2022 Isuzu MU-X detailed on/off-road, 0-100 review! Best 7-seat SUV in the segment?

CarExpert

Could the 2022 Isuzu MU-X be the best 7-seat SUV in the segment? Paul Maric gets behind the wheel of the 2022 Isuzu MU-X LS-T 4x4 to see whether this latest iteration of the MU-X lives up the hype. Paul does a detailed review, plus some on- and off-road driving.  We're keen to hear what you think about it!  Hardness tester results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE  More Isuzu content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/isuzu/ More Isuzu MU-X content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/isuzu/mu-x Full Isuzu MU-X review: https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-reviews/2022-isuzu-mu-x-review  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior 01:15 Interior 03:36 Infotainment 06:26 Safety Tech 08:21 Practicality 10:36 On the road 17:09 0-100: 18:50 On the road: 19:08 Off Road 21:56 Verdict 27:34  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #isuzu #review #mux

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. The Isuzu MU-X has finally received an update. This is a brand new car.

00:05 It's based off the Isuzu D-MAX and it is very important for Isuzu. In Australia,

00:11 Isuzu only sells two vehicles, the D-MAX and this MU-X, so

00:15 50% of the equation is this. It's a popular solar SUV, so this has a lot hinging on it.

00:22 This one right here is the top spec LST 4x4. It's priced at just under

00:28 $50,000. Now, just when you pick up your jaw off the floor there, yes, that is almost

00:32 $10,000 more than the previous generation. I know why it's taken such a big price hike,

00:37 but if that is a little too much, the whole range starts at just under

00:40 $50,000. This competes with things like the Ford Everest, the Toyota Fortuna, the Mitsubishi Pajero Sport. There's a few of those ute-based

00:49 SUVs in the segment. Today, we're going to do a detailed review of this plus some light off-roading to see whether it's any good.

00:57 If you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this review,

00:59 you can use the time codes up on the screen there, or if you're on YouTube, just scroll down and use the chapters below.

01:04 And if you haven't done so already, I'd love it if you could subscribe to the channel and press the bell icon as well.

01:09 That's going to tell you every single time we drive brand new versions of important cars.

01:13 So let's start off with exterior design. You've got eight different colors to pick from. All but white is an extra

01:20 $650. Now, in terms of the differentiation between the models, this one here is the top spec.

01:26 You'll be able to tell them apart by, yes, the wheels, but also this front end.

01:29 So top spec has this sort of shadow finish here, plus the chrome down the bottom.

01:34 What are you reckon about the design of the NUX? Is it tough and rugged?

01:37 Do you think it looks tough enough to be part of this segment? I actually think it looks pretty good. Down the front here,

01:44 they've gone to a lot of effort with the styling to really sort of beef it up.

01:47 You've got these sharp edges and it, I don't know, it just sits nicely in traffic.

01:51 It looks nice and premium.

01:53 It doesn't feel like they've really cut any corners and I think these highlights with the chrome and then these shadow sections at the top

01:58 really just make it stand out nicely. Over here, you have a set of bi-LED headlights with LED daytime running lights.

02:05 Unfortunately, though, you've got an incandescent globe in there for the indicator.

02:09 I don't know why they still do that. That would have just been better off being an LED light.

02:12 But anyway, LED fog lights down the bottom and then let's whip around to the side. So 20-inch alloy wheel, 50 profile tire.

02:19 It's a highway terrain tire as well. If you're going to be doing any serious off-roading,

02:22 I'd be going for an all-terrain.

02:23 Simply to give you just a little bit more grip there in the mud because these will get glazed over fairly quickly if they do

02:30 get filled with mud. You can see here as well, ironically, the bigger the SUV, the less of the artificial cladding

02:36 it has on the side. You look at all the small SUVs and they have this giant plastic wheel arches. Whereas these things here,

02:42 they're just wheels and a

02:44 flare. So it's good that they haven't gone overboard there. Over the side here, you have this

02:50 matte black finish on the edge. You have an indicator built into the wing mirror. Side steps off to the side here,

02:56 you get roof rails, privacy glass. And then if you whip around to the rear, right here, you've got LED tail lights.

