2023 Isuzu MU-X (inc. 0-100 & autonomy test) review: 7 seat SUV

CarExpert

Isuzu has given the MU-X the world's smallest facelift...so we thought we should have another drive of this 7 seat SUV! Paul Maric drives the 2023 Isuzu MU-X LS-T 4x4  Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping 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  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior: 00:50 Interior: 03:49 Infotainment: 05:38 Safety Tech: 06:47 Practicality: 08:03 On the Road: 12:58 Driver Aids: 18:00 Performance: 20:02 Off the Road: 22:02 Verdict: 29:27  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 #mux #review

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. Isuzu, they have just facelifted the MU-X. Well, a very minor facelift. So,

00:06 today I'm going to run you through the changes, give you an idea of what to expect if you go in

00:10 to buy one of these. This is the top specification Isuzu MU-X LST. This is the 4x4 version. This is

00:17 priced at a little over $67,000. If that's too expensive, the entire range kicks off at just

00:23 under 50 grand. This competes with things like the new Ford Everest, the Mitsubishi Pajero Sport,

00:29 the Toyota Fortuna. Today, we're going to do a detailed review of this along with some light

00:34 off-roading as well. If you do want to skip ahead to other parts of the video, you can use the time

00:38 codes on the screen, or if you're on YouTube, you can scroll down and use the chapters below.

00:41 If you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon,

00:44 so you can find out every single time we drive a car with a new color.

00:48 So, you've got eight different colors to pick from. All But White is going to set you back $650.

00:55 This one is a new one. I actually quite like this color. So, what exactly has changed? So,

01:00 the grille has changed a little bit, so it looks slightly different to the outgoing version.

01:05 There's also some sort of shaded-in shadow elements around the car as well. You'll notice

01:11 that on the rear lights too, but outside of that, it looks pretty much the same. Isuzu logo here,

01:16 and then cooling for the engine here with those open gaps and parking sensors down the front there.

01:21 In terms of the headlights, full LED headlights with LED daytime running light. You also have

01:25 an LED fog light down the bottom there as well, and those surrounds around that fog light have

01:30 changed too. Around the side here, you've got a new set of 20-inch alloy wheels, so the design

01:36 has changed. You've got that sort of machined finish on the outside and a graphite finish on

01:40 the inside there as well. Outside of that, it's pretty much the same. So, sitting on highway

01:45 terrain tyres, it will be interesting to see how this goes on our off-road course. The Evora

01:49 struggled a little bit getting up our hill on the highway terrain tyres that it has, so we'll see

01:54 how it goes here with the MU-X. Up the top here, you have an indicator built into the wing mirror.

01:58 Still no 360 camera, so it's bare down the bottom there. The colour of this has changed as well,

02:03 so it has that sort of shadow finish on it too, but sort of feels a little bit sort of flimsy on

02:09 the side there. And look, if you are going to be doing any serious off-roading, I'd be replacing

02:13 these because one whack with some rocks and that will dent pretty easily, and it's the same story

02:17 with Pajero Sport and Everest as well. They have the same sort of pretty basic sidestep there,

02:23 so I'd be changing that if you're going to do anything too serious. This up the top here has

02:27 changed as well, the roof rail. You have privacy glass and then whip around to the rear. So,

02:31 around the back here, LED taillights or part LED taillights. Still incandescent globes in there,

02:37 unfortunately, but this whole section here has a bit of a smoky finish to it, so as you are

02:43 approaching this, you can notice that. And I actually think it looks way better that way.

02:46 Kind of gives it a bit of an aggressive look, especially here with the darker paint colours as

02:50 well. 3TD for the engine. Now, there is something interesting in here as well. So, it's part of the

02:55 facelift here with D-MAX and also MU-X. They've integrated a sensor within here that's going to

03:01 allow this to do a disability of some of the safety systems if you do have a trailer attached.

03:07 So, that is a handy feature because you don't want to have all your buzzers and alerts going off

03:13 with this thinking that you're about to reverse into something when it is just a trailer attached

03:17 to the back of the vehicle. 3.5TD brake to towing capacity, and then you can see those sensors

03:21 integrated along the bottom there as well. Brake light up the top here and then individual Isuzu

03:27 lettering here as well. There is another change here to the tailgate too. If you do approach with

03:31 the key in your pocket and just stand behind it, it'll then open on its own too, which is a handy

03:35 feature. It means if you do have your hands full, you don't need to go looking around for the

03:39 powered tailgate. So, let me know what you think about the changes in the comments section below.

