Isuzu D-Max Review, For Sale, Colours, Models, Interior & Specs

Isuzu D-Max Q&As

Check out real-world situations relating to the Isuzu D-Max here, particularly what our experts have to say about them.

• Are the front drive shafts and CV joints of the 2021 Mazda BT-50 interchangeable with the Isuzu D-max?

  If we’re talking about the current model D-Max and BT-50, then yes, the entire driveline should be interchangeable. Under the skin, both the Mazda and Isuzu utes are the same vehicle. Car makers enter into joint ventures like the development of this pair of vehicles to keep costs down by sharing the expense of developing, engineering and testing parts like engines, transmissions and, of course, drive-shafts and CV joints.

  While most joint ventures like this one will arrive at two vehicles with some visual differences and usually some details differences inside, when it comes to the oily bits, making specific driveline or suspension parts for one vehicle over the other is defeating the purpose of the joint venture in the first place.

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• What's your opinion on diesel engine remaps?

  Remapping an engine – done right – can provide you with more performance. But there’s also often a price to be paid in terms of reduced fuel economy and increased tailpipe emissions. Typically, there are workshops that are very good at this and others that aren’t so expert at extracting more performance.

  But before you go down that route, it sounds like there’s something wrong with your vehicle in its current state. Fundamentally, a 2013 Isuzu D-Max should be able to haul a van of that mass, comfortably at the legal speed limit. That said, that’s a fairly hefty caravan and experience shows that many owners of similar rigs find that about 90km/h is a more comfortable speed for highway travel. So maybe you need to lower your expectations a little.

  A full service and tune-up would be the first step in improving the towing situation, by returning all the engine’s settings to their stock position. Modern turbo-diesels can also suffer a fall-off in performance over time as the fuel system (pumps and injectors) wear, the diesel particulate filter becomes full of soot and the intake system becomes clogged with a mixture of soot and oil from the vehicle’s emission-control system. Those are the things we’d check first before shelling out for a remapped engine computer.

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• Does the 2014 Isuzu D-Max have a DPF filter in the exhaust system?

  Isuzu switched to a new, Euro 5-compliant engine for the D-Max ute in 2017. To meet the stricter Euro 5 emissions requirements, a DPF was fitted. But D-Maxes before that time do not have a DPF fitted. On that basis, your car will not have a DPF.

  Given the problems experienced by owners of DPF-equipped vehicles (not just Isuzus) this is one of the things that has made the older D-Max such a popular second-hand buy.

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• Will a 2006 Isuzu nudge bar fit on my new 2021 Isuzu D-Max.

  Almost certainly not. Unless there’s some strange quirk of manufacturing that allows the mounting points to magically line up, the current Isuzu D-Max is an all-new design, compared even to the most recent predecessor, let alone the model from 2006. The 2006 D-Max shared a lot of its architecture and engineering with the Holden Rodeo and later Colorado, while the new D-Max is a joint venture with Mazda and forms the basis of that company’s BT-50 range of utes.

  You may be able to engineer a set of adaptors to mount the early nudge-bar to the later vehicle, but at some point it’ll get messy and simply not worth the time and money investment compared with buying a nudge-bar designed specifically for a 2021 D-Max. There’s also the issue of whether the old nudge-bar design would be compatible with the air-bag system of the new Isuzu. Again, almost certainly not is the short answer.

   

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