03:02 But unfortunately again, incandescent globes in here.

03:05 The problem with this is LEDs will last pretty much forever or the serviceable life of the car.

03:10 Whereas the incandescent globes will need replacement. So it just means it's an extra service item you need to think about.

03:16 It's one of those frustrating things. Down the bottom here, you have the engine designation and then MUX along the back there.

03:22 Three and a half tonne towing capacity now with the 350 kilogram down ball weight.

03:27 But I'll explain the technicalities behind this a little bit later on. So what do you think about the design?

03:31 Do you think they've done a good job with this? Do you think the proportions are good?

03:35 Let me know what you think down there. We're inside the MUX now and it's worth pointing out that in

03:39 comparison to the predecessor, this car is now 25 mil longer, 10 mil wider and sits on a 10 mil

03:45 longer wheelbase. So that should mean more room inside the cabin.

03:49 We'll see what it looks like in the second and third rows in a second. But let's start off with the key.

03:54 Here it is.

03:54 So you have a remote start function that allows you to switch the car on and off when you're not inside it.

03:59 Good on hot days if you want to start the air conditioning or cold days for the heater to crank over. You have a lock,

04:05 unlock and boot button. It's also worth pointing out with that auto start feature.

04:10 A lot of people have asked what happens then if someone gets into the car and then puts it into drive or if you've got

04:14 kids in the car or some bizarre situation. Well, it doesn't actually do anything.

04:19 So when you do a remote start the car, you have to have the key to manually push the button to then start the car.

04:25 So that's get all of the electronic systems on and then it allows you to shift out of park.

04:29 So even though the car's started,

04:31 you can't actually do anything with it unless you have the key inside the car and you've pressed that button. On the back there

04:36 you have the Isuzu logo and it's a proximity sensing key.

04:40 So you just leave that in your pocket, grab the door handle and then once you're inside the car,

04:44 you've got a push button start just here. So let's talk about the cabin. What does it look like? What's the styling like?

04:50 I quite like the look of this.

04:51 So I mentioned in our

04:53 D-MAX review that I think this really moves the game forward in terms of making it a little bit more premium and just giving it

04:59 a bit more of a luxe finish, especially here at the top end.

05:02 They've jacked the price up so much that I think they really had to justify it somehow and they've done that with some of

05:07 these materials. You can see along the top here

05:09 there's that faux leather with the stitching. It really sort of gives this a premium look. It even follows down to the sides here where

05:16 they've got a nice looking plastic and then these sort of

05:19 leatherette style materials down the edges there for you to lean your knees on if you need to.

05:23 This little disappointing here is the top spec. You have so many blank buttons. It is unbelievable.

05:29 I don't know what all these do, but they're certainly not here in this car, which is a little bit disappointing.

05:34 I would have liked to see some actual buttons there. And then of course we have loads of piano black around here.

05:39 I say this in like every review that we do, the piano blacks just mark so easily.

05:43 You can see it's really dusty and this car is literally brand new.

05:46 So I just think they need to tone that stuff down. Now, what about your touch points?

05:50 So center console feels nice and then the door feels nice as well. How nice is it though?

05:56 Well, we've got our durometer.

05:58 We've tested the main surfaces in this cabin. If you want to see how this compares to other cars that we've tested before,

06:02 have a look at the link in the description below. Now, what about build quality? What's it like?

06:08 It feels okay. There's a bit of flex in that sort of center console there, but for the most part this feels pretty good.

06:13 I think that these Isuzu products generally are pretty reliable and also built pretty well,

06:19 sort of over the long term. So if you do own one, let me know in the comments section below

06:23 what's it been like to live with over the long term. Let's talk about infotainment.

06:27 So one of the things that I guess impresses us the most about the D-MAX is the infotainment system.

06:33 Big 9-inch display in the center here. The infotainment system itself isn't really amazing.

06:39 So when you're using the controls and all that sort of stuff,

06:42 it's a little bit sort of clumsy at times, but the reason we like it so much is because of the smartphone integration.

06:48 So you have inbuilt satellite navigation. In addition to that you have AM/FM,

06:53 DAB+ digital radio. You also have the ability to stream through Bluetooth, USB or auxiliary cable. It's worth keeping in mind as well,

07:01 there's an 8-speaker sound system, but no

07:03 surround sound on the roof here like the old version used to have.

