2020 Isuzu MU-X review: 7 seat SUV, 3000kg towing, plus live surround sound!

CarExpert

The 2020 Isuzu MU-X offers seven seats, plus a 3000kg towing capacity. But, it's about to be replaced by the all-new MU-X. Should you be adding the Isuzu MU-X to your shopping list? Paul Maric finds out!  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior: 00:49 Interior: 02:38 Infotainment: 04:09 Features: 05:17  Practicality: 06:25 On the Road: 11:14 Verdict: 15:01  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! #isuzu #review #mux  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  @isuzuute

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. The Isuzu MU-X, it's kind of a Swiss Army knife of SUVs. It tows, it goes off-road,

00:07 and it transports seven people. But it's getting a little bit old now. There's a new one coming,

00:11 we haven't seen it yet. So is this one worth buying, the current generation? This is the

00:16 top specification LST model. It's priced at just over $57,000. It competes with cars like the Ford

00:23 Everest, the Toyota Fortuna, the Mitsubishi Pajero Sport. Today we're going to do a detailed

00:28 everyday driving review. We're not going to do any off-roading or towing. This will just be what

00:32 this car is like to live with day to day. If you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this review,

00:37 use the time codes on the screen there, or if you're on YouTube, use the chapters below. And

00:41 if you haven't done so already, I'd love it if you could hit subscribe and also press the bell icon,

00:45 because that's going to tell you every single time we publish a new review.

00:48 Let's talk exterior. So you've got seven colors to choose from, and all but white is an extra $500.

00:55 What about the styling? Looks pretty good, I reckon. It's nice and aggressive. There's a

00:58 whole stack of chrome there, which makes it stand out a little bit. But here's some interesting

01:03 facts for off-roading. 230 millimeters of ground clearance. That's the height you can reach before

01:08 you hit something under it. If you do hit something under it, this has a 2mm steel plate protecting the

01:14 front end of the car. It is pretty impressive compared to some of the competitors in this

01:18 segment. The approach angle is 24 degrees. Departure angle is 25.1 degrees. So it is a

01:24 certified off-roader in that sense. Full LED headlights with LED daytime running lights.

01:29 They look pretty good. Fog lights. Front and rear parking sensors. And let's jump around here to the

01:34 wheels. You've got 18-inch alloy wheels, and you can see some of that protection over here for the

01:39 car's components. This is what's going to make this good and rugged off-road. I love the design

01:43 of the wheels. Nice reflective chrome there against the black, so they look really cool.

01:47 300 millimeter discs at the front, and then unlike the D-MAX, which is the ute that this is based on,

01:53 the rear has disc brakes as well. 318 millimeters in size. So you get proper stopping power,

01:58 and the rear also has coil spring suspension instead of leaf springs. Let's have a look at

02:02 the rest of the car. Good sidesteps here. Can they hold my weight? Just. Pretty impressive.

02:07 Chrome wing mirrors. You get roof rails. Privacy glass over here. LED tail lights. You've got a

02:14 sort of spoiler-type thing on the rear. Shark fin antenna. And then 3,000 kilo towing capacity.

02:20 Keep in mind as well, this has a 300 kilogram down ball weight. A lot of people that buy this car

02:25 are going to do a lot of towing, so it is important to have a down ball weight that is around 10%

02:29 of your maximum braked towing capacity. Let's talk interior. It is basic. The definition of,

02:37 but that's a good thing, because this is a rugged, a rough-and-tumble SUV. So there's a lot of hard

02:42 surfaces around the place, and it just does what it says on the box. They try and break up all the

02:47 black with this silver-colored varnish around the sides, and then this is kind of old school. This

02:53 was in the original Holden Colorado, and that then got updated with a brand new section down the

02:58 bottom. So this is now a couple of generations old. There is a new MU-X coming. The new D-MAX

03:03 was released late last year, and that means an MU-X will follow. We haven't seen it yet,

03:08 so this is about as modern as it gets. How hard are these surfaces, though? We actually have a

03:13 tool to test that. It is called a hardness tester. We joke because, you know, only motoring journalists

03:18 care about how soft a soft-touch material is, but we've got a tool that does it now. It measures

03:22 from 0 to 100, where 0 is soft and 100 is hard. So let's give this a crack on the dashboard up

03:27 the top here. Wow, that's pretty much maxing it out there, 98.5. Now this surface here is softer.

