2021 Isuzu D-Max review: On-road, off-road & detailed tech test!

CarExpert

The all-new 2021 Isuzu D-Max is finally here! It's one of the most anticipated ute/bakkie/pickup truck launches of this year and we've finally had a chance to get behind the wheel to have a drive. Paul Maric reviews the 2021 Isuzu D-Max X-Terrain, which is the top-specification Isuzu D-Max on sale. Is the new D-Max good? Watch and find out!  Hardness tester results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE  Read the full review: https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-reviews/2021-isuzu-d-max-x-terrain-review/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=review&utm_term=&utm_content=&utm_campaign=single-car-review  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior: 00:49 Interior: 03:54 Infotainment: 05:20 Safety Tech: 06:42 Practicality: 07:09 On-road: 11:24 Off-road: 14:53 Verdict: 17:31  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 #dmax @isuzuute @isuzuutesnz

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. Behind me is the new Isuzu D-MAX. I reckon this is the most anticipated

00:05 ute, pickup truck, backy, whatever you want to call it, launch of this year. The old one

00:10 lacked so much technology, but Isuzu has addressed all of that. And today we want to figure out

00:15 whether it's worth spending your hard-earned bucks on. This is the top specification D-MAX

00:21 X-Terrain. Pretty cool name. It's priced at just under $63,000, and it competes with cars

00:27 like the Mitsubishi Triton, Toyota Hilux, Ford Ranger, all of those cars in that segment.

00:32 Today we're going to do a detailed review, plus a little bit of off-roading. If you do

00:36 want to skip ahead to other parts of this review, you can use the time codes up on the

00:39 screen, or if you're on YouTube, just scroll down and use the chapters below. And if you

00:42 haven't done so already, hit subscribe and press the bell icon. That thing will tell

00:46 you every single time we publish a new video.

00:49 Okay, before we go any further, scroll down in the comments and let me know, do you like

00:53 the design? Styling is entirely subjective, but to me, I reckon this thing looks fantastic,

00:59 especially in this sunburnt orange colour. Now, a few people have pointed out here that

01:04 this looks a little bit strange. It's like it's got a double grille, and then you've

01:07 got the Isuzu up the top there instead of here. So, I don't know, let me know what your

01:11 thoughts are on that. So you've got eight colours to choose from, and all but the base

01:14 white is an additional $500. And if we jump down here a little bit further, you'll see

01:19 you have these black highlights. They're like a sort of piano black finish, and then it's

01:23 offset with a different colour. So you really see the difference there between the body

01:27 colours that you can get this in. And there's a really diverse range of cool colours to

01:31 choose from. It's not just a basic boring palette. And over here, bi-LED headlights

01:35 with LED daytime running lights. You've got your fog lights down here, and also the indicator.

01:40 Around the side here, 18-inch alloy wheels. Now, a few people have pointed out that they

01:44 don't love the design of these. Isuzu has listened to that feedback, and they're offering

01:49 additional wheels as accessories, so you don't have to go with this design. I personally

01:53 like it. I think it looks pretty cool. It's kind of like an aero cover. Reminds me of

01:56 my VP Commodore. But yeah, it's a pretty cool looking setup. And then you've got your

02:00 highway terrain tyres. Big bit of clearance there. And also these flared wheel arches

02:04 to make sure everyone knows that you're driving an off-road vehicle.

02:08 Over on our wing mirrors, you have the indicator sleekly built into there. Some side steps.

02:14 The creak when I stand on them. I think I've been eating too much food during lockdown.

02:19 You've got these roof racks. Come around to the back. Actually, before we get to the back,

02:23 have a look at these sailplanes you get on the X-Terrain. Kind of gives it a bit of a

02:27 meaty look. 4x4 sticker on the side, and then come around to the rear. I really like this

02:32 design because they've got LED taillights built into it. A little bit of styling on

02:36 the tray there. Isuzu D-Max badge down there, and then this embossed X-Terrain badge.

02:41 Now, here's some interesting stuff. You've got the camera built into here. You drop the

02:45 tray by pulling that. The X-Terrain comes standard with this roller cover, so this comes

02:49 with a key that you can lock and unlock. To open it, you just push that down. That slides

02:56 out of the way, and it reveals a cargo space that measures just over 1500mm of load length,

03:01 a little over 1500mm of load width, and then 1122mm of width between the wheel arches.