07:08 But the thing that has us impressed is the ability to do smartphone mirroring wirelessly.

07:12 So it is the only ute in the segment at the moment that allows you to do wireless Apple CarPlay.

07:17 So you can see here, sorry, the BT-50 does wireless Apple CarPlay as well because it's the same car.

07:22 But what you can do here is basically have your phone in the car. The second you get in,

07:26 you don't have to have it connected with a cable.

07:28 It just gets straight on to CarPlay and I don't know,

07:32 it just takes the thought out of having to connect your phone and do anything.

07:35 It's all sort of ready to go. The big advantage of this for families is going to be

07:38 things like being able to read messages while you're driving. It will voice them out to you.

07:42 You can send messages using Siri as well. So it's quite a decent comprehensive system.

07:47 And this is what Android Auto looks like. So it's not wireless, unfortunately.

07:51 So you're going to use a cable to connect it,

07:53 but you can see there, full screen integration again.

07:56 And you also have the same benefits of being able to use the Google equivalent of Siri

08:01 to be able to send text messages, call people and all that kind of thing.

08:04 So smartphone integration wise, this is a really impressive setup.

08:08 And I think they've done a really decent job with getting this family friendly.

08:12 At the end of the day, you need to be able to have all of this ready

08:15 so you can just load the kids in, go for a drive and know that you have your

08:18 entertainment and communication stuff sorted on the screen.

08:21 Let's talk safety technology. So you have autonomous emergency braking.

08:25 This has a turn assist feature though. And the way that works is if you're at a T intersection

08:29 and you go to turn left or right, and there's an oncoming vehicle that you don't see

08:33 or you haven't noticed, it will slam the brakes on for you and prevent a pretty nasty collision.

08:38 In terms of other safety features, you have lane departure warning and a lane keeping assistant.

08:43 Radar cruise control. There's also a semi-autonomous steering function.

08:47 Doesn't really work that well. When you have it active, it kind of keeps the car in the lanes.

08:51 But when you get to a turn on a freeway, it sometimes doesn't sort of react in time

08:55 and you find it leaving the lane, but then enabling the emergency lane keeping assist,

09:00 which kind of jars it back in. So not really a very fluid system.

09:04 The other downside to this is if you're towing, you can't really switch this off

09:08 unless you stop the vehicle, go through the menus. It activates every single time,

09:12 which is incredibly frustrating, especially when in the manual it tells you to deactivate

09:16 that feature when towing. So it would be nice to see a button here that just allows you

09:20 to switch all that stuff off. You have a driver attention monitor, rear cross traffic alert.

09:25 And in terms of parking, you have front and rear parking sensors.

09:28 You have a blind spot monitor built into there and a reverse view camera.

09:32 I'll show you what the reverse view camera looks like. There it is.

09:35 So you have guidelines that move with the wheel.

09:37 Then you also have an indication of how close you are to things.

09:40 In the settings here, you can actually set it up so that it takes into account your toe lip

09:44 so you won't get any false negatives on the reversing front.

09:48 And it's a really nice quality camera. You can see there it's super high resolution.

09:52 It's a shame this doesn't have a 360 degree camera, but I think that does a pretty decent job.

09:57 Now, super quickly, we published a video just recently.

10:00 It was on the interior. You can expect in the new Ford Ranger and the Ford Everest.

10:04 If you haven't seen it, you can click up here.

10:06 But the key thing to take away from that is that Ford is integrating a 15 inch vertical display

10:11 in the new Everest in the top spec versions.

10:14 Now, this all looks great, but given this is a brand new car and the new Everest is due next year,

10:19 do you think that this is going to feel as new when the Everest lobs?

10:23 And what do you reckon about the rest of the competitors in this segment?

10:25 Are they all going to feel dated in comparison?

10:28 Let me know what you reckon in the comment section below.

10:29 Is stuff like that important to you or do you prefer reliability

10:33 and the ability to drive off road and that kind of thing instead of technology?

10:37 Let's talk about practicality and we'll start with our USB and charging.

