Back in December, I took The Autopian’s 2014 Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet on a 4,050-mile adventure across America, where it tackled snow in Flagstaff, rock crawling in Sedona, more snow in Albuquerque, and a 2,000-mile road rally across Texas. The CrossCabriolet never skipped a beat and dutifully served me on the whole trip. But the same couldn’t be said for its wheel bearings and front axles. As of about last month, the wheel bearings and axles got so bad that I was actually terrified to drive the CrossCabriolet anywhere for fear that the wheels were going to fall off. Check out the carnage of what was going on under the hood.
Our 2014 Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet wasn’t perfect when we snatched it up from a dealership in Texas. It had a tick over 100,000 miles, a shrinking convertible top, weird interior wear, and a torn boot on the right front constant-velocity (CV) axle. Remember that last one for later.
Anyway, we wasted no time modding the CrossCabriolet, for both better and worse (which made it better, for Autopian things). Our friends and partners at XPEL applied paint protection film on exactly half of the car. Then, we equipped the CrossCabriolet with a lift kit and chunky Vredestein Pinza A/T tires from our friends over at Vredestein. The finishing touch was a set of Ford Mustang Tri-Bar wheels that we promptly rattle-canned gold.
Then, we sort of started beating the ever-loving crap out of it. Jason tried and failed to do cop slides across its hood, we tossed numerous shopping carts at it, drove it into parking garage structures, and some folks even tried just physically scraping the paint. The leaders of the Autopian then gave the CrossCab an easier time with a trip to Pebble Beach.
But it was the time that our photojournalist, Griffin, and I had with the CrossCabriolet that would put it to the ultimate test. I received the weirdo crossover in Los Angeles with a touch over 102,000 miles on the odometer and, after a little bit of a learning curve, I was on the road, rocketing toward Flagstaff, Arizona. That first leg was roughly 500 miles long, and during the drive, I started hearing the telltale sign of a failing wheel bearing. Things would only get worse over time.
It Failed Over Thousands Of Miles
If you ever hear a weird rotational sort of whirring sound coming from your wheels, there’s an easy way to test if it’s a bad wheel bearing. When safe to do so, swerve the car left and right. It doesn’t have to be violent, just enough to load and unload the wheels. If the noise gets louder in one direction and quiets down in the opposite direction, there’s probably a bad wheel bearing in the louder wheel. If, for example, the noise gets louder when you swerve right, which loads the left-side wheels, then you’re looking at a left wheel bearing. Next, you’ll have to identify which bearing. That should be easy in many models, but if your car is super small, like a Smart, it might be hard to tell from sound alone.
Another method would be to get the car into the air and try to wiggle the wheel. If the wheel rocks, the bearing could be the culprit. However, bearings can fail while giving little play. A trick my mechanic taught me is to hold the suspension spring with one hand while I spin the wheel with the other hand. If a rough vibration gets transferred to the spring, you probably have a bad bearing. This video below is really handy for wheel bearing diagnosis:
Anyway, based on sound alone, I knew the right front bearing wasn’t long for this world. I wasn’t entirely surprised, either. The CrossCabriolet had over 100,000 miles and now had to lug around some seriously huge tires on a high-speed, long-distance road trip. It was never designed for this.
While in Flagstaff, I brought up the wheel bearing issue with the team. Since the failure was so early and the bearing was so quiet, the team decided that we should soldier on. So, we did. We took the CrossCabriolet rock crawling in Sedona, where it impressed everyone. That’s where I also got to test the XPEL by bashing the CrossCabriolet into bushes and trees. Then we challenged snow on the way down to Texas.
But it was just outside of Lubbock, Texas, where the CrossCabriolet developed a new issue. We were only about a third into the trip when, seemingly out of nowhere, the CrossCabriolet started shaking up front. This happened only under acceleration or constant throttle, and disappeared entirely when I let off the throttle. The bearing was also much louder by this point.
