Now That It Is Seen, It Cannot Be Unseen - 2015 Nissan Murano Long-Term Road Test

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Now That It Is Seen, It Cannot Be Unseen - 2015 Nissan Murano Long-Term Road Test

There's an attractive band of trim that runs along our long-term 2015 Nissan Murano's front doors and dash, but misaligned pieces detract from the overall effect.

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prndlol

Driver's side looks spot on. 1 out of 2, good enough for me.

dushash

That leaves Canton Plant workers responsible for this misalignment (the assembly line workers or the person who was supposed to do proper Quality Check). It's good at least engineering is designed by Japanese or otherwise it would have been a disaster if it was done by local Canton folks. I mean look at the video of Canton plant (google Canton plant Murano assembly) and you can almost feel how uninspired workers are working there (and this was when they knew they are filmed, now imagine how they work when they know no one is filming them). I won't be surprised if most of them don't even have respect for their work. Not sure about their education either. Need more Quality Control. Can't trust those workers. I know I sound harsh, but when I work - I try to do everything perfect and I put my soul in it, because I know people pay money and because customer satisfaction is important to me. Why should I do it properly and those lazy workers won't do it? Not fair. Bottom line is: when person works for money only - it's not going to be good outcome.

P.S. I also watched for comparison Japanese Nissan plant in Japan - and it's completely different environment: workers their do their job decently and up to the letter. Huge difference. That's why local manufacturers in US are struggling, that's why Japanese cars are popular and people buy them over local trio. And it's been how many years that local trio could have learned and changed a lot - but, alas, nothing was done. Same bad QC. I won't buy local cars anymore, until they learn how to make them with respect to customer.

jakek66

@dushash - I have a Japanese built Q50 and it has issues just like this Murano. In fact I have both and the Murano is built as good as the Q50.

dushash

Would be interesting to see long term reliability for Murano as it's still new. If it lives up to Japanese quality - then I'll take my words back. We'll see.

allthingshonda

Before you blame the assembly line workers you should keep in mind the parts that they have to work with. Who says this particular door panel or trim piece was manufactured to exact specifications. In my total quality management class in college we studied a problem in a Toyota assembly plant. The problem was excessive warranty claims for rattles from a particular trim piece. Their investigation revealed that the trim piece, when put in place properly and securely, would pinch the workers fingers. The workers obviously didn't want their fingers pinched so they didn't put it place securely which led to it rattling. Toyota had their supplier redesign the trim to avoid the pinch.

quadricycle

Considering the class of car, I don't find the misalignment to be a deal breaker.

Anyway, good quality control isn't hard to achieve, but it needs to be a conscious effort and it drives up your costs. As for a plant's workers, there a clearly defined ways of getting good personnel. If nobody is working hard or well in a certain workplace, it speaks more to me about the company environment that the actual individuals...

@allthingshonda, what was the take away from that problem?

dushash

quadricycle said:

Considering the class of car, I don't find the misalignment to be a deal breaker.

Anyway, good quality control isn't hard to achieve, but it needs to be a conscious effort and it drives up your costs. As for a plant's workers, there a clearly defined ways of getting good personnel. If nobody is working hard or well in a certain workplace, it speaks more to me about the company environment that the actual individuals...

@allthingshonda, what was the take away from that problem?

The thing is Nissan is presenting Murano as a flagship SUV crossover model in its lineup. So it's best they have got. I'm not talking about Infinity. Also considering that Murano was the first model back in time for 1st generation of Murano - to establish and define crossover class as we know it today - this model is and always was on a special place in Nissan lineup and other manufacturers were looking up to Murano when they released their models to compete. Finally 3rd generation of Murano is clearly aiming at semi-luxury segment and it for sure will and already is stealing customers form RX350 for example. Higher trims offer material quality same or very near as Infinity or Lexus. Cost is also high for Platinum trims - almost $45K. This is basically price of base RX350 trims.
Finally, Murano is for the first time considered a "Global" vehicle for Canton Plant - it's going to be delivered into more than 100 markets world-wide. This puts a lot of pressure on Canton Plant and Nissan. Quality shoudl be top notch. There is no excuses. Go all in or go home situation.
So I understand that it may not be specifically assembly line workers fault, but whoever fault it is - it's Nissan's reputation on line (worldwide mind you) and I shouldn't need to write this obvious stuff as Nissan should know it better in the first place.
I think some of the first batch of Muranos may be not 100% ideal (as is with all cars when they are just released), but there should be at least a better Quality Check.