03:44 Do you reckon it's enough? Do you think this is still a good-looking vehicle? Keen for your

03:48 feedback. Let me know down there. So, we're inside the MU-X. We'll start off with the key. At the top

03:53 there, you have the remote start function. Good for switching the car on on hot days to get the

03:57 AC running or cold days to get the heater running. Lock button, unlock, boot. You have a little bit of

04:04 sort of brushed aluminium around there and then Isuzu on the back. It's a proximity sensing key,

04:10 so you can leave that in your pocket. Once you're inside the cabin, you have a push button start up

04:13 the top here. So, in terms of the design, this will all look pretty familiar if you've seen any

04:19 of our other MU-X reviews, and that means you have this soft touch finish along the top of the

04:24 dashboard there with the infotainment system sort of sitting proud in the centre there up the top.

04:29 You have a lot of piano black around here and down the bottom sections. I don't love piano black

04:34 because it is hard to keep clean. It scratches easily as well, even on this sort of fairly new

04:38 car. It is showing signs of wear already. I did think this was interesting. So, this is the top

04:43 spec, the most expensive one you can get in Australia. It has a stack of blank buttons

04:47 around here. So, curious to know what that's for. I think someone may have mentioned that one of

04:52 these can pop out for the brake controller, but you've also got buttons down here that you can

04:57 use for that as well. In fact, the brake controller is fitted down here instead of down here. So,

05:01 yeah, I don't know what you would use these for, but it is missing some of the features that

05:05 this vehicle may have in other markets. Now, in terms of your touch points in the centre here,

05:10 that's nice and soft and soft on the doors as well. How soft is it? We've got our durometer.

05:15 We've tested the main surfaces in this cabin. If you want to see how this car compares to others

05:20 that we've tested before, have a look at the link in the description below. Build quality,

05:23 what's that like? Actually, it doesn't feel too bad. A little bit wonky in the centre there,

05:28 but the rest of this feels pretty good. And our door test.

05:31 It sounds great. Very nice and confident slam. Now, infotainment. So, you have a nine-inch

05:39 colour touchscreen here in the centre. It all works okay. There's sort of no real issues with

05:44 it. It just doesn't feel anywhere near as advanced as what we find in the new Ford Everest, and I

05:49 think that Toyota will update their infotainment system as well to be more of that Lexus style

05:53 they have in some of their other products. It is light years ahead of the Pajero Sport, though,

05:57 because that thing is well and truly dated. You have satellite navigation built into here,

06:01 so you don't have to have a smartphone connected to use your navigation. But if you do want to

06:06 have your smartphone connected, you have both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Apple CarPlay

06:10 is wireless, so you can see here that that all works pretty quickly. Nice and straightforward

06:15 as well. And this is what Android Auto looks like. So, full screen integration again there,

06:21 and nice and quick and easy to use as well. On the radio front, you have AM/FM/DAB digital radio,

06:29 and it's all plumbed through an eight-speaker sound system. Sound system's okay, nothing sort

06:32 of too crash hot. Ahead of the driver, you also have a very small display here that gives you

06:38 your trip computer, fuel, engine temperature and that kind of thing as well. This will give us a

06:43 bit more detail when we go off-roading as well, so I'll show you that stuff when we do actually hit

06:46 the road. On the safety front, you have autonomous emergency braking. It also has a junction assist

06:52 function, so if you try and turn across oncoming traffic, it's going to hit the brakes for you.

06:56 Auto-dimming rear vision mirror. Now, the interesting thing I did notice on the drive

07:00 over here is that when you put this down, it hits the mirror, and I don't remember any other

07:07 MUXs doing that, so I don't know if there's something I'm doing wrong here or something,

07:12 but yeah, I think that is a pretty poor design just there. On the other safety features,

07:18 you have radar cruise control, you have a steering assist function, which we're going to test out

07:23 later on. You have a blind spot monitor built into the wing mirror as well. You have rear

07:27 cross-traffic alert, both front and rear parking sensors, and a reverse view camera. I'll show you

07:32 what that looks like. So there it is there. It's not the best quality in the world. You can kind

07:37 of make out what's on the suitcase, but the bigger issue is that the camera is totally offset, so

07:42 tow bar's over here somewhere, so if you are reversing to attach a trailer, you will find it

07:47 tricky to line that up and get it all sort of in alignment with where it needs to be, so it would

07:51 be good if the actual camera was central to the tailgate so that you can actually line up a

07:55 trailer much easier. And finally, the horn test. Sounds like it belongs on a small car.