I Fell In Love
Once again, the Autopian’s leadership decided to monitor the situation and keep driving. Both the bearing noise and the vibration got worse with every hour. It got to the point where the cowl up front would shake from the vibrations. I’d also joke about the CrossCab having a built-in Hitachi Magic Wand.
Yet, the vehicle never faltered. It drove over 2,000 miles around Texas and then more than 1,000 miles to Illinois without failing me. I just had to live with the front end beginning to twerk while accelerating to highway speed.
Once I got the CrossCab to Illinois, I kept driving it. I chased plow trucks in the snow, I took it to the airport and the hospital. The CrossCab was even there for Christmas dinner. The CrossCab got to watch me fly a Cessna 172.
In a weird way, I felt like we were one with each other. We had been through an incredible trip, and it seemed like we were in perfect sync. I used its roof every single time I drove it, and the more I used the roof, the better it worked. It got to the point where the roof stopped getting stuck and would complete whole up and down cycles entirely normally. Like a really good pet, it seemed like we were friends.
The CrossCab Started Scaring Me
Then, my four-wheeled friend’s condition started falling fast. One day, I was driving home from a flight lesson when the front end twerk kicked into high gear. The whole front end wobbled back and forth so badly that I could barely read the text in the LCD under the speedometer, and the mirrors shook like I had rigged the crossover with a bunch of subwoofers.
Perhaps scarier than that was turning left, as the vehicle seemed to “skip” while making quiet metallic banging sounds. That was it. Nearly 5,000 miles after I started hearing the bearing sound, I shut it down. I didn’t touch the CrossCab again for a month.
Getting The CrossCab Roadworthy Again
I used to drive lots of cars with bad wheel bearings. There was a time when I was a much poorer young adult and just couldn’t afford to fix bearings without saving for months. I drove two cars 10,000 miles on bad bearings two separate times. I’ve also purchased cars that had bad bearings, like my 1997 Honda Life T-Type. When I bought the Honda, I concluded that it had the worst bearings I had ever experienced. The car had extremely loud front bearings and a bizarre vibration that happened only under acceleration.
Replacing the wheel bearings in the Honda Life fixed both the vibration and the noise. As veteran wrencher Stephen Walter Gossin told me, sometimes, the bearings in front-wheel drive vehicles fail in a way that causes terrible vibration. We expected the same out of the CrossCab, which is AWD but with a front bias. So, I purchased two front wheel bearings, called up my mechanic, Jack from JET Mobile Auto Service, and scheduled a visit.
Something that Jack loves is that I always bring him weird vehicles like my Smart and my Honda Life. The CrossCab was no different. He didn’t even realize it was a convertible until I told him the top goes down. Jack thought it was a landau top! He also adored the Mustang wheels, admired the geometry of the lift kit, and was pleased by the effectiveness of the XPEL film.
Jack also adored the whole Texas-ness of the rig, because every bolt slipped right off without any real fight. It’s funny, he makes a positive comment every time I bring him a car that hasn’t spent its entire life in the Midwest. That’s how much the rust sucks out here.
Anyway, the right front bearing had only a little play, certainly not enough to illustrate how bad it really was. But when I put my hand on the coil spring and spun the wheel? Oh, I could hear and feel the carnage.
The Mustang wheel came off with ease, and then we got a better look at everything. Stephen Walter Gossin told me that the bearing was only a few bolts away after taking off the wheel, and he was right. All Jack had to do was move the brake caliper out of the way and then zip off the handful of bolts that held the hub on. That was it. My mind was blown. At first, I couldn’t comprehend what SWG said because I’m so used to German cars and Japanese cars with pressed bearings. If I knew it was going to be that easy, I would have done the bearings myself!
Sure enough, when I felt the hub in my hand, I found a really rough spot in the rotation that could have easily been the source of the front-end twerking. Unfortunately, there was one more problem that really justified Jack coming over. Remember that torn CV axle boot? Well, the axle had released so much grease that it was dry and had some play in it.
