if I were shopping a middle weight Crossover. The discounted pricing on old inventory should drive the sales required to see if the changes are good enough to get some positive press before the entire Nissan Line-up is killed off.
It’s definitely the lack of a convertible. The public has spoken. Bring it back, cowards!
I first read this as:
Some Dealers Are Whacking Off $12,000 Muranos
The dangers of pre-coffee Autopian.
Nissan has become so irrelevant to me that I didn’t realize this had ditched the CVT.
Now I know one more thing about a vehicle I will never purchase.
As a former Nissan enthusiast, I am entirely un-thrilled with just about everything the company has done in the past 20+ years. They just keep doubling down on bad product decisions. I’d say IMHO, but the market as a whole seems to agree.
When I started driving in 2002 I’d see a Nissan and think “That looks pretty nice.”
In 2025 if I see that mark of the beast on a car I grip the steering wheel tighter and instinctively move my foot close to the brake pedal.
If you do go to Sheboygan, make sure you pick up some pasties for lunch!
It seems that the rest of American has caught on to what we’ve all known for years- the Renault takeover was a complete disaster, and Nissan is a shadow of it’s former self.
The Murano was always a competitor to the Ford Edge, or the Venza, or the above mentioned Blazer – a slightly bigger and more premium crossover offering that’s less family oriented and more “empty nester” oriented. As in: for people who have a little extra money to spend.
I’d wager a lot of those people aren’t necessarily shopping Nissans anymore.
It doesn’t sounds like the Murano does much to stand out from the crowd, and Nissan has lost its reputation for reliability, so a $42k starting price isn’t particularly tempting.
The people who made it a success are also moving from “empty nest” to just plain elderly. They haven’t put 50,000 miles on their mid-2010s models yet and see no reason to replace a paid-off car that still looks and feels new, and if they did Shirley wants something smaller since Dick isn’t driving anymore.
My parents are empty-nesters, and they have opted for fun, 2-seater convertibles, not boring-ass SUVs.
It’s like they couldn’t wait for my brother and I to leave so they could get all the cool cars. An S2000, another S2000, then a string of Mini convertibles.
Shirley you can’t be serious.
And don’t call me Shirley
I agree with that assessment of the target audience for these, as I have shopped the competitors.
Then I realized I could get a barely used GV70 (much nicer) for the same price, which throws off my whole shopping process.
The process has never thrown me off-course enough to end up at a Nissan dealer, though.
The CPO Genesis and Cadillacs are a great value, particularly the sedans. A lot with very low miles, too. Getting into a real luxury car instead of a kinda-nice Nissan seems like a not brainer.
The sedans are better value, but the interior on the GV70 is fantastic.
They do paint it a lovely green. It would be nice if that color was available on a car anyone wanted to buy.
I do think a case could be made if you could get this as some sort of hybrid, but an all gas middle-of-the-road family car ain’t it.
I just think the damage has been done when it comes to Nissan. They developed a reputation under Ghosn, at least in the US, of building absolute junk and now nobody wants to touch them with a 10-foot pole. He should never be forgiven for what he turned that company into.
None of these are going to save Nissan. They need to bring back the Maxima, Sentra and the Xterra.
I’d consider a new Xterra and/or Silvia/IDX (if they don’t turn it into a >3000 lb. FWD disappointment). Maxima or Sentra… nah I’m good.
That fuel economy is abysmal. Where’s the hybrid or the PHEV with LeafTech ™.
Every 2.0T that has replaced a V6 seems to be a disappointment.
Not to mention the fact that they keep blowing up.