03:07 So it's a nice usable space, but you'll notice there are no power outlets here like you do

03:10 find in some other utes. You do have these hooks on the side, and I love this little

03:14 system here. These pipes take some of the moisture and liquid that you get built up

03:19 in this sailplane, and then the tray here for that roller cover, and then takes them

03:24 away so you're not going to get water sitting there stagnant. It is a little disappointing

03:27 that the tray doesn't actually come with a spring load like the Ford Ranger does,

03:32 so it can be quite heavy to lift, but tradies are big and tough, so that's not a problem.

03:37 A couple of cup holders there as well, and then you've got this handy addition here when

03:41 it comes to closing this. Give that a pull. Locks into place. Down here, 3.5 tonne towing

03:48 capacity with 350kg of down ball weight. Overall, yeah, I like it. This would look

03:53 nice on a work site. So we're inside the Isuzu D-MAX. Let's start with the keys.

03:58 This is what it looks like. On the front there, you have a special button. I'll explain that

04:01 in a sec. Lock, unlock, and then a blank. On the other side, you have Isuzu. It's a

04:06 proximity sensing key, so you just leave it in your pocket, unlock as you approach the

04:09 car, and then you just hit that start button. Now, this top one is for a remote start feature,

04:13 so if it's stinking hot outside or freezing cold, you can start the car when you're not

04:18 inside it, and it will either warm the car or cool it down, so I like that tech.

04:22 Now, let's talk about styling. I really like what they've done here. So they've taken the

04:26 game forward because they've realised that dual cab utilities like this are used for

04:30 work and also for family purposes, so if you have this, you're likely to be using it for

04:34 both, and that's why they've gone with all this soft touch material around the place.

04:38 This kind of gives it that extra premium feel, and when you're spending this kind of money,

04:43 you feel like you're actually getting value for it. All of these surfaces are soft,

04:46 you've got that fake stitching there, but what about your main touch point? So this is nice

04:49 and soft, and on the door, you have padding on the actual door, but also nicely padded on your

04:54 armrest, so if you're going to be doing a lot of driving, that feels nice, and the steering wheel

04:57 feels really nice in the hand as well. I've also tested the surfaces with our

05:01 gyrometer. If you want to see how this car compares to other cars, just check out the

05:04 link in the description below. Now, what about build quality? Well,

05:07 for the most part, it feels pretty good. I did my standard flex test. There's a bit of flex in

05:11 that, same with this centre console, it sort of moves around a bit, but outside of that,

05:14 everything feels really nice and solid, and I think for a dual cab utility like this,

05:18 it all needs to be nice and sturdy. Let's talk infotainment. So this is the centrepiece

05:23 to Isuzu's interior. It's a 9-inch infotainment system. Now, we have already done a detailed

05:29 review of this, so if you want to see it in a whole lot more detail, click on the link up here,

05:33 otherwise today I'm just going to take you through a brief overview. So, very high resolution

05:36 screen, looks nice here. That is your home screen. Audio's off at the moment, but you get AM, FM,

05:41 DAB plus digital radio plus Bluetooth audio streaming. It has in-built satellite navigation.

05:46 Now, this works fairly well. It can be a little bit laggy at times, but aside from that,

05:52 it works pretty decently. But the bit that has me most excited is the other in-built feature here,

05:57 which is smartphone mirroring, but this is the only ute in the segment that does

06:02 wireless smartphone mirroring. So if I jump into here, I'll show you what Apple CarPlay

06:05 looks like. Tucks up the entire screen, nice and quick as well, transitions between those displays

06:11 with relative ease. Back here on the home screen, you can configure these to show different things.

06:17 You can see here you've got a compass, a date and time as well. It's a pretty basic infotainment

06:22 system, but it does the job, and I think most people are going to be using this with smartphone

06:25 mirroring. The thing I also like about it is that it comes with voice commands for the in-built

06:30 system, but you can use this for smartphone mirroring as well. So you can send text messages,

06:34 call people and do whatever else you need without taking your eyes off the road.