This play alone could have also been the source of the twerking. So, I authorized him to replace the CV axle. He was already here, and the car was unbuttoned, so there was no point in being lazy here.
Having Jack here also helped out immensely with the left side. I bought a left front wheel bearing because I don’t like replacing only single bearings, but I thought the left side was probably fine. Jack found out that the bearing was just a tad crunchy, and thus was likely in the beginning stages of failure.
But then there was the axle on the left side. When we inspected the car in Los Angeles, the left front CV axle looked fine. However, nearly 5,000 miles of lifted driving, off-roading, and other shenanigans clearly worked their way into the axle.
This time, the joints still had grease, but the axle was dirty, corroded, and definitely not wanting to stick around for very long. So, I had that replaced, too.
While Jack was under the car, we also discovered that pretty much every bushing down there was shot. David Tracy told me that he noticed that the bushings were looking rough when he inspected the car in California. Well, our abuses really made things worse.
Ultimately, we decided to skip the bushings, something that SWG agreed is a job that could be taken care of down the road.
A few hours later, the CrossCab was back on the road and driving almost as well as it did when it left California. There’s no more vibration, no more bearing noise, and thank heavens, no twerking. Sometimes there’s a vibration while accelerating through exactly 20 mph, but so far as I can tell, that could be because of the trashed bushings and other worn front-end components that remain, plus the chunky tires. I don’t remember this vibration being there in California, but it’s been thousands of miles of twerking and beating up the front end.
We’re So Back!
The most important thing is that the CrossCab is safe to drive again. Things got so bad with the CrossCab that I almost fell entirely out of love with it. But like a bad romance movie, I came crawling back. The best part was the price. The whole job, including two bearings, two axles, CVT fluid, and labor, was exactly $754. I bet there’s no way the Nissan dealer could have ever come close to beating that price.
Now, the CrossCabriolet is ready for more adventures. This weekend, it will participate in OppoCross 2026 in Michigan. Maybe, if I still have the car this spring, I’ll take it on a Gambler 500, too!
I don’t really know what’s coming next for the CrossCabriolet, but I’m still just blown away with it. I’m shocked by how much I love it, I’m impressed with how it handles situations it wasn’t designed for, and I can’t get enough of driving it with the top down. Dare I say? The world needs more lifted CrossCabriolets.
Top graphic images: Mercedes Streeter
That kind of wrenching experience is why I need to fly out west to buy my next vehicle.
My son’s Subaru was for sale and he was away the weekend someone inquired about it. We had the wheel bearing on the bench. I decided it would be a much better test drive if I fixed it first. Lots of swearing and a shearing off of a 3/4’’ drive socket head, I got it off. Even when fully unbolted, I had to hit it repeatedly with an 8lb sledgehammer enough to deform the metal before the rust let go and it popped apart. If rust builds character, I’ve got enough to share.
CARS ACTUALLY SURVIVE THE OPPOCROSS?!
I thought this was going to be a tale of CV joint failure.
Those can be very exciting. Once I had the drivers side CV bearing seize up on my VW Dasher at 50 miles an hour. By the time I was stopped the tire had been shredded, with the tread, the steel belt, and the tire cords separated into 3 distinct components. The steel wheel was sort of folded with two studs broken. The strut was torn in half, and the ball joint at the bottom was pulled apart with only the steering rack and the brake line keeping the hub from wandering off on a scenic excursion of its own.
Oh, and flinging me through the oncoming traffic was a nice touch. Fortunately it was the middle of the night and there wasn’t much of it.
The shop that fixed it up didn’t see any thing that looked like an ongoing deterioration and thought it was just one of those material defects that just shows up,
There’s just something about the way this car looks, it’s positively endearing. The lift kit, the gold tires, top-down. I’d never have planned this but it’s one unique ride that looks like it’d be fun to drive every chance you get. Replace those bushings!
