Had a recent success in diagnosing a problem with my 04 Murano... thought I would share. Hopefully, it will help someone. Sorry if it has been covered before.If your Murano front end makes a “clunk” or generally sounds “loose”; particularly when you reverse torque direction I found a cure for my issue so thought I would pass it along. I was nearly convinced that I needed a new CV joint, as the noise was clearly coming from that area, but there was no clicking or other noise when turning …. So I was dubious that the CV Joint was bad. Tried this experiment to verify that it was not the CV joint. I found the cure on the web, so I cannot claim to have found it on my own. How to detect the clunck: Hold your foot on the brake, put the transmission in “Drive”, and apply some mild throttle (just enough to load up the front end), release the throttle, and then put the trans in “Reverse” (while still pressing firmly on the brake) and apply some throttle to load up the front end in the opposite direction. Hear a “clunk”?? If so, it may be that the inner face of the CV joint is slipping with respect to the hub. To determine if this is the case, try this: loosen the spline nut (after removing the cotter-pin), and perform the steps above to torque load the front end. Did the sound go away? If so it is likely (as in my case) the inner surface of the CV joint flange slipping with respect to the hub. To fix it, remove the hub nut (or back it off a bunch) and push the CV joint in towards the hub 3/8 to ½” will do. Now look around the back of the knuckle and locate the shinny surface where the CV joint and the hub bear against each other (when the spline nut is torqued down). Take a Q-Tip or other narrow applicator and grease the shinny surface, then re-torque the spine nut, install a cotter-pin and put the wheel back on and you are done.

I had the same problem... problem is I'm no mechanic.

I took my Murano to the dealership and explained what I know to be the problem. They fixed it.

It set me back $390. But, it's better than the added costs of CV joints.

Good post.

OK, when I read this I thought “no way this will fix my problem!” I had already replaced both CV joints (one was bad, so I replaced both) and I replaced both wheel bearings (again, one was bad). But then I had this silly poping noise when shifting from reverse to drive and vice verse. Could not figure it out and nothing was making sense, then I can across this post and thought, “what the heck it’s pretty simple and I’ll only be out my time for trying.” Well, 20 minutes later and the noise is gone!

Now, I took a bit more of a redneck approach using my finger and a glob of grease and applied liberally to both sides of where the CV meets the hub bearing. I still cannot explain how it works, but it does.

If you have an unexplained poping noise on the front end of your Murano when you switch from drive to reverse and vice versus, you gotta try this fix!

Thanks for the great post!!!

The fix may work but not for the reasons stated. Greasing does literally nothing to stop a clunk from loose in that sort of a state.

The wheel bearings in the hub have worn enough to lose their preload and why the axle nose seems to be loose. You are right on the edge of destroying the wheel bearing assembly there. When you loosen the axle nut and retighten back to the proper torque you end up with the assembly preloaded again, the axle is no longer loose. Grease had NOTHING to do with that. And, even tight, because the bearings were running loose enough to let the axle snout move around you can pretty much expect to have to change that bearing pretty soon as they wear like lightning once the preload backs off enough to let them be loose in the slightest. That bearing type relies on 100% preload at all times to retain dimensional stability, not having that they DNF pretty quick.

I have looked at that TSB and have now concluded that the axle nut is backing off torque with combined bearing wear there to allow that noise to happen, the bearing face being dry simply makes more noise.

I stopped my noise there by simply backing off the axle nut and then retorquing it again to the full number. In my view grease is only a temporary fix as grease there allows more slip to get loose, the bearing face to axle is like a clutch, dry it makes it harder to slip to make noise. It's the rocking back and forth semi-loose there making the noise, the grease makes that easier over the long run.