08:01 Moving along to practicality, we'll start off with your connectivity. So you've got a 12-volt

08:07 outlet off to the side here. You have one USB port, which is a little bit disappointing. I

08:11 would have thought you'd have more than one, because if you do have Android Auto, if you do

08:15 want to charge your phone, you only have that one option available. Your passenger can't do anything.

08:20 In terms of phone storage, though, you can whack your phone down here or down the bottom there.

08:24 You can also get an accessory wireless phone charger. It's about $400-something that slots

08:29 in down there. In terms of storing other things, coffee cup. So it lives in here, but because it

08:35 sits a little too deep, you can de-lid your small coffee, so you've got to prop it up with some keys

08:40 or something. Water bottle fits into there without any dramas, and because it's a nice deep slot,

08:45 doesn't move around too much. Fits inside the door, too. I do love this feature as well, so you

08:49 can put your bottle in front of the air vents, too, to keep it cool on a hot day. Now, what about

08:55 our big bottle inside the door? Yes, fits in there, no drama. Now, in addition to that, you have a

09:00 little storage slot here just next to the driver's knee. You've got a reasonable centre console there.

09:07 You have two sets of glove boxes, so one down the bottom for the enormous manual. You have another

09:11 one up the top here, and then in addition to that, you also have a sunglasses holder right up the top

09:16 there as well. Now, in your comfort, so you have dual-zone automatic climate control. You have

09:20 heated seats for the front row. Seats are really comfy, too, so for long-distance driving, these

09:26 are fantastic. They have perforations in there as well to keep you nice and cool. You have electric

09:30 seat adjustment for the driver and front passenger, so you can go forwards, backwards. Backrest can go

09:34 forwards, backwards. You can lift the front of the seat, back of the seat, plus lumbar adjustment,

09:38 too. Steering wheel offers both tilts and reach adjustment, and on our reach test, all of this

09:44 stuff is easy to reach while you're driving. Okay, so second row, what's it like? Look,

09:49 knee room's not too bad. Toe room is a little bit cramped. Headroom is okay, but outside of that,

09:55 it is a pretty comfortable place to be seated. You've got map pockets in the back of the seats,

09:59 little hook here for shopping and stuff. You have air vents up the top here. You have two USB-A

10:06 ports down here for charging, plus a little storage nook. You've got ISOFIX points on the

10:10 two outboard seats with three top tether points. Centre armrest here with two cup holders.

10:18 Yeah, it's not a... No, yeah, that's not too bad. It's not a terrible system. You also have

10:25 bottle storage inside the door as well. Now, our window test. Let's see. So it's manual up and down.

10:32 Boom, goes all the way down. Very impressive. Okay, so third row, what's it like for adults?

10:39 Let's give it a shot. So this isn't a slide forward system. It's a sort of fold and tumble,

10:44 and then you climb on in through here. I'll drop this down. Give it a little slam.

10:54 Not strong enough. Egal, can you give me a hand with that, please? Just lifting that up.

10:58 It's much easier from his angle. So in terms of room, I'm actually pretty surprised by this. Have

11:04 a look at this. I have a decent amount of knee room there. Toe room is pretty good as well,

11:08 and headroom is slightly compromised, but as an adult, I would be pretty comfortable sitting in

11:13 here, well, sitting in the third row here for a long distance drive. Got cup holders off to the

11:17 side. I have my own air vents up the top as well. So it is actually a pretty comfortable place to

11:22 be seated. So we'll have a look at the boot because that doesn't look all that big. Maybe

11:26 that is where they've eaten into the space that's available. So you've got power tailgate. I

11:31 mentioned before that if you approach with the key, it'll come up on its own. There it is. So

11:37 I did notice this with the last MU-X that we drove, it doesn't go up very high, and as a result

11:42 of that, you kind of whack your head on that. Now, they say that there's a little over 300 litres of

11:46 cargo space available here with the third row in place, but I think they measure that with every

11:52 skerrick of available space because I just don't see how there's 300 litres available there, even

11:57 with this space beneath the cargo floor. You have a full-size spare under there, and to give you an

12:02 idea of how much space you have in here, that's the laptop bag in there, and then the suitcase

