Top 5 Problems Nissan Murano SUV 1st Generation 2003-07

Hey, friends, it's Len here from 1A Auto. So, today in the studio, we have a 1st Generation Nissan Murano. I wanted to go over some of the top problems that we've come to find, so let's get started. All right. Now, for our first problem, we're gonna talk about a seat adjuster assembly. That's gonna be located right underneath your seat. The reason why it's gonna be so important is, of course, well, maybe you're tall, maybe you're short, you're gonna wanna adjust the seat. There's gonna be some tracks under here. What's common on these, though, is that where it's supposed to meet into the tracks, it separates. So, of course, once this happens, the seat could potentially rock around and this is gonna make a very unsafe predicament especially while driving. So symptoms for this, of course, would be the moving around of the seat like what I just showed you. Other than that, you might hear some creaking, grinding, or just, overall, binding in general. Now if we're gonna talk about fixes for this, obviously, you're gonna wanna take your seat out of your car. You wanna be very careful though because there is gonna be an airbag sensor that's located on this. So, of course, if you were to mess around with that while the battery is connected, well, you might have a bigger issue at hand.

With that said, make sure that you disconnect your battery. Let it sit for approximately 15 minutes or even half an hour. That way there, everything can discharge before you go ahead and disconnect the seat. After that, you're gonna wanna go ahead and pull the seat right out of this so we can take a look at the assembly that's underneath. Now once you have the seat out on the floor, you're gonna wanna take a look at the undercarriage of it. Essentially, what we wanna look at is the assembly where the sliders are gonna be. Look at those channels. See if it looks like they're damaged or even pulled apart in any way. If you find damage, you're more than likely just gonna have to go ahead and replace the entire assembly. The reason why you wanna do that is, of course, well, maybe you can go ahead and fix this temporarily but with it being a seat and a major safety issue, I wouldn't want something fixed temporarily and just never know if it's gonna work or not. I would just go ahead and replace it with the updated tracks.

Now, for our second problem, we're gonna talk about throttle body issues. Now your throttle body is gonna be located on your air intake system and it's right here. Now it's gonna be a very common issue on Nissan Murano throttle bodies to get built up with carbon or debris deposits. Just like this one. That's, of course, something that you're gonna wanna make sure that you deal with because any of these deposits could potentially restrict airflow and, of course, prevent this butterfly from moving. Something that you might happen to notice if for some reason you wanted to take this off to actually do the cleaning was if you were to look at the backside, you might happen to see that it has a lot more carbon buildup on the inside there. And, of course, this is gonna be a much bigger issue. Now with this carbon build-up and the fact that you wanna go ahead and try to clean it out, this is where the problem is gonna lie. Maybe you go and you get yourself a nice collection of receptacle and hand and eye protection and everything that you need. You get yourself a nice throttle body cleaner spray and a nice little soft bristle toothbrush and you go ahead and get to cleaning. Well, that's great. Maybe you get off the majority of all that carbon that's on there and it looks amazing. You go ahead and you reinstall it back into the car and you go ahead and start it up. You wanna take it for a road test. Of course, you do. Well, as soon as you start up the car, you happen to notice that the RPMs go [vocalization] just bouncing all over the place or even just, kinda, seem like they're a little bit higher than what they normally should be.

A common reason for that would be, well, maybe when you were cleaning this out, you went ahead and you pushed on that electronic butterfly in there. The butterfly that you can see inside this is gonna be electronically moved by this motor unit right here. So, of course, if I was to reach inside and try to push on this, I could potentially skip a gear or even misalign something on the inside of this throttle body in which case the car's computer might think that this is opened a little bit when really it's opened a lot of it or vice versa. If that's the case, it's not gonna be able to match the proper amount of fuel to get mixed with the amount of air that's coming in so you're gonna find that you have a runability issue. Another issue that you might happen to have is, maybe you went ahead and cleaned this up good and you made sure that you didn't touch that butterfly at all. So you didn't mess with any calibration, but you still installed it and you still have a runability issue. A reason for that could potentially be as, well, the car's computer is pretty much used to the amount of debris that's accumulated on this so it started making its calculations for the fuel trim to accommodate for that. Well, now you just went ahead and cleaned out all this debris. So, of course, now it's gonna have to re-adapt. So, a fix for that would be potentially go ahead and disconnect that negative battery terminal.