10:41 So you have one USB point up the front here. Next to it is the auxiliary outlet.

10:46 You've also got a 12 volt outlet just next to it.

10:48 I would have liked to see wireless phone charging here.

10:51 And the reason I say that is if you have an Apple device and you have it connected to car plate,

10:54 it tends to drain your battery quite a lot if it's on the wireless version

10:58 and you don't have anywhere here to charge your phone without connecting it.

11:01 So it's kind of semi redundant to have wireless car plate

11:04 because you'll end up just draining your phone and having to plug it in anyway.

11:07 So I just would have liked to see some wireless phone charging here.

11:11 But in terms of storage, your phone can live down the front here

11:15 where it would be perfect to have a wireless phone charger

11:18 or you can slot it here into the cup holders.

11:21 Speaking of cup holders, coffee.

11:23 So this fits into there nicely.

11:25 So the lid kind of scrapes a little bit, but there is a solution to that

11:28 and they've retained the cup holders just in front of the air vent.

11:33 So on the way here this morning, it was bloody freezing again

11:35 and meant that this was able to sit in front of the heater, stay warm.

11:40 So win-win.

11:42 In terms of bottles themselves, easily fits into there and also inside the door.

11:47 We'll see how the big bottle fits.

11:49 Let's give that a shot.

11:52 Yes, it does. Fantastic news.

11:55 And then in terms of other storage, you've got a little nook just here

11:58 next to the driver's knee for keys and remotes and all that kind of stuff.

12:02 Centre console here, reasonably sized.

12:04 It's not amazing, but it does the job.

12:06 You have a glove box down here that is pretty much entirely consumed by the manual.

12:11 You would have to take that out to actually get any usability out of that.

12:13 But you do have a secondary spot just up the top here.

12:17 I think this is possibly where you could get a CD player in other markets.

12:20 It kind of looks like the size of that.

12:22 And it also then makes this a pretty useless area

12:26 because you can't really fit a bottle in and it doesn't look like that comes out.

12:30 So nice, but really not that useful.

12:33 And then you also have a sunglasses holder up the top here.

12:37 In terms of comfort features, you have dual zone automatic climate control.

12:40 You have heated seats here for the first row.

12:43 And then in terms of the seats, you have electric seat adjustment for driver and front passenger.

12:48 Seats themselves are really comfortable.

12:50 They hug you in beautifully.

12:51 This is what I like about the D-MAX.

12:53 They're just nicely presented and very functional in terms of what their intended use is.

12:58 And that is keeping you comfortable for long distance driving.

13:01 And in terms of the steering wheel, it offers both tilt and reach adjustment,

13:05 although the reach is a little bit tricky to use.

13:07 And then our reach test.

13:09 Yes, pass.

13:10 This stuff's a little bit harder to reach, but that's all for your passenger.

13:13 And then all this stuff is very straightforward.

13:16 Second row of the MU-X.

13:18 Now, legroom.

13:20 Let's start with that.

13:21 So I've got my seat pretty far back, but as you can see here, even as an adult,

13:25 I'm sort of somewhat compromised there in terms of knee room.

13:28 Likewise, toe room.

13:30 I'm sort of wedged into there a little bit.

13:32 Headroom is not too bad.

13:34 I was kind of hoping for a little bit more room back here.

13:36 Hopefully, less room here means more room in the third row.

13:40 So we'll check that in just a second.

13:41 In terms of other creature comforts, you have matte pockets in the back of the seats,

13:45 two USB charging ports, a slot here to hold your phone,

13:49 a bag hook that can support four kilos.

13:52 And then if you look at the door pockets, we can fit our bottle in there.

13:58 Now, the big bottle won't fit, but you do also get a center armrest here for

14:02 resting your arm on, but you can also whip this out.

14:05 It is a cup holder.

14:07 That sort of fits our bottle in nicely, stops it from moving around.

14:11 Now, if you are going to be carrying kids, you do have two ISOFIX points on the two

14:15 outboard seats along with top tether points, but there's no way to get baby seats

14:20 into the third row.

14:21 So it kind of leaves you a little bit compromised there in terms of getting

14:23 additional kids into the vehicle.

