-Take a Nissan Murano, lose the back doors and the top and then add 16 grand to the base.
Does that add up to more or less?
Let's drive the 2011 Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet and check the tech.
-Now, the number one feature of a CrossCab is the cab part more than the cross part.
Let's get into it.
Open this enormous door and by the way these doors are huge because they take out the rear doors on a CrossCab, extend the front door and apparently store like nutsy gold inside this thing.
These things weighed about a ton each.
If you let go one of these in a parking lot, you're gonna kill the other car.
It's just FYI.
Now, hit the button of the console and here we go.
Let's watch the show.
Notice how low this thing is by the way.
It's a very low profile, ragtop with a lot of framework in it.
We'll check out the trunk space in a minute
because you see the top is gonna get completely submerged in that rear space behind the rear seat.
Pretty fast in its actuation and like most of the modern convertibles today, everything buttons up with a hard top and a bunch of nice panels.
Okay, trunk space, about a B-- B minus on this car.
It's a big vehicle with a decent amount of space with the top down.
That's what's hiding behind here and this is my top.
Now, if I were to put this cover down, you can see if that top weren't there I gain some more altitude.
It's never a giant trunk but it's definitely usable
for a weekend for two.
The folks in the second row have to wear the same underwear the whole trip.
Oh, check this out.
When the top is up, you've got the rear backlight glass heated then you've got a [unk] here that's upholstered and then they try and make some more window with this little kind of old Vista Cruiser thing up here.
Oh, by the way, the Murano CrossCab just got the new CNET Car Tech 2011 Award for vehicle with a most ways to amputate your limbs.
These big old heavy doors is
number one.
You get a leg down there in the [unk] and one of these doors closes on it.
Forget it.
You're a pirate wearing around with a peg leg and a parrot and if you've got your hand up here on the header when you're closing the top, check this out.
Oh, what's the point of that?
The Murano CrossCabs only come one way, a high-end loaded up edition.
You've got leather and you got pretty much all the tech like hard-drive-based GPS nav, not an interface but still I love
but not one that I hate.
It looks a little outdated but 7-inch LCD, controller as well as touch pretty much anywhere you want to drive it or you can use voice as well.
Your audio options are also pretty much all there.
Satellite radio, AM/FM, no HD, a USB, AV aux jacks here in the console and you got automatic dual temperature control, a little silly when the tops down.
Let's talk about the transmission.
One choice only here which is interesting.
It's a CVT in a big vehicle that's all-wheel drive with a pretty big engine.
You don't always see CVT's.
They're kind of rare at that level.
This one is really simple.
PRNDL.
When is the last time you saw that?
No shift gait.
No S for Sports.
No paddles up here for shifting.
About all you've got is a switch over here to defeat overdrive.
This is refreshingly basic and kind of honest.
Whatever you're interesting to comes out of Bose speakers, a 7 plus a subwoofer.
-Hard drive music and iPad scrolling are all pretty fast and fluid.
That minimizes the amount of time your eyes will be on that and not
on the road looking where you're going.
-Now, a CrossCab has a little more power.
I bet 3.5 liter V6 in a standard Murano.
It's 265 on the horsepower.
248 foot-pounds of torque.
Gets this 4,400 pound car for 60 mph in a low 8 second range.
The downside is it's delivers hoggish MPG of 17 city and 22 highway.
Kiss that 22 goodbye.
You'll never see it.
This car weighs about 230 pounds more than a standard Murano
and, of course, it's a big thing to push through to the air.
So, there's just no win in that MPG battle.
There's something cool about the CrossCab being open and up high.
It's a combination you normally get.
Most SUVs aren't convertibles so that's the first thing you notice in this car.
The next you notice is how this CrossCab has a lot of power.
It comes on nicely for everyday driving.
It's not the kind of car you're gonna take for, you know, carving up a Canyon Road
but it definitely is good everyday accessible power.
The one thing I like to do though is kick it out of overdrive when I'm in the city otherwise this thing tries to go to overdrive in low speed driving.
When you need power, you tip in and it falls on its face.
So, that's the one thing I do.
Beyond that, it's a good combination of power and transmission programming.
But once you got on the road, that's where things get weird.
May be you can even see it here in the camera.
It's shaking.
The camera is mounted up on the cowl.
The cowl doesn't seem to have any relationship to the rest of the car.
We experience this in the Volkswagen
Eos just recently.
When you make a convertible and you cut out that rigid top unless you do some very good engineering underneath which isn't impossible, you end up with the-- the whole cowl of the car kind of doing this and this car has got a pretty bad case to that.
You can always tell, look in the rear view mirror while you're going over a road that has anything but glass smooth and the mirror is going like this.
That means the car is twisting like this.
It's not a nice feeling.
The ride in this car is kind of springy and bouncy.
It's kind of, you know, comfortably fun.
By the way, the CrossCab Bose audio system has more than enough guts to overcome all these road noise.
Yeah.
-Tequila drinking, oh, our minds will wander--
-Oh, gees.
Anyway, let's price our Murano CrossCab.
$47,200.
They only come one way.
Oh, load it up like I showed you.
There are only three options to talk about and they're all bizarre.
One is a seat belt extender in case you're gonna be driving
to your audition for the Biggest Loser.
The other one is a set of airbag anti-theft bolts.
Where do they think the buyers of this live?
And, the last one is really bizarre.
Sports horns.
I don't make this up.
