Murano issues
 

The lease on my parents Maxima ended around 2002 or so, after which they decided to buy the new Murano at that point in time. We loved the car, it was pretty much fully loaded, and was used as a daily driver for my mom, and served us well on many college visits and long trips.
Today the car has just under 120,000 miles on it. This is where it gets interesting. We have been noticing for the past 2 weeks or so that the car smells like oil. Two times it has essentially broken down on us at highway speeds, where the car goes into something I imagine is something like a limp mode, almost no control over the vehicle. Turns out the transfer case broke. Having a 3000GT I was aware of a Mitsu recall on the transfer case and how dangerous the consequences could be. I googled Murano forums, and believe it or not, there is a forum for Nissan Murano enthusiasts (who would have thought?). I found pages and pages of a thread on the weak/faulty transfer cases in the Murano. Some people were lucky enough to still be under warranty, we werent so lucky. We fixed the car like a week ago, and I told my parents to threaten NNA with a lawsuit, citing the tons of cases where people claimed problems with the transfer case (in some cases a persons single Murano had the transfer case replaced 3 times, at like 20k, 35k, and 60k!) I also warned my parents that the TC breaking could result in damage of the CVT transmission.
Last night, my parents drove into the city to see a play with the newly repaired transfer case, and of course, the transmission blows! Somehow they managed to drive the car to the nearest Nissan. The warranty covers the transmission to 120k. Our Murano made it to Nissan with 119,992 miles on it!
It was late and so I am waiting to hear today what is going to happen.
From what I have read, Nissan has made no effort to recall, or even fix the transfer case issue in subsequent models of the Murano.
Dont mean to vent, just sharing and offering a heads up to potential Murano owners.

What years have been affected by this issue? I own a used 2006 Murano that's in great shape. It hasn't had any issues yet, but it's still got under 20k miles on it.

I did my fair share of research on the Murano before I bought mine (for the girlfriend) and it's one of the highest ranking SUVs in terms of reliability, safety, value, etc., so this news concerns me.

Hope everything works out with their Murano.

Sees more prominent in the earlier models, but somebody noted in here that Nissan has not addressed the issue in the newer models. We love our Murano, so its been disappointing reading this and experiencing it firsthand. Check out the thread in this link (if it doesnt work, go to nissanmurano.org and search transfer case poll, thread is called "transfer case poll".

NISSAN MURANO . ORG - Transfer case poll

120,000 miles on the car and it needs a new TC, that's pretty good.

Transfer case, some axle, and transmission. Some people got stuck with bills in the thousands of dollars. Some people had to bring their several MONTH old Muranos in to replace the transfer case. These issues occuring at highway speeds are extremely dangerous. I do not blame you or any dealer, but please read over the thread from NissanMurano.org if you ask me and many many other owners, it is not "good"

Though if you are implying that we were lucky to make it all the way to 120,000 miles until this happened, then you are correct, that is pretty good considering it seemed to happen to other owners much earlier than that!

Is it the same TC as in the Pathfinder?! My wife has an '04 one and, so far, so good. But, then again, it only has 49k+ on it. Scary stuff.

This is what I was implying too :tiphat:

I personally dont know, may be worth checking out though, hopefully to ease your conscience.
There are some signs, smell of oil, or oil leaks. Be aware that you wont necessarily see a puddle of oil on your driveway, but you can inspect the case itself from under the car. There is a picture of what a leaky transfer case looks like in the link from my original post.

Just to update:
From what I understand Nissan refused to fix the transmission under warranty because we rarely brought the car in for maintenance? We take very good care of our cars, and prefer to do our own maintenance when its something simple. Trying to resolve the issue.