06:37 Finally, there's an eight-speaker sound system with live surround sound, whatever that means.

06:42 Let's talk safety tech, and there's a fair bit here to get through. So you have autonomous

06:46 emergency braking with cyclist and pedestrian detection. There's also a turn assist function,

06:52 so using a camera that faces forward, if you're at an intersection and about to go and there's a car

06:56 coming, it's going to stop you and prevent you from hitting the car. So that is some really cool

07:01 technology. You've got radar cruise control, a miss acceleration prevention. I think I've said

07:07 that right. That basically stops you from accelerating if you have a wall in front of you.

07:11 You know, if you have a brain fade and you put it into drive instead of reverse, that is the tech

07:15 that will stop you from hitting the wall. You've got driver attention assist, rear cross traffic

07:19 alert and an auto high beam. It's not a matrix LED setup. It is just either on or off. Traffic

07:24 sign recognition and a really interesting new feature that in 2020 you need to get five stars

07:30 in a safety rating, which this car has. It is a center airbag, so you have your full suite of

07:35 standard airbags, but there's an airbag between these seats, and the whole concept is that if you

07:40 are in a side impact, it prevents heads from hitting each other as the car moves around. So

07:45 that inflates down the center here, and this is currently the only ute in the segment that has

07:49 that technology. And finally, a reverse view camera. Let's have a look at what that looks like.

07:53 Look, it's a pretty decent setup. It's not a 360 camera, but you get your guidelines and the

07:58 quality seems to be pretty good as well. Okay, let's talk practicality, and we'll start down

08:02 here with dual zone climate controls. I love these switches too. They're really nice to touch,

08:07 and it just looks like a quite a high-end installation there with that LCD display.

08:11 USB port, auxiliary outlet, 12 volt as well, and then let's have a look at storage. So, phone.

08:18 It'll sit down the front there. No wireless phone charging, but there are plenty of spaces to put

08:24 your phone, which is good. In terms of bottle storage, one at the front there, one at the back

08:28 for slightly bigger bottles, and then also door storage. It's in a console. That's pretty decent.

08:34 I'll show you how deep that is. It'll fit almost an entire bottle. Glovebox. See, there you go.

08:40 With the manual in there, you literally can't fit anything else, which is a bit disappointing,

08:44 but directly above that, you have this little hidey hole. Let me see if that's got an air

08:48 conditioning outlet. No, it doesn't, but it will easily fit the bottle, and my Suzu has been

08:54 listening. Check this out. Up the top, watch this. It opens normally. The old one, it was almost

09:01 impossible to open that lid. You needed to push it and pull it at the same time, whereas that just

09:06 works well. You can put a wallet and other bits and pieces in there. There's also a sunglasses

09:10 holder, and then just near the driver's knee, you have another little storage nook. I do like the

09:15 fact that you can put bottles in front of the air vents, and that means you can have cooling or

09:21 heating if you've got a coffee in there. Really is quite a practical interior. Let's cap it off

09:26 with comfort, and I love the look of these seats. They are big. They've got big side bolsters,

09:31 and they look cool with the perforations. Most importantly, they are extremely comfortable.

09:36 It just feels really nice, and it hugs you in and just makes you want to go for a drive.

09:42 The driver's seat is electrically adjustable, but the passenger's seat is manually adjustable.

09:46 The steering wheel has reach and tilt adjustment, which is new. You were never able to get that

09:51 reach adjustment. And then in terms of the controls, everything's super easy to access

09:55 and all within easy reach. Before I show you the back seat, let's have a look at some practicality.

10:01 So you can move this out of the way. You have storage under floor as well, but the cool thing

10:07 is you can lock this in. So if you clip that into there, that means you have a fairly flat floor to

10:13 load things in if you don't want to get your seats dirty. And then this seat goes up as well,

10:18 and you have storage under there too. So you can hide valuables and other odds and ends in position.

10:24 Now, if you do want to have kids in the second row, you have ISOFIX on the two outboard seats,

10:28 but you also have two top tether points. So give this a pull, and they get revealed over here.

10:33 They slide through here and attach to that common centre point. You can see the jack in there.

