Tow Test: Isuzu MU-X 2018

My son has a young family and plans to take them remote area camping as soon as he can afford a mid-level Chinese camper trailer.

On the other hand, my wife and I have a purpose-built compact off-road Trakmaster caravan, but need a tough, affordable three-tonne capable tow vehicle that’s also nimble enough to cope with seven-person family duties and visits to regional shopping centres with their tight, underground carparks.

Isuzu’s latest MU-X lets us all go our own way. And, based on many sightings in remote areas of outback Queensland and coastal caravan parks, it ticks a lot of boxes for other travellers too.

After more than 6000km travelled on and off road over a month – most of it as a fully-laden tow tug – it’s not hard to see why.

Right size for the job

A key attraction of the  MU-X for many is its size and packaging.  When it comes to long-distance inland travel, it’s hard to look past Toyota’s benchmark 200-series LandCruiser. Big, roomy, relaxed and comfortable, it’s one of the best places to be once you leave civilisation behind, but it’s a large and often unwieldy beast in between trips in an urban environment and it really enjoys a drink!

The Isuzu is a mid-sized SUV from a class below; skinny enough to slip through traffic and into your suburban life in between trips, but strong enough to take you, your family and most mid-sized off-road caravans to your special place under the sun.

In our case, that place was the Gulf of Carpentaria and Lawn Hill (Boodjamulla) National Park – both in the vast state of Queensland – ahead of our two and half tonne caravan.

Before setting off, we wondered if the fully laden caravan and tow car would be within their legal load limits, so we had both checked by the mobile caravan weighing service, Weightcheck at our home on the morning before we left.

The MU-X with its gutsy 3.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine developing 430Nm  from 2000-2200rpm is rated to tow three tonnes. All good with our van’s laden weight, as we took it, of 2651 kg.

However, when allowing for myself and my wife, a full tank of fuel, our payload consisting of a petrol generator, 45-litre portable fridge, 4x4 recovery kit, tool box, etc, came in at 2418.5kg for the laden vehicle alone.

Adding the 270kg towball download brought the Isuzu’s GVM to just under its compliance-plated Gross Vehicle Mass of 2750kg. So we were right on the legal limit of its real-world towing capability.

Coped with a big load

Given all that, it was surprising how well the MU-X performed, indicating that it has been safely over-engineered.

Before we left, the first job was to ensure  that the caravan towed level, allowing plenty of clearance under the nose of its A-frame when travelling off the bitumen. The first problem here was that the official MU-X tow tongue can’t be inverted to achieve this and Isuzu advised me that this is a work-in-progress with their supplier.

Fortunately, I had my own Hayman-Reese tongue (which could) and this allowed the off-road caravan to sit pretty level. As expected, the rear of the MU-X sagged a little on its live axle, coil spring rear suspension under the weight – more than it would with the leaf-spring rear end its D-Max ute stablemate, but not quite as much as much as some other independent rear end SUVs like the Nissan Pathfinder, or even the Toyota LandCruiser.

Before we left, we were advised by Isuzu Ute to leave the MU-X’s 6-speed Aisen automatic transmission in Drive when towing, making the most of its fuel-saving lock-up torque converter feature on third, fourth, fifth and sixth gears, rather than over-riding it through its manual gear selection feature.

This felt odd at times, as the ‘adaptive learning’ transmission proved reluctant to engage sixth gear unless you eased right off the accelerator and waited for the lock-up converter to approve your choice. At other times the transmission would hang onto the higher ratio much longer than you would expect before changing down.

Thirsty work

With the work we required of it, the MU-X wasn’t as frugal as we were expecting, consuming as much as 17.6l/100km into a head-wind on the bitumen of far western Queensland.

To put that into perspective, we averaged a best and worst respectively of 15.7l/100km and 18.2l/100km towing the same van with a RAM 2500 Laramie straight-six 6.7 litre Cummins diesel over 4000km of bitumen travel to tropical north Queensland at a similar time last year, while our own 2008-model Land-Rover Discovery 3 TDV6 2.7 litre diesel averages less than 16l/100km under similar long-distance towing.

Given the job it was being asked to do, the Isuzu also dropped speed relative to the Disco up long hills and into head winds and we found its comfortable towing speed with our van to be around 5-8km/h slower at 87-91km/h, although it never actually felt under-powered.

Another much-appreciated standard feature of the latest MU-X (and also 2018 D-Max utes) is their standard Trailer Sway Control, which selectively applies the vehicle’s brakes when trailer sway is detected to keep things tidy.

We never got far enough out of shape to activate it, but it's a comfort to know it's there, particularly when the trailer behind you weighs more that the tow vehicle.