What we wanna do essentially is go ahead and let all the monitors and adaptives reset. The reason why that is, of course, well, we just finished cleaning this out and now we need the computer to reset and relearn where this butterfly's at and exactly how much airflow to mix with the amount of fuel. And if, of course, the issue is maybe you had too much carbon buildup on here and you were trying to scrape it and you pushed on that butterfly too much, maybe you discalibrated the actual throttle body itself, in which case, get yourself a new one. Now, for our third problem, we're gonna talk about tailgate issues. What I mean by that is maybe you're driving down the road, you hit a couple of bumps and you hear a little tung, tung, tung, tung going on in the back. Your tailgate being loose like this can obviously be a very big issue. So let's get into it. Another symptom that you might happen to find if you have a loose tailgate like this one right here is potentially, maybe you're driving down the road and you start getting a little bit of a headache and maybe even a little nauseous. Well, why might that happen and why does it apply to this tailgate? Well, if you think about it, you have your tailpipes right underneath your bumper right here. This is where the exhaust is gonna come out of and, of course, that exhaust is harmful to the environment and, of course, to you.

As that's coming up, it could potentially make its way up and inside this area because it's not sealed well and make its way into the passenger compartment. When that happens and you're breathing it in, obviously, you're probably gonna get a headache and you're probably gonna start feeling a little bit sick. And that's a very big health and safety issue, so let's get into what's going on. If I was to open up the tailgate, the first place I'm gonna take a look is right along this area here. This is your striker. It's essentially supposed to match up with the latch on your tailgate. If yours is loose like this one, there's no way that your latch is gonna be able to hold tight, and eventually, of course, your tailgate's gonna be able to rattle around which potentially could let exhaust fumes in through the seals. If you happen to find that your striker's loose like this, obviously, you're gonna wanna get underneath this cover right there, and then we're gonna look for these bolts right here. These are just Allen head-type screw bolts. So, essentially, if you were to just go ahead and grab onto it, we'll unscrew it, and then we can see the threaded area. Well, for some reason they didn't use any thread locker on this. So, of course, over time and with the vibrations of the road, you know, screws, nuts, bolts, all that stuff can theoretically loosen up.

If for some reason yours was loose like this, just use a little bit of blue thread locker on there and then, of course, put it back in and snug it up. Go ahead and put your cover back on. We'll just double-check. Make sure it's nice and tight and now there's a couple of other things that we wanna pay attention to as well. With the ability of the tailgate to wobble around and shake as you're driving down the road, obviously, you could potentially damage your seals in some way. These seals are very important. If you happen to see the rips or tears or anything else on your seal, that's a possibility where, of course, exhaust could make its way inside or even water or moisture in some way. And, of course, we're gonna take a look at the latch itself and just ensure that there's no damage from that striker wobbling around. This one looks like it's still in good condition, so let's go ahead and shut the tailgate and now test our job. Oh yeah. That's nice and tight. Okay. So, now for our fourth problem, we're gonna talk about timing chain guides and tensioners. Now both of these parts are gonna be located inside your engine on the passenger side. It's not something that I can go ahead and hold in my hand because, well, I don't have one and I can't really get inside the engine very easily. With that said, your car is, of course, gonna have a timing chain.

The responsibility of a timing chain is, of course, to make sure everything's in time. If for some reason something isn't, well, you're gonna have a runability issue. Now what happens with these timing chain guides and tensioners is, of course, they wear out over time and this is gonna especially be true if you're overdue on your oil changes or maybe you like to go a little bit overdue on your oil changes frequently. Some of the symptoms that you might happen to have if you're having an issue with the timing chain guide or tensioners might be, potentially, you go ahead and you start up the car and you hear a ticking or a tapping or a clunking or something like that coming from your engine. A common reason why this might potentially happen is, well, maybe like I said before, you went a little bit too long on your oil. Maybe it's a little bit low. If that's the case, make sure you check that oil level. If it looks like it's low, go ahead and add some. Of course, if after you go ahead and do an oil change or even add oil to it and the noise doesn't subside, more than likely you've already caused damage to your timing chain tensioner or even guides like what I'm saying. So, essentially, if it's not well lubricated, it's gonna wear out and it's gonna wear out fast. You might also find that you're having an issue with runability of your engine.

Essentially, you go ahead and start it up, it seems like it's kind of bucking and misfiring and it just doesn't seem like it wants to run right. Maybe you take a peek at that dash and you happen to see that you got a check engine light too. Of course, that's a big boo. Now, the first fix that I would probably do for this, of course, would be to try to check and do my oil change. I wanna make sure that I have clean and fresh oil inside the system. If I don't, I'm not lubricating that timing chain the way that it's supposed to. Let's go with the assumption that you go ahead and do the oil change but for some reason, you still got that tapping or ticking noise coming from your engine. Well, if that's the case, you're gonna, unfortunately, have to get inside that engine and you're gonna have to replace the timing chain, you're gonna have to replace the shoes, and the guides. Luckily for you, Nissan has updated and revised parts for that.

