BabyDrive Verdict
You may not think the Isuzu D-Max would be an obvious choice for a family car! With five seats, the huge tray carrying capacity, great off-road ability AND the fact the D-Max’s main competitors the Ford Ranger and Toyota Hilux were the top selling cars in Australia two years running. It’s pretty obvious that their practicality and versatility are what’s making utes very popular as BabyDrives!
I was recently converted by the Holden Colorado which I loved! I was eager to drive its sister SUV the Trailblazer thinking it would be the best BabyDrive but I was sadly disappointed. Surprising myself by preferring a ute over an SUV I was looking forward to driving the Isuzu D-Max and to compare it to its SUV sister, the MU-X, next week! Let’s find out how I got on and if the D-Max, like the Colorado, had me converted!
I’m afraid with the Isuzu it just didn’t tick enough of the right BabyDrive boxes for me. My initial shock at there being no ISO Fix was not offset during the week's test drive by enough of the D-Max’s other endearing features.
The D-Max feels like you are driving off-road when you’re just popping to the shops, pitching and rocking as you turn corners or go up and down the smallest of kerbs. The ride's really rocky for passengers, especially the child seats which seemed to move around considerably, with a lot of protesting from their small occupants!
The engine was juddery and loud and you could really tell it was a truck engine. It felt like the D-Max would just go and go and that the D-Max is designed more as a workhorse than a family wagon!
The D-Max was a bit tall for me too. At 162cm tall, I had to hop up on the side steps just to do up Tulsi's child seat restraints, which on a day to day basis was impractical for reaching other things in and out of the cab also.
None of the cup holders would hold my large refillable water bottle or anything over a small coffee cup, which annoyed me over the week as my bottle rolled around the cab floor!
Three child seats fitted so well across the back seat and there were no seatbelt clips underneath child seats, which is so rare with any of the cars I test drive. However, this may be due to the lack of ISO Fix. Any size dog would fit easily on the back seats with only one or two child seats installed too. Otherwise, they'd fit in the tray without the lid on.
I loved the simplicity of the D-Max’s dash and controls.
This, along with the convenient little shelves on the side of the back tray and the paint colour, were probably my favourite features!
The air-con, media and steering wheel mounted controls were so simple and uncomplicated. Just what was needed and nothing more. Some would criticise it for not having enough or looking out of date.
I find now as a mother, less is more and keeping things simple makes life so much easier!
I sometimes find myself thinking: why do I need five different screen colour options, when I can’t find the button to mute the ‘beeeeeeeping’ that is waking up my baby!!
Bringing me to the lack of ‘beeeeeeeeeeping’ in this Isuzu. Beautiful and quiet! This was however made up for by the protesting child being rollercoastered around the back seat and the sound of the truck engine! Reversing, however, was peaceful! With the absence of any sensors, there were no flashing lights or sirens blaring and the tight turning circle and good reversing camera made it easy to manoeuvre confidently.
On a serious note, the D-Max does come with just a reversing camera. There are no sensors, lane departure warnings, blind spot warnings, it is featureless in that sense compared to its rivals. That is how it feels in a BabyDrive sense. It isn’t a vehicle designed to cross over into the family car category. It is as its name suggests, a utility vehicle. It would be my vehicle of choice to cross the Simpson Desert but I wouldn’t choose it to do my weekly shopping!
BabyDrive Indepth
BabyDrive Indepth - Storage
The lid of the Isuzu D-Max’s tray opens and shuts with a nice soft action whereas the tailgate doesn’t have the gas struts so falls down quickly. Both the lid and tailgate are very heavy and required two hands to open and operate. You definitely wouldn’t want the tailgate to fall open onto a child’s head that was standing beneath it, and it is at toddler head height.
I found when I went to load up the tray with Tulsi and bags in my arms, I’d have to put everything down in order to open the tray. So I’d dump everything on the floor behind the tray and put Tulsi into her child seat in the cab first, then go back to the tray to load it up. I’m not a fan of doing things in this order because Tulsi hates the car so much I like to put her in last so she’s not waiting for ages while I load the boot!