Value for money

To put it into perspective, the 2018 LS-U 7-seat automatic MU-X we reviewed currently costs $48,990 drive-away; our Disco cost $75,000 drive-away in late 2007 and the RAM 2500 costs $139,500. Given the extra fuel cost the equivalent of a cup of coffee every 300km, the MU-X did pretty much the same job for a much smaller outlay.

That ‘300km’ is relevant, as at its worst towing consumption we achieved, that’s the maximum reliable range of its puny 65 litre fuel tank; 350km at its best. We ran out of fuel twice on the trip, fortunately coasting into service stations as the engine coughed its last.

I would recommend that anyone towing in Outback areas carries a full 20-litre jerry can of diesel for times like these and tops up whenever the trip computer indicates a remaining range of 100km.

Of course, in non-towing duties it’s a different story and we had no trouble achieving Isuzu’s claimed urban and combined claimed consumption of 9.9 and 8.1l/100km respectively without a van in tow.

Inside, the MU-X is a pretty comfortable travel environment. While the unladen ride is a little jiggly, it settles down with a rear load, a full complement of passengers, or a van on its back.

The LS-U model we reviewed is the mid-spec MU-X, which means serviceable piano-black cloth trim, 18-inch alloy wheels, an 8-inch Touchscreen with SatNav, USB and Bluetooth audio streaming, multipole USB and 12v charging points, a reversing camera, rear Park Assist, 3 years free scheduled servicing and a 5-star ANCAP safety rating.

MY18 MU-X and D-Max models come with service prices capped at $2090 over five years and require only minimal servicing every 15,000km, while roadside assist is also standard.

Seven seats are standard in the LS-U, with rearmost passengers also getting grab handles, two of the MU-X’s 12 cup holders and their own ventilation controls. It's a bit of a scramble to access them behind the folding second row of seats and the rear loading space height is a little compromised when they're folded away, but the two extra seats really add  to the MU-X’s versatility.

Spacious interior

There’s also lots of space inside for all the things that seven passengers might want to take, with 18 separate storage solutions around the cabin, including a separate lidded box for smaller items behind the folded seats in the rear load area floor.

The independent double wishbone and coil spring front end and engine-speed sensitive rack and pinion steering deliver good road feel via the standard Bridgestone 255/60-18 road-biased tyres, although I would replace them with more aggressive rubber if I was planning more serious off-road travel.

It’s also fairly quiet inside, with little wind noise despite the optional snorkel, roof bars and slim-lined weather shields fitted to all windows on the test MU-X, although the big four-pot engine sounds a little intrusive when pulling from low revs and when cold.

Although you can order your MU-X as a 4x2 only, or full bells and whistles 4X4 LS-T, our LS-U was the 4X4 LS-U model, which is most popular for towing duties.

The default setting is two-wheel drive, which goes to the rear wheels only and the centre console dial then allows you to select high ratio four-wheel drive or low ratio four-wheel drive – the latter switching off skid control in the process and allowing you to access Hill Descent Control.

We spent most of our travelling time in 2WD – even on unsealed Outback roads – which gave us enough traction on loose surfaces and dry grassy caravan parks, but we had to call on the MU-X’s full arsenal of off-road ‘smarts’ on one occasion when it became obvious that the sandy track in a coastal Queensland National Park was going to take us nowhere good,

Turning a caravan combo around in these circumstances involved jack-knifing it into a clearing in the bush, then backing and bush-bashing multiple times on the sandy surface in between trees to manoeuvre it around. It took a while, but it worked.

It’s not a really hard-core system with multiple modes to suit different surfaces, but it does the job that most weekend warriors or caravan travelers will want.

Off-road protection

Solid protection for most underbody features, including a 2mm steel front skid plate,  steel sump and transfer case guards, plus protection for the leading edge of the fuel tank and 230mm of ground clearance gave us confidence that the Isuzu could do this and come out unscathed – which it did.

The other impressive off-road feature of the MU-X is its dust sealing and travelling the parched unsealed roads of far northwest outback Queensland certainly gave this feature a workout.

In fact, we were impressed with the overall fit and finish of the MU-X, which was at a high standard, regardless of its price.

So, is the Isuzu MU-X LS-U at its current drive-away price of $48,990 an ideal family tow tug? Given its size, fit and finish, features, town and country versatility, seven-seater format and standard equipment, it makes a solid case.

Specs: Isuzu MU-X LS-U

Vehicle type: 4WD 7-seater SUV
Engine: 3.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel
Transmission: Aisen adaptive learning 6-speed automatic with lock-yup torque converter
Power/torque: 130kW @ 3600rpm; 430Nm @ 2000-2200ropm
Basic price: $48,990 driveaway