03:35 Let's give that a shot. Okay, that's really soft in there. And what about the center armrest?

03:40 We'll try that as well. That's pretty soft too. So anyway, that's just a bit of fun,

03:45 but it gives you an idea of the different surfaces they have here across the car.

03:48 What about build quality? Well, it all actually feels pretty good. We've driven a fair few of

03:53 these, the D-MAXs and the MU-Xs. You'll get stuff like that. It's a really wonky center console lid,

04:00 but for the most part, it feels really good. Let's talk about infotainment. It's going to be a short

04:05 discussion because this infotainment system is pretty poor. It's an 8-inch screen, and it looks

04:10 good on the face of it, but there is really nothing going on here. There's no Apple CarPlay,

04:15 no Android Auto, no voice recognition. It is super, super basic, but I'll quickly walk you

04:19 through it. This is the home screen. You have shortcut buttons down the bottom to skip between

04:23 songs. Back, home, you've got a slot under here for the memory card for the map system,

04:30 and then volume up and down. In the media menu, you have AM/FM, you have a disc player, USB,

04:36 iPod, auxiliary. You can stream Bluetooth audio and then HDMI. On the navigation menu,

04:42 the navigation system is reasonable. It's pretty quick, does everything that it needs to do.

04:46 Nothing too fancy, but it is a good thing if you are stuck in the middle of nowhere.

04:50 Phone menu for your Bluetooth connectivity. You can manually dial numbers or dial contacts.

04:54 You can switch the display off entirely if you want it to be dark. And then finally,

04:58 you have settings menu for the car and also an eco menu. Don't know what it does or what

05:03 it's for, just shows you fuel economy and your history. It really is pretty basic and sometimes

05:09 doesn't like the button pushes. Enough of that infotainment, let's look at the rest of the

05:12 features you get in the Isuzu MU-X. So single zone automatic climate control, but you do have

05:18 blowers for the second row. You can activate those by pressing this just here. No automatic

05:23 headlights, no automatic wipers, no automatic rear vision mirror. There really isn't a great

05:29 deal to talk about here, but you do get an eight speaker stereo with live surround sound speakers

05:35 built into the roof. Kind of pointless, but kind of cool at the same time. You also get three USB

05:40 ports, three 12 volt outlets, and two of those USB ports are 2.1 amps for fast charging. And then

05:45 really, I mean, what else have we got? Electric windows, electric mirrors, they fold. Really

05:52 isn't a great deal going on here. Leather ribbed seats for your comfort. And that's about it. Oh,

05:59 yeah, the key. Almost forgot about that. This is what it looks like. Isuzu down the bottom there,

06:04 lock, unlock, and nothing on the back. It's a proximity sensing key, so you just leave it in

06:08 your pocket, grab the door handle, and then once you hop in, you hit the push button start.

06:12 Okay, practicality. This is a family car. How practical is it? How much storage do you have?

06:17 Let's start off with the phone. Easily fits in there and you can pretty much squeeze it down

06:22 the front here. Obviously, no wireless phone charging. Why would it have wireless phone

06:26 charging? Bottle storage fits in both of those slots and then inside the door you can store a

06:32 bottle as well. If you want to put your bottle somewhere else, you can pop it in front of the

06:36 air vent there to keep it cool or warm. There are 12 cup holders in total in this car. That's

06:41 pretty impressive. Have a look down here. You've got another tray, then you've got another hidey

06:45 hole, a really decent sized center console, and then you have, watch this, glove box down here.

06:52 Not very big once you put the manual in there, but you've got another slot in here with a 12

06:58 volt outlet and then this roof one which is almost impossible to open. You kind of have to

07:04 ask nicely and be patient with it. Actually, hold on, let's do this undetermined now.

07:10 You have to push it down while lifting it. It's virtually impossible. And then you can

07:15 fit like a wallet or something in there and then sunglass storage as well. So as a family car,

07:20 this has plenty of storage space. The steering wheel sits nicely in the hand. I wish there

07:25 was some reach adjustment. You can only go up and down. You can't go in and out,

07:28 but the seat itself is really comfortable and I don't know, it's just a good place to be seated.

