Isuzu MU-X LS-U 2018 review

Our MU-X was clad in 'Silky White Pearl' for our weekend test. It's a not a bad looking SUV, with no visible changes from the 2017 model, which itself received some styling tweaks. The MU-X is a big unit that looks as ready to handle the weekday school run as it does to go off-roading for the weekend.

As key attributes go, sitting high enough to see out the windows is king for my three kids, closely followed by cabin space. Happily, the MU-X over-delivers on both these fronts. The cabin is spacious, functional (but no frills), with all seven seats covered in cloth and an array of hard plastics adorning the dashboard and doors.

The relatively heavy steering has plenty of give and requires a little manhandling to navigate narrow city streets and suburb back streets. (image: Dan Pugh)

As you'd expect, there's plenty of room for kids to stretch out in the second row, and you can even squeeze three adults if you're keen. The third row offers good space if you're under 150cm tall – not a great place to be if you're an adult.

The Saturday morning trip to and from a junior soccer match (40min each way) was a good opportunity to acquaint ourselves with the car in suburban traffic.

As you'd expect, there's plenty of room for kids to stretch out in the second row. (image: Dan Pugh)

My son sitting up front synced the smartphone with the 8.0-inch touchscreen, and had the music blasting through the eight-speaker stereo in double-quick time. It's worth noting navigation comes as standard, but there's no Apple CarPlay or Android Auto available. If you're a parent in need of some additional entertainment for the kids, the top-spec LS-T comes with a roof mounted 10-inch DVD monitor.

The relatively heavy steering has plenty of give and requires a little manhandling to navigate narrow city streets and suburb back streets. Parallel parking the MU-X provides a decent workout, with the wheel needing quite a few turns lock-to-lock, so I thought it best to give the tiny local Woolworths carpark a miss.

On the ride-comfort front, the MU-X does little to dampen the lumps and bumps, all of which were transferred straight into the cabin making for quite a jarring ride. Around corners, there's a decent amount of body roll as you'd expect from a high-riding vehicle such as this.

The third row offers good space if you're under 150cm tall – not a great place to be if you're an adult. (image: Dan Pugh)