12:08 there, and I don't think that'll close. We'll try a quick shot with the suitcase there. We'll see

12:15 what happens when it finally gets down. Oh, it does close. There you go. So you can actually

12:21 fit a suitcase and a laptop bag in there, which is pretty good. So once this comes back up,

12:26 I'll get the bags out. Now, we can expand the space a little bit more. By the way, there is a

12:32 light and a 12-volt outlet off to the side here. You can expand the space by dropping your third

12:37 row out of the way. That increases the space to a little over 1,100 litres. If you do then want

12:42 the ultimate load space, you drop your second row, which you can lay flat or fold all the way

12:51 forward like that, and then once you've done that, that expands the space to a little over 2,100

12:57 litres. Okay, so we have just hit the road in the MU-X. Powering this 3-litre turbocharged

13:05 four-cylinder diesel engine makes 140 kilowatts of power and 450 newton metres of torque, and

13:10 that's all mated to a six-speed automatic transmission. Unlike the Pajero Sport and the

13:16 Everest, but like the Fortuna, you can only drive this in two-wheel drive high range on sealed

13:23 surfaces and then four-wheel drive high range and low range on unsealed surfaces, so you will get a

13:28 transmission bind with that, so do keep that in mind. How does it all feel behind the wheel? Well,

13:34 look, the gearbox can be a little bit lazy at times, but once you do get stuck into it,

13:40 the 450 newton metres of torque I reckon is a little bit underrated. I think that it is actually

13:45 slightly more than that because it does feel quite punchy and it does feel like it is closer to that

13:49 500 newton metre mark or thereabouts, so behind the wheel it does actually feel energetic, and then

13:54 when you do get stuck into it, once you overcome that sort of gearbox lag, it actually gets up and

13:58 moves pretty quickly. I also like the steering in these. It's really nice and light, so when you are

14:03 parking in and around the city, it makes that whole slow manoeuvring and even the fast manoeuvring

14:08 stuff really straightforward. It's not anywhere near as heavy as the Pajero Sport and the Fortuner,

14:13 so it does feel quite nice here behind the wheel. Now, Isuzu claims a combined fuel economy of

14:17 around 9 litres per 100 k's. We are currently sitting on 9.2, so that is pretty decent there.

14:26 I'm impressed with that. So we have been doing a little bit of highway driving, but for the most

14:30 part that fuel economy is actually right where it needs to be. The other thing worth pointing out at

14:34 this stage as well is that they finally fixed this issue with the lane keeping assistant, because you

14:41 used to have to stop the car, go through all these menus and faff about. Now you can just push and

14:45 hold the steering wheel button here, and you'll see down the bottom there it engages and disengages

14:50 the lane keeping assistant, and like I mentioned before, when you are towing it also disables any

14:55 other aids that are going to interfere with towing, such as your rear cross traffic alert and

15:00 also the rear parking sensors when you do have a trailer attached. Now you don't have any on-road

15:05 drive modes, but what we'll do is we'll go for a little fang around our track, see how dynamic

15:12 this is. Now I understand this is not a sports car, which is perfectly fine. Oh, that is a lot

15:18 of body roll and a lot of stability control intervention. Yeah, okay. We have mentioned

15:25 previously with D-MAX in particular, but the traction control is just overly intrusive and

15:31 doesn't really work with you. It is constantly working against you. I can feel the same here

15:35 as we are sort of going around these parts of the track. It does sort of just keep biting,

15:40 and it is constantly doing stuff and not really letting you control. Like right now it's biting

15:46 as we go around that corner, and there's literally no need for it to be biting. Yeah, look, compared

15:51 to something like the Everest, this doesn't feel anywhere near as dynamic. Ford really did a great

15:56 job with engineering the Everest to be comfortable, but also dynamic when the speed picks up. Yes,

16:02 this is not what you're going to be driving these cars like, but we drive them all back to back in

16:06 the exact same way to unearth these things that you wouldn't be able to find on a public road. So

16:12 yeah, a little bit disappointing in terms of how this handles,

16:15 and hopefully it's something they can address with future updates to the MU-X.

16:20 Okay, let's jack it up to 130 k's an hour, which is maximum speed in parts of Australia,

16:28 and it's also the speed we attack our sine waves at to see what body control is like.