07:33 Okay, backseat. If you've got a litter of kids, where are they all going to sit? Are they going

07:37 to be comfortable? Well, here as an adult, I've got pretty reasonable knee room. Toe room's a

07:42 little bit compromised, but you've got to remember that this is based on a dual cab ute. So the fact

07:47 that I have this much accommodation is actually pretty impressive. The seats are really comfy as

07:51 well. So, map pockets in the back of the seat. You have a USB outlet here. What about drink

07:58 storage? You've got a center armrest that you can lean on and that's got two cup holders in it. And

08:03 then inside the door, you can slide a bottle in as well. Now, this is the curious thing about this

08:08 car. You can actually fit three child seats abreast here. You've got top tether points across

08:13 the back of them, two ISOFIX slots on each of the outboard seats and then a single ISOFIX slot in

08:20 the center. And have a look at this. It's like an A380 up here. You've got vents to keep you cool.

08:26 You have independent cooling controls for the second and third row that are controlled by

08:30 mum and dad up the front there. You have your own lighting, but you have this, a 10.2-inch

08:34 DVD screen that flips down. It is literally like an airplane here. That is really cool. You can

08:40 recline the seat if you need to. There's a little control here that allows that to come forwards

08:44 and backwards. But I think it's time to jump into the third row. Can you actually fit an adult back

08:50 there? Before I do that, let me show you how you get the second row out of the way. It's a pretty

08:54 clever system. You pull the top here. It then rolls and tumbles forward. There's also a grab

09:00 handle in here for the kids. And then getting the third row up is pretty straightforward.

09:04 You just lift this and it folds up. Same story on this side. A little bit tricky to do from this

09:10 end, but that's how you move it out of the way. Now, can an adult fit? Let's give this a shot.

09:15 Okay. So, so far so good. I actually feel nice and comfortable here. I'll pop this down.

09:24 Okay. Igor, can I get you to help me with this? Thank you. Okay. So you're going to need mum or

09:33 dad to help kids into the back here. Okay. Look, it's not going to be perfect for adults, but my

09:39 toe room's compromised. If I go sort of side saddle here, I can fit in. Then there's another

09:46 two cup holders there, and then a storage nook just there. I've got my own air vents here as well.

09:51 And then a little bit of storage in the middle. Look, it's okay. It's not terrible, but it's not

09:57 amazing. The kids are going to be perfectly fine here. As an adult, I've got more than enough

10:01 headroom, but I am compromised on knee room and a little bit of toe room. Let's talk cargo space.

10:06 It's pretty impressive actually. Okay. This isn't though. I keep my head on this every single time

10:14 I open it. It just doesn't sit high enough. I'm not massively tall, but that is super low for my

10:18 liking. Okay. So here you have a little over 200 litres of cargo space. Then you have a little

10:23 storage nook under here, plus a 12 volt outlet and then hooks on the side. This is where your

10:28 jack lives just under there. And if you drop the third row, which is pretty straightforward, you

10:34 just push that down just like that. You have just under 900 litres of cargo space available. And

10:40 then you can increase that space to a little under 1900 litres. Let's see what it looks like with the

10:45 bags in there. Throw that in. There you go. So it is a pretty high boot floor with this box thing

10:52 that aims to level out the floor with that third row. So it is a big space. It's just slightly

10:57 cumbersome with a super, super low tailgate. So we're driving the MU-X. What is powering this

11:06 beast of a car? So it is a three litre turbocharged diesel engine. It's a four cylinder and it

11:12 produces 130 kilowatts of power and 430 newton metres of torque. It sends all that torque through

11:18 a six speed automatic gearbox. And it is a little bit noisy. You can hear it here as I lean on the

11:24 throttle. It has more sound deadening than the D-MAX, the ute that this is based on, but it is

11:30 still pretty noisy when you're on the throttle. You can hear it quite clearly inside the cabin

11:33 and it's even noisier when you're outside the car. But it is pretty efficient. 7.9 litres per 100

11:40 kilometres is the official combined fuel economy. In reality, we're using around 9.4 litres per 100

11:46 kilometres. So it's not quite that efficient in real life. The good thing with the MU-X is the

11:52 warranty that Isuzu offers. So it's a six year warranty. You get cap price servicing as well

11:56 with roadside assistance. So it is a pretty comprehensive package and that is better than

12:01 the other ute based SUVs on the market. Aside from Mitsubishi, they sometimes do a seven year

12:06 warranty, but Isuzu is just a permanent six year offering. The other impressive part is if you're

12:11 doing a lot of camping, maybe you're driving across Australia, often people have things

12:15 like portable fridges and other camping utilities that they use. This has a 120 amp alternator.