Okay, friends. So stay with me now. We're on our fifth problem and this one's gonna be about motor mounts. So, firstly, what is a motor mount? Well, essentially, of course, you're not gonna wanna have your motor mounted directly to the body of your car. The motor, of course, is gonna have a lot of internal combustion going on inside there which are gonna cause vibration. If that vibration was just metal to metal straight on through to your passenger compartment, every time you rev up your engine you'd feel [vocalization] coming throughout the entire passenger compartment. So what they decided to do instead would be, of course, to add rubber mounting to this. Essentially, you're gonna have one metal piece that comes off of your body, one metal piece that comes off of your engine or transmission and then in between the two, you're gonna have a rubber bushing. The reason for the rubber, of course, is for vibration dampening. If you didn't have the rubber or it was in poor condition, you're gonna find some issues.

So, symptoms of a bad motor mount could potentially be, like I said before, vibration coming through your passenger compartment. Every time you go ahead and accelerate, the engine's RPM or revolutions per minute is gonna go up and so, of course, the intensity or frequency of the vibrations coming into your passenger compartment are gonna change as well. So, if you start hearing vibrations coming through here and they change with the RPMs or revolutions of the engine, well, then you know you have an issue with your motor mount. Other than that, in more drastic instances, maybe you go ahead and you stomp on that gas pedal because you're trying to get out into traffic, vrrrrrrm, like that, and then boom.

You hear a big thump coming across in front of your dash here. What's that thump noise? Well, it could potentially be your engine rocking or shifting and potentially hitting up against something inside of your engine compartment. So, now for diagnosing and fixing this, obviously, what you're gonna wanna do is take a look at all your motor mounts and transmission mounts. Look at those rubber bushings. See if you see any dry rod and cracking or even worse, if it looks as though something's starting to separate in some way. A lot of times the separation though isn't necessarily gonna be very apparent. So what you're probably gonna have to do is go ahead and hop inside your car. It's gonna be good to have second person for this. They're gonna stand outside in front of where the engine is. You're gonna hop inside the car and essentially go ahead and start it up. One foot on the brake and then we're gonna go ahead and push one foot on the gas while you're in either reverse or drive. Of course, when you do this you wanna be very careful so the car doesn't move on you but essentially by doing this, we're gonna use the brake to hold the car still but then we're gonna accelerate rapidly and that's gonna essentially shift the engine around. Now the person outside that's looking underneath the hood is gonna be paying attention to just how much that engine's shifting.

If it looks like it's just doing this a little bit, that's perfectly normal because it's rubber-mounted. If it looks like it's doing this every time you give it a nice rev, well, then you know you've got an issue. Now just because you go ahead and you do this and drive with the brake stand like what I'm saying and you don't happen to see any movement, don't stop there. Try it in reverse as well. Sometimes you might happen to find that it does this in one position but not the other or sometimes, in other cases, you might find that it does it in either direction. So now the motor mounts on this particular car aren't necessarily gonna be the easiest to see. Here's what one looks like overall, but it's a little bit different than the ones that are actually in this car. For the motor mounts though, essentially you're gonna have one in the front, one in the back, and then, of course, you're gonna have some on either side. And essentially what those are for is to make sure that this engine doesn't just come shaking around or wobbling around like a maniac. Now if you do happen to find that you're having an issue with one of your motor mounts, maybe it looks like it's dry rotted, cracked, or even worse, separating, you, kinda, have to ask yourself, "Does it make sense to only replace just one motor mount?" Go ahead and take a look at all the rest of them.

If it looks as though they're brand new or even in decent condition, well, then maybe you don't have to go ahead and replace them. Overall, though, if one's worn or especially to the point that it's worn and torn, more than likely you've caused damage to the other ones as well. So, if you ask me, it makes sense to go ahead and test them all and then replace the ones that are needed.

Okay, friends. So that's pretty much all I've got for you for top problems on a 1st Generation Nissan Murano. Like we always say, every car has its own problems. You probably got one and maybe problems of your own. If so and you wanna talk about it, leave it in the comment section below because we always love to hear from you. Of course, if you learned a little something or you just liked the video, go ahead and smash on that like button for me. It'll mean the world. While you're at it, subscribe, ring the bell and then, of course, click on that share button that way there you and all your friends can be kept up with all of our latest content. Thanks.