16:32 That is fairly bouncy. Yeah, look, it is fairly bouncy, but the offside to that is that in and

16:40 around the city it is actually really comfortable. So you hit potholes, speed humps, that kind of

16:44 thing, it actually is quite nice and relaxing over those. There isn't too much sort of bucking

16:50 about there. Okay, time to head to our rough road. So this is a new test that we've introduced. We do

16:55 this at 90 k's an hour, and there's a compressed sine wave here as well, which really tests how

17:00 quickly the suspension responds to changes in road condition, and the body then responds

17:06 accordingly, and it'll either float over it or really sort of feel nice and controlled. So here

17:11 we go, 90 k's an hour over our close sine wave. Yeah, look, it is floating over it a little bit,

17:17 but it's not the end of the world, so it means I still have control over the car,

17:21 and you can hear in my voice this is a seriously bad example of a road, a very bad country road,

17:27 but it is handling it really nicely and very comfortably inside the cabin too.

17:31 Now in terms of road noise, it's actually not too bad. It's fairly good inside the cabin,

17:35 even on course chip roads. It does get a little noisy when you step on the throttle.

17:39 It is quite a thrashy sounding engine, but for the most part it's not the end of the world.

17:43 So what's your visibility like? Look, down the front of the car there I can see clearly

17:47 without any dramas, big old wing mirrors as well, which is great news for towing.

17:51 Visibility out the rear is pretty good as well, that envelope is fairly large. Do keep in mind

17:55 though if you do have the third row up with the headrest deployed, it does make it a little harder

17:59 to see out the back. Okay, time to do some semi-autonomous driving testing. So let me get

18:05 this up to 70 k's an hour and set the cruise control, and then we're going to test how well

18:11 it does its lane keeping assistance functions. So I'm going to press this little button here,

18:16 the steering wheel, that'll light up. That's gone green, the lanes have gone green as well.

18:20 So I'm just going to let go of the wheel. It's designed for you to hold the wheel,

18:22 but just for the sake of illustrating this I'm letting go. That is not very good,

18:27 that is already over the line, and this is the easiest part of our track where we test this

18:31 stuff. We're going to go to the two outer lanes as well. It has gone back into the centre now,

18:36 but it sort of immediately shot towards the line there. All right, so let's jump up to

18:42 the second lane here. See how this goes, so I'll wait for all that to go green.

18:47 Waiting, waiting, waiting.

18:50 Still nothing. Okay, it's green now, so I'll just gradually let go of the wheel.

19:00 So that's pretty much gone completely over the line and it's bringing itself back in now,

19:05 but again going over the line. If this was like a real world driving situation, I would currently

19:10 be in somebody else's lane. If there was a truck next to me, I would be like next to the truck.

19:15 So yeah, not good. Let's try the last lane and see how it fares up here.

19:21 Okay, we'll just wait for that to activate. So it's detected the lines,

19:27 just going to wait for that to go green. Okay, that's gone green. Let's gradually let go of the

19:32 wheel. That's just cancelled itself altogether. So yeah, look, not a very good system and it is

19:39 worth keeping in mind that Pajero Sport doesn't have any of these sort of assistance controls at

19:44 all really, neither does Fortuner. The only one in the segment that does is Everest and that works

19:49 really well. We have tested that here. So I think this just needs a bit of fine tuning. Got all the

19:53 hardware, it just needs to be calibrated a little bit better and hopefully then once that is

19:58 calibrated better, they can roll that software update out to existing owners. So we don't have

20:04 an official 0-100 time, but we have our GPS measurement device. Let's give this a little

20:09 crack. So I'm going to switch off traction control so we can get a little bit of slip

20:14 off the line there. We'll dial up some revs and we'll see how we go.

20:20 Slip off the line, we'll go all the way through to 120 so I can get our 80 to 120

20:25 results as well. So here we go. There's 90, 100,

20:31 22. Took a while to get there. All right. Okey dokey. So 0-100 took 11.09 seconds and then 80

20:46 to 120 took 8.75 seconds. So that 80 to 120 number is important for things like overtaking

20:54 and it's showing here that it took almost as long to get from 80 to 120 as it did from 0-100.

21:00 So it is worth keeping that in mind. Let's go do some braking. We'll see how quickly it

21:04 stops from 100 k's an hour. All right. Let's go, let's go, let's go. All right.

21:15 There's 100 there.

21:16 All righty. Let's have a little sticky beak there. 100 to 0 took 3.32 seconds and 43.6

21:33 meters. So if you do want to see how the acceleration or the braking results compare

21:37 to other cars that we've tested before, have a look at the link in the description below.