This beautifully written article makes me glad I’m too old to be driving beaters coast-to-Midwest.
More proof that CVT could transfer enough torque to do some real damage!
If there was ever a vehicle that should have vibrating seats for the ladies, it would be this one.
Been there done that… On a Renault Estafette ( yes the Panier à Salade kind you see in old French movies, though the one I was driving that day was white [we also had a light blue one with a raised roof also at that time… but this one was fine on the trip home] ).
Every time I turned the wheel the noise was unmissable (despite the Estafette engine noise). Since we were coming back from a climbing camp I had 6 people with me and a nice pile of bags behind them… Once I managed to convince the rest of the convoy that I had a big problem it took several hours and about 300kms), the Estafette was unloaded of all it’s passengers and most of it’s bags or the last few hundred kms back to home. Which were done at slow speed. We arrived about 2 hours after the rest… the following day the Estafette was on struts and the whole front left wheel/axle was down to replace the faulty bearing…. 3 weeks later (because we had that time before the next use of it) it was back to sounding normal…
It was more than 30 years ago… but I still remember that grinding noise then I was turning the wheel… and each time wondering if it was not going to end in a catastrophic failure that led me and my pasengers out o the road. ( thankfully, at a loaded Estafette speed going out of the road would have probably been relatively safe for the passengers… for the driver (meaning me) it was more concerning as there was about 30cm between me and the front end of the thing, and since I was sitting atope the engine, it was not going to protect me in case I hit things.)
Edit : Typos
The way wheel bearings come out of southern / western cars vs northern cars is hugely different.
Those appear to be the same style bearings used on Subarus. I watched a video of some guy changing them out in AZ and the things pretty much fell out when he unbolted them. When I tried it I eventually had to take the steering knuckle out and press the bearing out.
They sell tools that bolt to the hub and have a length of protruding square steel tubing that you strike with a sledgehammer to dislodge the bearing, but even that can take a lot of time and effort to budge them.
Yep, here in PA I just pay a shop to do wheel bearings. Hell of an easier job on a lift than jack stands as well.
At this point, one way or another, I’m getting them out.
– me, with my head in the wheel well and an angle grinder 5 inches from my face, getting that broken caliper bolt out one way or another.
Did that with a set of sway bar end links on my Acura a couple summers ago. Wheel of Death to the rescue.
I still do my own brakes. I’ll take a chance on shocks and end links depending on vehicle (though I got burned a few times). Exhaust work ONLY if at a factory flange with an OEM replacement. Most of the rest of undercarriage/suspension work is NOT worth the hassle to me. I don’t have a lift, so I’m working off ramps or jackstands. I’m also not 20 anymore.
Was set to do the timing belt on my Acura a few summers ago. My biggest impact gun failed to loosen the harmonic balancer bolt. I called No Joy and sent to the shop.
That was me with sway bar links.
Aftermarket links have flats on the backside for a wrench. The world has the technology. Why can’t OEMs do this?
One of life’s great mysteries. I bet the dealer techs b*tch about it as well.
I have felt this pain multiple times and in the end, the factory ones get cut off. I hate New England rust.
Ohh yes, been there. I’ll get this done even if it kills me!!
They were so bad on my 03 Civic I just both knuckles. As a bonus they came built with new bearings, hubs and ball joints! This was a after two weekends of fighting all that crap apart on the old ones. Bonus I got about $25 in scrap recycling for them.
I don’t know what the future holds for pricing, but I have definitely enjoyed the affordability of aftermarket assemblies like ‘easy struts’ and control arms with bushings installed.
SAME
Honestly, the fact that easy struts mean I don’t have to deal with a spring compressor means I will probably pay any amount of money for them. 😉
A Nissan Murano going full-speed on the freeway with bad wheel bearings and a toasted CV joint is how they’re meant to be driven, right? 😉
Big Murano Energy!!!