14:25 They'll need to be old enough to fit in there without having a big child seat.

14:29 And then you can also adjust the seats here in the second row forwards and

14:33 backwards like that, so you can tilt back if you need to.

14:35 And then finally, you have a separate set of blower controls here on the roof with

14:39 air vents tucked into the roof as well that you can adjust as required.

14:44 Now, third row, let me show you how this works.

14:46 So this folds and tumbles.

14:48 You just pull this lever, folds down, and then tumbles forward.

14:52 So let's see how much room I've got in there.

14:56 So I'll climb in here, I'll manually pull this down, click that into position.

15:00 It is a little bit annoying that I have to then, unless there's someone else

15:03 outside, I have to basically grab this, pull it up myself and then lock it into

15:08 position.

15:09 Tell you what, I'm surprised by how much leg room there is here.

15:13 So I'm obviously an adult and my knees are sort of pretty free there.

15:19 I've got toe room, head room is pretty reasonable.

15:22 Air vents up the top here, plus storage off to the side.

15:25 There is no USB connectivity back here, but I just reckon this is actually a pretty

15:30 usable space for adults, which is something you don't often see in this segment.

15:34 If you do want to tilt this back a touch more, you're kind of a little more

15:39 compromised, but it's still not too bad.

15:42 Now, one point I will make as well is that they could have actually put these two on

15:47 sliders, so you can move them forward to give you a little bit more room here in

15:51 the third row or give you more room in the second row.

15:54 I don't know why they didn't do that.

15:55 I think they opted instead for this roll and tumble function, which limits your

15:59 ability to put a slider in.

16:00 So anyway, let's see how much room there is in the boot.

16:04 Again, this is often a space that is compromised in these ute-based SUVs.

16:09 So I mentioned before cargo space, what is it like?

16:12 So you've got power tailgate, also plastic here, which is interesting.

16:18 So room wise, you have a little over 300 litres of cargo space here.

16:22 This floor comes up a little bit if you do need to hide valuables.

16:26 The question is, does it fit our bags when the third row is in position?

16:32 Yes, it does.

16:34 Fantastic news.

16:35 Over to the side, you have a 12-volt outlet plus a light, and then you also have

16:40 hooks as well.

16:41 Now, folding the third row out of the way yields just over 1100 litres of cargo

16:48 space and a pretty much flat floor.

16:51 You can then expand the space to a little over 2100 litres by dropping the

16:56 second row as well, which you have to do from here, unfortunately.

16:59 But let me show you what that looks like.

17:00 There it is there.

17:01 So decent sized space, but yeah, you get to here and then it drops off into this

17:05 kind of void area.

17:06 So not quite flat, but still reasonably sized.

17:10 OK, we're on the road in the MU-X.

17:13 So this is a engine effectively that's shared with the D-MAX, which means it's a

17:18 three litre turbocharged four cylinder diesel engine.

17:21 It makes 140 kilowatts of power and 450 newton metres of torque.

17:26 That is down on the Ford Everest and the Toyota Fortuna, both of those now

17:30 cranking out 500 newton metres.

17:32 But this actually feels nice and linear behind the wheel.

17:35 So it's made into a six-speed automatic transmission.

17:37 And just when you're driving it, it kind of just works.

17:42 And what I mean by that is you can just get stuck into it, pushes you back into

17:46 the seat nicely.

17:47 It's not over the top.

17:48 It's not sort of underpowered.

17:50 It just feels about right for this platform and exactly what this car is.

17:54 In terms of fuel economy, Isuzu claims 8.3 litres per 100 k's.

17:59 We're currently sitting on 11.3.

18:02 A couple of caveats there.

18:03 So cold morning again, so the car was running a little bit and we did some

18:06 off-roading just before we filmed this section.

18:09 So that used a little bit more fuel.

18:10 Before we got here, it was sitting on 9.1.

18:13 And it is worth noting as well, this car has a total of 86 kilometres on the

18:16 clock.

18:16 It's virtually brand new.

18:18 So in terms of economy, it's pretty impressive for a vehicle this size.

18:21 Now in terms of drive modes, you don't really have any sport modes or anything

18:25 to pick from.