21:41 This is only a new test that we're doing so it's going to take us a little while to build that up

21:44 but all the results are down there. And now our reverse acceleration test.

21:48 Let's see how fast the MU-X will go in reverse. Here we go.

21:53 All right. So 48 kilometers an hour. Okay. Let's do a little bit of light off-roading. I'll run

22:05 you through the four-wheel drive specs first. So you have a full-time two-wheel drive system. You

22:09 have four-wheel drive high range for use on unsealed surfaces. Four-wheel drive low range.

22:14 You also have a rear diff lock which you can only use when this is in low range. You also have hill

22:19 descent control as well and also a rough road mode which we'll test out in just a second.

22:25 If you do want to know how to use all of these controls and have a better understanding of how

22:29 it all works, check out this video up here. It's our four-wheel drive controls explained video that

22:33 runs through all of that and how it all works and when not to use it and stuff. And then in terms

22:38 of ground clearance, 235 mm of ground clearance. You have 800 mm of wading depth. Your approach

22:44 and departure angles come in at 29.2 degrees for the approach angle. That's the angle of the face

22:48 you can approach before you hit anything. Departure angle is 26.4 degrees which is the same but

22:54 in reverse. So let's have a little shot here. So we're going to start off in two-wheel drive high

22:59 range. That is to see how well the traction control system works. D-MAX didn't love this,

23:04 so we'll see if it's any better here in the MU-X. I'm going to get the driver's side rear

23:09 wheel into the air and then I'm going to gradually apply throttle and we will see if the traction

23:14 control is good enough to get it out of this jam. So here we go. Throttle being applied.

23:20 A little bit more, a little bit more. More throttle. It is rocking a little bit. I can

23:29 feel it doing something but we're not really getting anywhere there at all. What I will try,

23:33 because the D-MAX didn't have this, it's this rough road mode. So you press that and it engages

23:38 it down there. So this will do some work with the stability control to actually help it get out of

23:43 stuff like this, hopefully. So what is on the throttle? More on the throttle. Oh look at that!

23:49 That is awesome! Actually does something! That's cool! I didn't expect that. So that rough road

23:56 mode actually seems to do something which is pretty cool. Excellent. Alright, so now we're

24:01 going to go back over our little mogul there, our offset mogul. This time it's going to be in

24:06 four-wheel drive high range and we're going to test how well it distributes torque. So you turn

24:11 this around to 4h, wait for that to activate. You can see it flashing just there. Once that is

24:16 active, there it is, it's basically sending 50% of torque to the front axle and 50% of torque to the

24:21 rear axle. But we're going to get it into a situation where the front left and the rear

24:26 right don't have much traction. So it's not only going to have to send torque to the front and

24:30 rear axle, it's then going to have to use the traction controls to stop those two wheels from

24:35 just spinning on their own. So let's see how it goes. We'll just line it up here. Okay, let's get

24:43 it into this spot just there. There it is. So I'm going to lean on the throttle, see how well it

24:50 works. I can hear the traction control doing stuff. I'll apply more and more throttle,

24:56 a little bit more. It's doing something. I can definitely feel something happening. I'm just

25:01 going to stay on that. Awesome. Look at that. This is significantly better than the D-MAX in

25:06 terms of how it's performing here. And I have a feeling it all really has to do with that

25:10 rough road mode. It's just getting it free of the obstacles that the D-MAX just

25:13 continuously struggled with. Okey-dokey. Next up is our hill. So what we're going to do here,

25:19 it's kind of loose gravel. I'm going to set this to low range. So we whip that around to 4L,

25:26 wait for that to engage. That is on. I'm going to lock the rear diff as well. I'm going to go up

25:30 this twice. The first time I'm just going to try and not stop. The second time around I'll come

25:36 back around, stop halfway up and then see if it can make its own way up the hill. Okay, there we

25:42 go. Rear diff is locked. 4L is engaged. ABS is off. Traction control is off. The rough road mode

25:48 doesn't apply here because none of those safety stability control traction aids are on. So let's

25:54 see how it goes. Okay. So far so good. Come on, come on. Oh, nice. Nice. That's unreal. So

26:11 recently we tested Pajero Sport and Everest here. Both of them really struggled to get up there

26:18 in this exact same mode. So really good job there with the MU-X. It seems once all this stuff is

26:24 switched off it really climbs up pretty easily. So we're going to do that again. I'll come to a

26:28 stop next time around. But first up, let's have a look at our hill descent. So with the hill descent

26:33 control, what I'll do, I'll actually stick it into 4WD high range because it's kind of pointless

26:38 being in 4WD low range with hill descent control because you have enough engine braking there. So

26:44 there we go. That's in high range. Hill descent control is on. Let's give this a little shot.