It’s funny that when you guys ignore a problem it’s called monitoring the situation. When I ignore a problem it’s called procrastinating. I’m happy to see the Nissan get some well deserved TLC.
Perspective. David’s an engineer and SWG is a wrenching God.
I agree. I was making fun of myself.
So, when the top does fail, make it into a Ute, right? A swazall, couple of cold ones, result.
Mercedes you forgot to mention when you test the bearings by holding the suspension rings and spinning the wheel never do this while driving.
Mercedes: “I need 2 CV axles”
“For a Citroen 2CV?”
Mercedes: “No, Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet”
“Really? That’s the 2nd weird car I’ve had this week! The Autopians are at it again…rascals!”
And Who’s on First, What’s on Second, and I Don’t Know is on Third.
There are extended travel VC axles for many lifted applications. I was running a pair from NAPA and one inner CV joint totally burned up and the other side just popped without warning while driving to the ocean with my children.
Somehow I doubt there’s much of an after-market for Nissan Murano off-roading parts.
Mercedes, you are a wild woman driving cars with bad wheel bearings!
I’m older now and a lot more safety conscious, especially since I’m still raising and hauling kids. A non-mechanical friend drove his Saab with a bad wheel bearing until the wheel came off at highway speed. He got lucky and didn’t get hurt but it sure scared him.
Having an old junky fleet I’m constantly on alert. I’ll park something as soon as it starts making noises until I fix it.
Perfect timing for this article — I saw a CrossCab in traffic today and it made me wonder how the Autopian CrossCab and its wheel bearing was doing!
Wow, that’s a deal on all that work! As a note on CV joints from an old Subaru owner from back when they used to eat them: if you catch a torn boot early, you can get replacement boot kits that are a split boot (or buy an intact boot and cut it so you can slip it onto the axle without removing anything), add some fresh grease into the original boot, and throw the new boot over the old one, trying to clock the split 180* from the tear. Zip tie between the pleats with the better black zip ties (they’re more tolerant to outdoor conditions), and you should be good for quite a while. (My other tip for lazy cheapskate permanent/semi-permanent repairs is to use stainless steel hose clamps to secure rattling heat shields.) In the case of this thing, I imagine the lift is exacerbating the situation by increasing the angle of the axles, so it might not be a bad idea to preemptively put redundant boots over them.
Those rattling heat shields!
Use Oetiker clamps so it’s a fancy bodge. And those things don’t loosen up.
If you get quality hose clamps, they also don’t loosen up and several can easily be linked together for large things like mufflers, but that’s a good point to mention where it’s getting tougher to find good quality clamps. The common cheap junk you find now won’t take much torque before stripping out.
I don’t think I have a car right now with a hose clamp daisychain-secured heat shield.
It has been such a standard ‘upgrade’ for me for so long that I’m really surprised by that.
Thank you for reminding me to figure out if I had a wheel bearing issue on the Outback this weekend. The thing absolutely howls over 60mph, but it’s driven so infrequently I forgot until I’m stuck listening to it for 5 hours.
I think this car will be the most reliable vehicle on Mercedes lineup soon. What about The Autopian sells this to your wife? It will survive the awful potholes situation in the Chicago area.
I suspect the lift did the CV joints no favors. Once the wheel bearings are out, they are almost stupid not to change as 90% of the labor is already done. Glad it’s still living it’s best life.
This thing will never die. We’ll still be reading about it in 2068, when Hardibro’s grandkids will be writing about it.
They will be driving a roofless frog pond?
Lord willin’
I still can’t over how incredibly good this weird duck-looking car looks with the big-ass tires. I’m glad a fairly simple repair can make it keep going.
When is the XPel side to side comparison coming?
The chunky tires and tri-spokes pull their weight.
We’re still getting in adventures with it, but I suppose we should take off one side just to see how bad it ended up being.