10:37 Let me jump in. Grab handles. Okay, let's talk legroom. I actually have a pretty decent amount

10:48 of knee room there. Toe room isn't fantastic, but outside of that, I feel really comfortable.

10:53 Good visibility out the windows too, and decent amount of headroom as well.

10:56 There's a centre armrest here, two cup holders. Fits our bottle in nicely, and then you have

11:03 bottle storage inside the door as well. Only storage room for a bottle. There's no other

11:08 sort of room either side there. Air vents in the second row, plus a USB outlet. Not sure what this

11:15 is. Maybe a coin pouch or spot for your diaries. Four kilogram hook, mat pockets, and a really

11:23 comfortable place to be seated. So we've hit the road in the D-MAX. Powering the all-new D-MAX is a

11:30 three litre turbocharged four-cylinder diesel engine. Makes 140 kilowatts of power and 450

11:36 newton metres of torque. Now it is worth keeping in mind that this is a new engine, but it has

11:41 similar characteristics to the outgoing D-MAX, and that's a good thing because this car is known for

11:45 its reliability, and hopefully they've been able to retain that in this brand new platform.

11:50 It is a little bit down on some of its competitors in the segment though. Cars like the Ford Ranger,

11:54 the new Toyota Hilux are all pumping out 500 newton metres of torque now, so 450 is a little

11:59 bit down, but not a huge amount. It's all mated to a six-speed automatic transmission here in the

12:05 X-train. You can't get a manual, but on other variants of the D-MAX you can get a six-speed

12:10 manual transmission. Now what does all that feel like? Well let me give it a punch here.

12:14 It's actually pretty impressive. If you punch it off the line, it gets a little bit of wheel spin,

12:19 so it has all that torque down low, and that means that you can rely on it to pick up and go

12:24 even while you are moving. It'll be interesting to see what this is like when we do a bit of

12:28 towing with it, because I think that'll be the ultimate letdown of having a little bit less

12:32 torque, but when you're out on the road here it deals with it. Well the gearbox is also really

12:36 good. It's sort of ready to rifle back through the gears when required, but it's not fussy,

12:41 and it's not slow, which is important. It's actually pretty impressive. In front of the

12:46 driver you have a 4.2-inch display that shows your trip computer, some four-wheel drive information,

12:52 along with the car's safety systems. Now there's no official 0-100km/h number,

12:57 but I want to show you what it looks like, so here it is.

13:11 Official fuel economy comes in at 8 litres per 100km. We're currently sitting on

13:16 9, so it's pretty close to that official claim with a mix of city, highway and country driving.

13:21 Now before I fill you in on the ride, let me run you through some of the features here. So radar

13:25 cruise control works pretty well. It has a semi-autonomous steering function, so it kind of

13:29 steers the car in its lane as it goes around mild corners. That also comes with a lane-keeping

13:34 assistant. Look, it works okay, it just sometimes comes out of its lane when you're expecting it

13:39 not to, so I think there's probably a little bit of refinement still yet to be done there.

13:43 In terms of the ride, I think this is probably the part they've worked on the hardest. So it

13:46 retains that leaf spring rear suspension setup, but they've completely smoothed it out, and I'd

13:52 argue that it is probably one of the best riding utes in this segment now. It soaks up bumps

13:56 beautifully, and in and around town it really doesn't feel like you're driving a dual-cab ute,

14:01 which is often the problem with these things. They throw you about everywhere. It's not quite

14:04 as smooth as something like a Ranger Raptor, but it is really commendable with what they've done

14:09 here. Let's talk steering feel. This is the other big major change to D-MAX. It's gone from a

14:13 hydraulically-assisted steering rack to EPAS, which is an electrically-assisted power steering

14:18 system. It's quite light, probably one of the lightest cars in this segment in terms of the

14:23 steering, so I'm able to basically flick that wheel around with no effort at all. So that's good

14:28 because it means parking's easy and that kind of thing, but it doesn't really have any meat to it

14:33 like something like, you know, the Ford Ranger does. It makes you feel like you're actually

14:36 putting in some hard yakka. And in terms of visibility, visibility out the front is great,

