Gadgetory

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 cross Cabriolet and check the tech now the number one feature of a cross cab is the cab part more than the cross part let's get into it open this enormous dorm by the way these doors are huge because they take out the rear doors on a cross cab extend the front door and apparently store like Nazi gold inside this thing these things weigh about a ton each if you let go of one of these in a parking lot you're going to kill the other car just FYI now hit the button in 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 rag top with a lot of frame work in it we'll check out the trunk space in a minute because you see the top is going to 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 hardtop and a bunch of nice panels ok trunk space about a BB - 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 there's my top now if I were to put this cover down you can see if that top weren't there I'd gain some more altitude it's never a giant trunk but it's definitely usable for a weekend for to 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 spar here that's upholstered and then they try and make some more window with this little kind of olds Vista Cruiser thing up here oh by the way the Murano cross cab just got the new scenic car tech 2011 award for vehicle with the most ways to amputate your limbs these big ol heavy doors is number one get a leg down there in the sill and one of these doors closes on it forget it you're a pirate running 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 now we're all across cabs only come one way a high end loaded up edition you've got leather and you've got pretty much all the tech hard drive based GPS now not an interface that I love but not one that I hate looks a little dated but 7 inch LCD controller as well as touch pretty much any way 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 USB av aux Jack's here in the console and you've got automatic dual temperature control 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 CVTs they're kind of rare at that level this one is really simple PRN BL ones the last time you saw that no shift gate no s4 sport no paddles up here for shifting about all you gots a switch over here it's a defeat overdrive this is refreshingly basic and kind of honest whatever you're listening to comes out of Bose speakers a7 plus a subwoofer hard drives music and iPod 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 across cab has a little more power out of its three and a half litre v6 in a standard Murano its 265 on the horsepower 248 foot-pounds of torque it's this forty four hundred pound carb 260 in the low eight second range the downside is it delivers hoggish MPG of 17 city 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 the air so there's just no winning that mpg battle there's something cool about the cross cab being open and up high it's a combination you'll normally get most suvs aren't convertible so that's the first thing you notice in this car the next thing you notice is how this cross cab has a lot of power it comes on nicely for everyday driving it's not the kind of car you're going to take for you know carving up a canyon road but it definitely is good everyday accessible power the only 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 that's the one thing I do beyond that it's a good combination of power and transmission programming once you get out on the road that's where things get weird maybe 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 experienced this in the Volkswagen Eos recently when you make it 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 of that you can always tell look in the rear view mirror while you're going over a road that is 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 on by the way the cross camp Bose audio system has more than enough guts to overcome all this road noise oh geez anyway let's price our Murano cross cab 47 - they only come one way all load it up like I showed you there are only three options to talk about they're all bizarre one is a seat belt extender in case you're going to 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