pet connection

Does anybody really use these pretty, upscale SUVs for doing anything except impressing other people and hauling 1.7 kids to soccer? I mean, really, what good is having a vehicle that appears designed for hauling things if there isn’t any room for putting things in it?

Case in point: The Nissan Murano (although it’s certainly not the only vehicle with such problems). The Murano looks nice, with its aerodynamically clean, round lines (although honestly, its rear end over-emphasizes my own, making it a vehicle that makes my butt look big). And you can’t fault it on comfort, at least not in the tricked-out upgraded version I’ve been test-driving. Handling seems a little on the wallowy side, somewhere between the sportiness of a cross-over like the Acura RDX and the smoothness of a land yacht like tthe Volvo XC90.

As someone who has lived in Sacramento almost her life, I can tell you there’s little virtue in being halfway: We’re always touted as being “halfway to everywhere” — San Francisco, Tahoe, the wine country, etc. — but what that really means is that we’re nowhere at all, and that’s what the Murano felt like to me. It’s a vehicle that doesn’t handle as sharply as some, and isn’t as smooth as others. Still, it’s a comfortable and attractive vehicle, reasonable priced for its luxuries ($42,500 for the all-bling model I drove) with decent if not impressive fuel economy (19/24).

OK, but here’s my beef: The cargo space is not particularly conducive to hauling of safely crated dogs. Plus for the Murano: Dropping the seats was terrifically easy, and the folded seats were flat as Kansas.

But … my one big crate wouldn’t fit vertically, although there is enough horizontal room for the smaller side-by-sides to fit … sort of. With the Murano’s sloping rear hatch, I had to push the one side-by-side I did end up using up against the front seats to get the hatch to close. (That old square peg and round hole problem I first encountered in the otherwise sublime RAV-4.) The image shows the problem — rounded spaces, square crates. Next.

Finally verdict: Not a bad vehicle, by any means, but not a great dogmobile.

Next up: The Toyota FJ Cruiser, which is promoted as a real off-roader. I’m taking it to hunt test, so that capability should be tested a little.