18:25 And it is worth noting that you get two high, which is your standard drive mode,

18:29 four high and then four low.

18:31 Unlike the Everest and Pajero Sport, which can be driven as four-wheel drives,

18:35 just on sealed surfaces, this has to be driven just as a two-wheel drive.

18:39 You can't use four-wheel drive on sealed surfaces.

18:42 So if you want to get a better understanding of why that is, click up here

18:46 to watch a video where we explained four-wheel drive controls in these types

18:49 of vehicles.

18:50 Isuzu doesn't quote an official 0-100 time, but this is how it went against our

18:55 stopwatch.

18:56 [Car engine]

19:08 Let's talk ride.

19:08 So the ride is pretty impressive.

19:11 So it soaks up bumps nicely.

19:13 It's what I would describe as softly sprung, but firmly damped.

19:17 And that means that the initial impact that you get is padded nicely, but it's

19:23 got a bit of firmness to the edge of it.

19:25 And that means that sometimes you can get a little bit of a surprise when you

19:28 hit a bump and it's not such a bad thing.

19:30 They haven't made it super soft and super floaty, but you do notice at times

19:35 that it can be on the firmer side of soft.

19:37 And what about road noise?

19:38 Well, it's actually pretty quiet.

19:40 The tyres aren't that noisy.

19:41 You don't really get a great deal of noise coming in through the road, but you

19:45 do get some engine noise.

19:46 If I bury the throttle now, it's kind of a pretty noisy diesel that comes into

19:52 the cabin.

19:53 It's not the end of the world.

19:53 If you have the music playing, you won't hear it, but you do tend to notice it at

19:57 times if you really do get stuck into it.

19:59 So let's talk handling.

20:00 We've got our corner here.

20:02 Let's see how it goes.

20:03 Tip it in.

20:04 Hey, look, it's not too bad.

20:06 It sort of sits nice and flat.

20:08 That's the benefit of having slightly firmer suspension.

20:11 It means the body can be nice and rested as it comes around a corner.

20:14 The steering's fairly light.

20:16 It's not overly light, but it really doesn't have a great deal of feel to it.

20:22 So not such a bad thing.

20:23 Good for city driving and stuff like that, but if you do find yourself on a sporty

20:27 section of road, you're probably not going to feel a whole lot of what's going on

20:30 under the car.

20:31 One of the headline acts Isuzu has with the MU-X is the towing capacity.

20:35 Most of the other ute-based SUVs in this segment will tow just three tonnes or

20:39 3.1 tonnes.

20:40 Isuzu has upgraded this to 3,500 kilos.

20:43 It's what customers wanted, but there is a caveat to that, and that is the GCM,

20:49 the gross combination mass, is 5,900 kilos.

20:52 So if you do the sums, you can only have around 225 kilos worth of payload if

20:57 you're towing 3.5 tonnes.

20:59 That includes your passengers.

21:00 So in theory, you could have two adults and a child and no luggage, or two adults

21:04 and a little bit of luggage.

21:06 Really doesn't give you much headroom, and it's the same story with other vehicles

21:09 in this segment.

21:10 When you do reach that 3.5 tonne limit, you don't have a great deal left for

21:14 payload.

21:14 So keep that in mind.

21:16 Just because it says 3.5 tonnes on paper doesn't mean that you should logically do

21:20 that, especially if you're going to be loading it up with all your bits and pieces

21:23 for your drive.

21:24 Let's talk visibility.

21:25 So out the front, excellent.

21:27 Out the back, it's great.

21:28 The only time you'll notice that there is a bit of impacted visibility is when you

21:32 have the third row headrests up.

21:33 They stick up quite high, but you have these massive wing mirrors with blind spot

21:37 monitoring built into them, so you can see clearly down the side of the car there,

21:40 and it is pretty straightforward to park with both front and rear parking sensors.

21:44 And finally, turning circle comes in at 11.4 metres.

21:48 It's actually pretty impressive for a big old SUV like this.

21:51 It means u-turns are going to be dealt with ease.

21:55 Okay, it's time for some light off-roading.

