Owners/service Manual problems of the 2004 Nissan Murano

I have a 2004 Nissan Murano. I took my car to the shop today because the doors are not locking or unlocking. My hatch only works some of the time as well. I found out that the actuactor is out on all the doors. This is crazy are out on a car that only has 79k miles on it and is 11 years old. The cost will be about 2k to get fixed. This is a safety issue, I have three small kids. Having to them stand outside while I climb inside to manually unlock the doors is unssafe. If I leave the car unlocked at night when we are out, that leaves us vulnerable for someone entering the car and hiding in it until we return. Once we get in we manually lock the doors but if there is an accident and we needed to quickly exit or emergency responds need to quickly get us out of the car, it is not possible. It is going to cost 2k to get this fixed. I have been reading forums, this is a big issue on the Nissan Murano, it needs to be a recall. If it is not a recall, I would like Nissan accept some of the financial responsibility of this repair.

My door lock for my passenger front side does not unlock. I have no idea why but I have to manually unlock this now. I have researched this online and spoke with my local Nissan dealerships. This is a safety issue and should be repaired by a recall. Please advise.

There are three ways to lock and unlock the doors; using the remote, using the key and using the interior locks. The remote does not lock nor unlock the driver's nor the front passenger doors. The key, which can only be used in the driver's door lock, will lock and unlock all doors except the front passenger side door. The interior locking mechanism located on the drivers door will not unlock nor lock the front driver's nor the passenger side doors. At this time the only way to unlock the driver's and the front passenger side doors is to reach over and use the interior handle. Once the front doors are unlocked the only way to lock them is to manually move the locking switch to the locked position. This problem seems to have affected hundreds if not thousands of Nissan Murano's the inability to lock and unlock the front doors is critical to the safety of the vehicle's occupants. The driver cannot lock the front doors, which is paramount when a child is riding in the car. Not locking the doors can be critical in the event of a motor vehicle accident. It is a well known fact that the safest place to be in the event of an accident is in the car and the inability of the driver to insure that all doors are locked is critical to everyone's safety. Having an unlocked door open in a crash increases the probability that an occupant will be ejected from a car thereby increasing injuries and the probability of death; not knowing that all doors are locked results in unnecessary risk.

At approximately 60,000 miles with the age of the car being approximately five (5) years old the front passenger door would not unlock or lock when the remote actuator was used. This got progressively worse and then less than a year later the driver's side door began doing the same thing. Now neither one of these doors will work correctly and often lock on their own without the remote actuator or the internal manual locking sytem being used. This has spread to the rear doors too but only intermittently at this time. I have read on the internet that many many owners of a Nissan Murano of almost every model year eventually experience this problem. This creates a safety problem should entry into the vehicle or exit from the vehicle in an emergency situation be required because the doors will not unlock from the outside without a key and the only door that has a key slot is the drivers side front door. If the key's in the ignition how would anyone on the outside of the vehicle get the doors open in an emergency? there was a recall issued a few years ago in australia for this very same problem on a different Nissan model vehicle. If this was a safety issue there and was acknowledged by Nissan to be their responsibility to resolve I cannot help but ask "why isn't this being taken care of here in the USA by Nissan?" Nissan and their dealers have known of this safety problem for years and quote between $400 and $500 to fix just one door. Many owners report via the internet that this problem exists on at least 2 doors and some report all 4 doors including the rear lift gate have this problem. Something needs to be done to resolve this problem and protect the owners and occupants of these vehicles.