The tray lid is shaped and narrows at the sides nearest the cab, creating two fixed shelves with metal sports bars fastened to the side of the tray. The fixed shelves and bars may mean you can’t reach over into that part of the tray but they do provide you with a really handy little shelf for your keys, a toy or drink bottle when putting bub in and out of the cab. I found those shelves really very useful, they also made a lovely little spot to rest your coffee on! They’re one of my favourite features!!
Because I couldn't reach over these shelves into the tray, I found only the first metre of the tray was usable without having to hop up into it.
In that metre of space I can easily get my Mountain Buggy Urban Jungle with six shopping bags beside it and in the smaller section of the tray, where it narrows at the back, another 10 shopping bags (five across and two deep).
The tailgate is around half a metre deep so it is quite a stretch across. Hopping up wasn’t too bad either at my 162cm height, on those occasions when I did need to carry more.
The boot space and its functionality are really important. I like to have a big boot space and little side wells or areas I can divide things into. So something I don’t want to move around while I’m driving such as Tulsi’s lunch bag or her wet swimming gear can be sectioned off in a little well where it’s not going to spill or get squashed by the rest of the things in the boot.
Hooks for securing shopping bags to are also favourites of mine, I like being able to secure the bag containing more fragile things like eggs so they don’t move around on the journey.
I measure the boot space in freezer shopping bags, prams and dogs. Not because I think all there is to a mum’s life is food shopping, prams and dogs. (Although it can feel like it sometimes!!) But because these are visually mesurable items we can all associate with. For me, the car company boot measurement of litres ia not an amount I can easily visualise and 400L in one car may differ in usability to that in another due to the configuration or shape of the space.
With it being a ute there is obviously a lot of storage space in the back tray, you just work out what configuration is best for you to use. You could, of course, fit a stroller, pram or double pram in the back tray and without any stroller or prams, it would hold around 24 shopping bags!
I also found nothing moved around in the back tray as I went up and down hills, it all stayed exactly where I had put it without tying anything down.
You wouldn’t be able to get a dog in the back tray with that lid on you’d need to remove the tray lid completely or put the dog in the cab.
The back tray is not suitable for nappy changes, because of the depth of the tailgate when it is down it would be too hard to reach across into the tray to change them so I think I’d use the back seat rather than the tray!
Inside the front of the D-Max there are four cup holders; two in the central console in front of the handbrake and two that pop out at either end of the dashboard under the air vents. All of them hold a small disposable coffee cup or a 600ml water bottle. They are also a really good size for sippy cups and baby bottles. They don’t hold anything larger than that though, which I’m surprised about as I am sure some of their intended customers must drink out of large water bottles or coffee cups!
My large refillable water bottle would not fit in any of the cup holders or door pockets. The door pockets are really small too; they will hold a sippy cup and a baby bottle or 600ml water bottle but nothing bigger than that.
Without anything else in the door pocket I was able to get my iPad and wallet in there, both standing up on their ends. It was a very tight fit, which was good as none of the door pockets are lined so anything you put in them tends to rattle around.
The central console storage is a big square box with a lid that doubles as an armrest. Again it has the same problem I had with the Colorado I drove, that the clasp to open the central console lid is above the cup holders. So if you could find a tall bottle that fitted in there it will obstruct the opening of the central console.
There are no USB sockets in the central console box, they are behind the gear lever. There are three USB sockets, an HDMI socket and a 12V, below these is a hidden shelf which is perfect for putting your phone on, it’s very tucked away and if your phone is a dark colour you could leave it there by accident and no one would see it was there. Although you do have to have a USB wire plugged in and hanging down into the footwell.
There are a lot of storage compartments in the front of the D-Max and there is a glasses case in the ceiling in front of the lights. The glove box isn’t enormous but I can get my wallet in there with the hefty manual and they have supplied a ‘butt bucket' type ashtray in there too which if you removed you’d be able to get a little more in.
Above that is another lidded storage compartment, which is a good size too; I could put my wallet in there easily with some extra room.
On the top centre of the dashboard is another lidded compartment but anything you put in there is going to cook in the Australian sun!!
In the back of the cab, there is a half map pocket on the backs of both the front seats. I fitted my iPad in there, but you can just see the top of it so you need to push it right down so it’s out of view.
The door pockets, like those in the front, are really small.