14:41 rearward visibility is good, side visibility is excellent, these wing mirrors are huge,

14:45 you have your blind spot monitor built into that as well, and I just feel quite confident driving

14:50 the car. It doesn't feel overly big on the road. Righto, let's talk about the four-wheel

14:55 driving specs here in the D-MAX. Now, here's a caveat. We're not going to be doing any towing

14:59 or load hauling today, but I thought we could do just a bit of light off-roading so you can see

15:03 exactly how the D-MAX works. So let's talk about the four-wheel drive specs. 30.5 degree approach

15:08 angle, so that's the angle of the face you can attack before you hit anything, and a 24.2 degree

15:14 departure angle, 240 millimetres of ground clearance and 800 millimetres of wading depth,

15:19 so that's up there with the best in the segment. So this is our first obstacle, so we're in too

15:23 high at the moment. We also have four-wheel drive high range, four-wheel drive low range.

15:28 We're going to test all of these out, plus finally a rear differential locker standard

15:31 and a hill descent control. So first up, let's go to four low. I'll also engage the rear differential

15:37 lock. Okay, and that is ready to go. So you can see there the display changes with each of the

15:41 four-wheel drive modes we use. Come up to our logs here, just approach slowly. This all feels

15:48 pretty straightforward. Like, you probably don't need four low for this. Four high is going to be

15:52 sufficient, but I feel like I have complete control here. The revs are nice and low, but I have plenty

15:57 of torque, which means it's getting me up here without any dramas, and lots of feel through the

16:01 steering. It's not kicking or bucking or doing anything too weird, so that is impressive. What

16:06 we'll do now is switch this to four high. So I'll just give that lever a flick. Okay, we are in

16:12 four-wheel drive high range now. So we're going to test out the ground clearance now, and that is by

16:17 virtue of these rocks that we have here. So the underbody protection on this car is pretty brutal,

16:22 and it's going to protect us when it comes time to climb over some of these sharper rocks,

16:28 which can hit the underbody. I can hear one just there. It's not too big of a deal,

16:33 but if you drop the car onto them, you can do some serious damage. This is crawling over them

16:37 nicely. The brake pedal is nice and responsive too. I find with the Prado, for example, it's just

16:42 too sensitive, and you find that you keep lurching backwards and forwards, whereas this is pretty

16:46 good. I've also got a hill descent control, so I'll engage that now by pushing and holding this,

16:52 and just let go of the brake. So it's taking care of all the downhill stuff for me now too.

16:56 But it's pretty impressive, all carefree. There's no drive modes outside of your four-wheel drive

17:02 modes to pick from, but it does everything you need it to do. Okay, so let's have a look at

17:05 wading depth. I've got a little riverbed here that we can drive down. We'll see how it copes

17:10 with a little bit of water. So 800 millimeters. The good thing about that is you're not going to

17:15 flood the car all that easily. If you are serious about four-wheel driving, you'll probably need

17:19 a snorkel, but 800 millimeters is more than enough, even for this sort of little river crossing here.

17:24 It just gives you that knowledge that you're not going to damage anything as you drive along.

17:29 It's fairly effortless here as well. I'm a big fan of this ute. Isuzu has done such a good job

17:34 fixing all of the issues we had with the last generation. Will the engine stand the test of

17:39 time though? Because reliability is what Isuzus are all about. So if this still has the reliability,

17:45 I really can't see any reason you'd be buying something else over this. If the pricing is a

17:49 little bit scary, don't worry too much. In Australia, at the very least, they do drive

17:52 away pricing that is significantly cheaper, so you can actually pick this up for a decent price.

17:57 So look, big fan of it. I'm keen to see how it stacks up against the competitors. So we're

18:01 looking forward to doing some back-to-back testing. But in the interim, let me know in

18:04 the comments below, what do you think about this? Do you think they've done enough? Is anything

18:08 missing? What is stopping you from test driving one? Let me know what your thoughts are. And if

18:13 you haven't done so already, I'd love it if you could hit the like button if you enjoyed this

18:16 video, share it with your friends, hit subscribe and also the bell icon, because that's going to

18:20 tell you every single time we publish a new car review. But until next time, take it easy.

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