26:48 Let's climb over this bit. Now this doesn't have a front camera so I can't really see over the edge

26:53 here but we'll just see what happens here. So I've rolled out of the brake and off the throttle.

26:58 That's pretty messy. Yeah, just too fast and then all the braking was done right at the bottom and

27:07 it was just a bit sort of clumsy. So not a huge fan of that. Unfortunately that hill descent

27:12 control isn't very good. So take two for the hill. This time I'm going to go up and come to a stop

27:17 and we'll see how it performs once we do that. So I'll bring it up to

27:22 around about there. We'll come to a stop and I'll just roll onto the throttle.

27:27 Almost struggling a little there. Staying in that. Okay so that's rear diff locked and 4WD

27:38 low range. It's not loving that at all. I think we're just digging a hole there.

27:41 Let me just go back a touch. Try that once more.

27:46 Okay, got there in the end. Yeah it was a whole lot more of a struggle that time around. So

28:01 yeah I think we are starting to dig a little hole there on our hill so we're going to fix that. But

28:04 yeah, it needs a bit more momentum to get going. It seems that when we did come to a stop there that

28:10 it didn't really love taking off again once the car was fully stationary.

28:14 Okay rock time. Here we go. So 226mm of ground clearance. Let's see what it's like across the

28:21 rocks here. So I've left it in 4WD low range. I'm just riding the brake with the throttle here and

28:28 it's climbing over this stuff nicely. This is one of the benefits of that soft suspension. It's

28:34 moving over the rocks here without too many dramas at all. It's actually really quite comfortable.

28:40 No touchdowns yet either which is good. It's a good sign.

28:44 It's actually really surprisingly quite good.

28:49 I think Pajero Sport had a couple of knocks when we went through here so

28:54 this feels nice and comfortable. Yeah very nice. Okay cool. Look Isuzu MU-X. What can I say?

29:02 It's interesting off-road. It's a completely different car to on-road. It feels like it's

29:06 actually built more for off-road driving than it is on-road driving. It just does everything

29:11 far easier here. It did struggle a little with the hill there on the way up again but

29:15 it seems that rough road mode really helps it in situations where you don't need 4WD low range or

29:19 the diff's locked. So yeah look as an off-road machine I think it's pretty good. Probably just

29:24 needs a little bit of work on-road to match what it can do here off-road. So the updated Isuzu MU-X.

29:29 This is probably like the most minor facelift you'll ever see in your entire life but it does

29:33 give us a chance to revisit this and at the moment with driveway pricing the MU-X is actually pretty

29:38 good value for money because it's about the same price as the Pajero Sport in top spectrum and

29:43 compared to the Pajero Sport this is a significantly better all-round vehicle. But when you do compare

29:48 it to something like an Everest with driveway pricing you're only looking at like an entry

29:52 level Everest and I think that when you look at those two side by side this does have its merits.

29:57 It isn't as good on-road as an Everest. The Everest is really quite dynamic in comparison.

30:02 Tech in the Everest is significantly better as well but as an all-round package this is pretty

30:06 good at that price. Where it really does depart from that is when they stop doing driveway pricing

30:10 and asking more money and it's at that point where it doesn't really feel like the best package in

30:15 the segment. I am hoping that Isuzu is going to do something about the traction control systems

30:19 for off-road driving just to make them a little better and friendlier and also perhaps improve

30:23 some of the on-road driving characteristics as well that kind of let it down if you do want to

30:27 have a little bit of fun behind the wheel even though that's not what it's designed for. So

30:31 let me know what you reckon about the updated Isuzu MU-X in the comments section below. Sorry

30:35 about all these bloody flies. I'm keen for your feedback. Have you got one? How long have you

30:39 waited for one on order? I know a lot of people are still waiting for theirs. Let me know in the

30:43 comments section below. If you did enjoy this video please make sure you like it and you share

30:47 it with your mates and if you haven't done so already subscribe to our channel and press the

30:50 bell icon but until next time take it easy.

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