12:22 And that means that if you do plug in things like fridges, it's not going to kill the car

12:26 unnecessarily. Let's talk about the ride. It's actually really impressive. It's pretty good in

12:31 the D-MAX, but it's even better here. So go onto the leaf springs and they use coil springs with

12:37 a damper as well. Really just smooths it out nicely. And it means that when you're towing,

12:41 you don't really get the car bouncing around too much. It's really nice and steady. And I think

12:46 this is one of the better riding SUVs in this ute based SUV segment. How punchy is this engine?

12:52 Well, let's give it a little kick here. It's not too bad. 430 Newton metres of torque is adequate

12:59 punch. The gearbox isn't lightning fast, but it's quick enough for what you need. And it comes with

13:04 grade logic, which is an ability for it to dive back through gears as you're going downhill.

13:08 That's especially handy if you're towing, because it means you're not going to cook your brakes as

13:12 you're going down a big mountain pass, for example. Let's talk about drive modes. There

13:16 aren't really any drive modes here, but there is an ability to switch between two-wheel drive and

13:20 four-wheel drive. So the car predominantly just sits in a two-wheel drive high range mode, which

13:25 is rear-wheel drive in the MU-X. You can then flick it over to four high up to around 100km/h

13:31 and it will switch on the fly. But keep in mind that you shouldn't use four-wheel drive high

13:36 range on a sealed surface. If you use it on something like a tarmac that isn't a slippy

13:40 surface like gravel or grass, you're going to bind up the transmission and that's going to cause

13:45 issues down the track. Same story with low range. You need to come to a complete stop for that and

13:50 you can't use that on a sealed surface. It doesn't have a rear differential lock, so it does mean

13:55 that if you are doing any off-roading, you will be compromised a little bit there. A lot of people

13:59 fit a rear differential lock to these as an aftermarket addition, and that's probably worth

14:03 considering if you are going to be doing off-road driving or any trekking off-road while you go on

14:08 your travels. Let's talk steering quickly. It's not amazing. Yes, I understand this isn't a sports

14:13 car, but it's a hydraulically-assisted steering rack. Isuzu hasn't moved to an e-pass system,

14:18 which is the electrically-assisted power steering, and that means that it can be quite heavy at low

14:23 speeds. When it comes time to park, you have to put a little bit of extra effort in to get the

14:27 steering moving. What about visibility? Out the front, it's excellent. It's quite a high

14:30 seating position. It's quite a commanding view over the road. Out the side, you get big wing

14:34 mirrors, so you can clearly see down the side of the car. That's coupled with a blind spot monitor.

14:39 Visibility at the rear is really good as well, so that window is nice and big. This is exactly what

14:44 you need from an SUV like this. You don't want to feel like you're having to look through portholes

14:47 just to see where you're going. So, Isuzu MU-X, it is off-road capable. It'll seat seven, and I

14:53 don't know, it's just no frills. It does the job. If you're not big on brands and you don't need all

14:57 the bells and whistles, this really is just a trusty and dependable SUV. It is getting really

15:02 old, and there is a new one coming, which is why I think now's a good time to try and get a deal,

15:06 because they're going to be doing run-out pricing, and I think there's probably going to be a few of

15:10 them floating around. So, if you have your heart set on doing a trip around Australia or going on

15:14 a long drive, I reckon this could be the SUV for you. It is let down by a lack of safety features,

15:20 no auto headlights, no auto wipers, bizarre stuff like that, but for the most part, it does

15:25 everything that it says it does on the box. Now, let me know in the comments below, did you buy one

15:29 of these? How's it been in terms of longevity and reliability? We did our D-MAX review recently,

15:34 and a lot of you said that that car has been extremely reliable. So, let us know in the

15:38 comments below if you bought one. What do you think of it? If you did enjoy this review, I'd

15:41 love it if you could hit the like button, and also press subscribe and the bell icon. That's

15:45 going to tell you every single time we publish a new review, but until next time, take it easy.

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