21:59 Now, I did mention this in our previous couple of videos, but just in case you

22:03 missed it, I've developed a couple of different courses here, depending on

22:06 whether it's wet or dry.

22:08 So if it's wet, we're going to use Log Mountain plus our descent, and then if

22:12 it's dry, I have another steeper climb that we'll be able to test traction

22:16 control and also any differential locks.

22:19 The reason I have these two courses is the wet one.

22:22 When it is wet, if the car can't make it up, it needs to slide backwards, and

22:26 often it slides for a little while, and I don't want to go into the river, which

22:29 is the other end of the harder course.

22:32 So that's why we have the two, but regardless of which one we choose, we're

22:35 always going to do a centre test, which is basically a seesaw.

22:39 Halfway through, I'll do a door test.

22:41 That's going to be when the body has most of its flex.

22:43 We'll see how strong the chassis is, and then finally there's an offset

22:47 mogul, which will give us a good indication of how any traction control

22:50 systems or any differential locks work.

22:53 So let's kick off here.

22:54 In terms of the key stats here of the new MU-X, it finally has a rear

22:58 differential lock.

22:59 The previous gen didn't.

23:01 This also has a low range transfer case.

23:03 In terms of your approach and departure angles, 29.2 degree approach angle.

23:07 That's the angle of the face you can approach before you hit anything, and

23:10 then in reverse, it's a 26.4 degree departure angle, which is basically the

23:15 same thing as the approach, but for the rear of the car.

23:18 You also have a ground clearance of 235 mm and a wading depth of 800 mm.

23:23 Let's try our logs.

23:24 So it does look dry out here, but it was raining overnight and they're super

23:28 slippery at the moment because the sun hasn't got on them.

23:30 So what I'll do is throw this into 4 high.

23:32 I won't use the rear diff lock just yet, and we'll see how we go.

23:36 We also have a rough road mode, so that just tailors traction control for these

23:42 slippery situations.

23:44 Let's give this a shot.

23:45 Okay, here we go.

23:47 Okay, this is doing well so far.

23:51 It's actually doing really well.

23:55 Yeah, that's impressive.

23:58 I can feel it slipping a little bit underneath this, but that has climbed up

24:02 that without any dramas at all.

24:03 And that's the hard part when you have greasy logs like that.

24:06 There's simply no traction whatsoever.

24:08 So it's done an impressive job there.

24:10 Okay, we've got our descent now.

24:11 I'm going to pop the hill descent control on and give this a shot.

24:15 Yeah, that's not too bad.

24:18 It's probably a little quick for my liking, so I'm going to take over now with

24:21 the brake as we fall into some of these ruts.

24:23 Yeah, that's actually pretty impressive.

24:27 So you've got to keep in mind that with these modern SUVs, a lot of them share

24:31 the same sort of calibrations for off-road driving.

24:34 So it really just does come down to how well they've integrated the four-wheel

24:38 drive system.

24:38 And in this case, they've done a pretty impressive job because normally with

24:41 logs like that, it is hard to get the momentum you need and that sort of

24:46 clever traction control so that it doesn't just get bogged down spinning the

24:49 wheels or it doesn't intervene overly and then stop your progression up the hill.

24:53 Okay, it's time for our seesaw.

24:54 Now this is where we get a little bit of angle here and hopefully don't tip the

24:59 car over.

25:01 I know it doesn't look that steep on camera, but I don't know, I'm going to

25:04 have to figure out a way to show you how steep this is.

25:06 I'm almost sort of falling out of my chair and having to lean on this.

25:09 Okay, here we come to the midpoint here.

25:11 This is where we're going to get two wheels off the ground, which is about

25:16 there somewhere.

25:17 I can feel the car sort of swinging around.

25:19 So what I'll do now is open and close the door.

25:21 We'll see how rigid the chassis is.

25:25 Look at that, no dramas whatsoever.

25:27 That is really impressive.

25:29 Okay, tick rigid chassis is the pass.

25:32 Let's jump over to our Offset Mogul now.

25:35 This is where we're going to see how well the off-road system works with

25:39 traction control.

25:40 So I've deliberately not engaged the rear diff lock here because I want to see

25:43 how well it works just on its own merits.

25:46 Now with this in 4-high, we're basically sending 50% of torque to the front

25:51 axle and 50% of torque to the rear axle.

25:53 When we get into this situation here where we have two wheels off the ground,

25:57 there it is right there, the car's currently rocking.

26:00 I can see that tyre is off the ground.

26:01 I'm going to let off the brake and we'll see what it can do just on its own.

26:04 I can see that rear wheel spinning now.

26:06 I'm going to lightly apply throttle.

26:08 Spinning a little more, but I can feel the traction control biting.

26:12 And then look at that, it pulls us out without any dramas.

26:18 So that is really cool.

26:19 In a lot of dual cab units, you'll need to use your rear diff lock to get out of

26:22 that situation.

26:23 Let's try that once more, this time with the rear differential locked.

26:26 We'll see how that goes.

26:27 Okay, take two.

26:28 This time the rear diff is locked.

26:30 Keep in mind with the MU-X, you have to have the vehicle in low range for the

26:35 rear diff lock to work.

26:36 So I've got that in low range now.

26:38 I'll set it up here on the offset mogul so we have the same situation with the

26:43 two wheels off the ground.

26:43 There it is there, so the car's rocking.

26:45 Now all I'll do is let my foot off the brake again.

26:48 Technically now with the rear diff locked, it should be able to just walk out of

26:51 there without any throttle.

26:52 So we'll see what happens.

26:53 Foot is coming off the brake.

26:55 And look at that, piece of cake.

26:57 So when the rear diff is locked, it's splitting torque 50/50 between the rear

27:01 wheels on that rear axle.

27:03 Then you can see as well, it's like a Christmas tree here in front of me because

27:06 it disables traction control, ABS, stability control.

27:10 All of those features are gone so that you can actually just progress without any

27:14 electronic intervention.

27:15 So as an off-roader, the MU-X has pretty much impressed me because this is a

27:20 family SUV that if you do find yourself heading towards your favourite campsite

27:24 with the kids, you just press a few of these buttons and all of a sudden you can

27:27 go do some pretty sort of decent off-roading before you start needing new tyres and

27:33 sort of proper off-road equipment.

27:35 Isuzu MU-X, I reckon they have done a ripper job with this machine.

27:38 It's a huge leap forward over the previous gen and that wasn't too hard to do given

27:42 how old the previous generation was, but I think they've tinkered in the right

27:45 places.

27:46 It's got all the latest tech, it's nice and fun to drive, it's got a punchy

27:49 engine and if you do have a family, it's like the perfect chariot for heading off

27:53 into the sunset, going doing a bit of light off-roading and that sort of stuff.

27:57 And in terms of off-roading, now with the kit that they have in it, it does

28:00 virtually everything that you'll probably need to do.

28:02 If you do want to go that one step further, it's not that hard to accessorise

28:05 it with off-road equipment.

28:07 In fact, I'd love to see Isuzu do a factory off-road version that's backed by

28:10 warranty and that kind of thing.

28:12 I think that would certainly broaden the appeal.

28:14 But it's the price that I've got kind of an issue with.

28:16 It is a big step up from the previous gen and yes, you get a whole lot more

28:20 equipment, but my concern is next year when the Everest arrives, I mentioned

28:24 that earlier, they're going to be packing that thing with a lot of new

28:26 technology and V6 diesel as well.

28:29 That's going to make this feel obsolete pretty quickly.

28:31 It competes really well at the moment in terms of the price, but when Ford

28:35 expands that offering, this could get a little expensive and perhaps not such

28:38 good value for money.

28:39 But let me know what you think in the comments section below.

28:42 Have you ordered one?

28:43 I know Isuzu often does drive away pricing, so the retail price probably

28:47 isn't realistic.

28:48 But let me know what you think down there and do you reckon they should do a

28:50 factory off-road version?

28:52 Would that sort of get you into one of these over just a standard one?

28:55 I'm really keen for your feedback.

28:56 If you did enjoy this video, please make sure you like it and share it with your

29:00 mates.

29:00 That way it gets seen a lot more often.

29:02 And if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the

29:05 bell icon so you can find out every single time we drive something new.

29:08 But until next time, take it easy.

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