On the back of the central console box, there is a single USB for the back row passengers to use and there are two cup holders that fold down out of it. The cup holders don’t stick out far enough so the lid of your cup knocks into the central console box which means when you’re putting your drink in and out you could easily spill it! Again they are very small, holding only a small disposable coffee cup or a slim baby bottle.
There are hidden under seat storage areas in the back, although neither have any bases to them The larger one holds the car jack etc which is fastened down. I’m not sure how useful the smaller one would be as it doesn’t have any base so you wouldn’t be able to put anything in there without it disappearing into the depths of the car! The seat bases tilt independently with a 60:40 split so you can place bulky items in the cab. They have a hook on the front of them so you can securely fasten them to the headrests.
BabyDrive Indepth - Noise
There are no parking sensors or lane departure warning systems in the model of D-Max I drove, so in that sense, it was actually a very quiet BabyDrive for a change!
The indicators have quite a quiet sound so nothing to worry about in terms of baby-waking noise inside the cab.
The Sat Nav voice guidance can be altered easily through the touchscreen display. You can either go into the Sat Nav settings or there is a simple shortcut volume icon at the bottom of the Sat Nav screen and by clicking on that the next screen allows you to mute the guidance altogether or alter the volume. This is a really good BabyDrive feature.
I find on most journeys when I use sat nav I only need directions for the last part of the journey. I know how to get to the area I am going and then it’s just the exact address I need help with. Because I need to input the address before I head off I found myself on most occasions when you can’t mute the sat nav voice having to listen to all the directions, which disturbs your concentration, any conversation in the car at the time or more importantly my sleeping baby! So being able to mute the sat nav voice until you reach the part where you actually need it is gold!
The audio is easy to connect your phone to; I plugged my phone in while it was playing nursery rhymes and they started playing out of the car speakers within a couple of seconds without me having to press anything, which was fantastic!
The media system doesn’t have Apple CarPlay but it is a very simple touch screen system that I found easy to use and navigate. I have found the screen a little dark though so it was sometimes hard to see clearly. On the Home screen there are a few simple options and one of them is to turn the screen off, which is brilliant as I sometimes have had to search a long time to find out how to do that when driving at night because a bright screen can be a bit glaring and disturb a sleeping baby.
There are two surround sound speakers in the ceiling in the back, one either side of the rear ceiling light, making the sound quality of the stereo really crisp and clear. It is nice for a change because often with the practicality of BabyDrive good sound quality of the stereo can seem like a luxury that gets overlooked!
There is no welcome tune when you fire up the D-Max but the driver display does say hello and goodbye and reminds you to put on your seatbelt when you first get in. This is good as there is no audible seat belt alarm system. There is a light display on the driver's dash alerts you to the fact a seatbelt is not fastened but no alarm sound.
In the D-Max, I can start the engine and open the driver's door and drive along without an alarm sounding. So I could park once baby has fallen asleep, take off my seat belt or get out of the car all without the car making a sound!
Since becoming a mum I spend A LOT of time parked up somewhere with a nice view while my daughter is asleep in the back! If it's hot I need to leave the engine running and the aircon on but I do like to get out and drink my cuppa tea in the fresh air while enjoying the fact my limbs are free from said dangling child!!
SO this is a very important test as I have found that sometimes I have been held hostage by a cars BEEEEPING alarms when I have taken off my seatbelt or opened the door while the engine is still running!! (I only stand outside the car, I am not a bad mother!!)
From outside, the doors have a really soft closing sound. So soft that I have double checked the doors are actually shut properly quite a few times! It is great they make such a soft sound but you do have to get used to it. After having the Colorado and Trailblazer which both had doors that took two or three slams to shut them I wasn’t expecting the D-Max doors to shut so gently!
On the inside, the sound is not so soft and they actually shut with a firm sound. I can lock the doors and windows from the panel on the driver's door, but it is not auto-lock so you do have to remember to do it. The windows have a nice gentle opening and closing sound to them.
The engine noise is loud in the Isuzu D-Max, they use a truck engine in it and boy can you hear it! It is quite a juddery sound at slow speeds and uphill it gets louder. You never worry about there being a lack of power but this will obviously affect passengers and disturb sleeping babies!
The D-Max will alert you if you open the cab door when you have turned the engine off and you have left the head lights on. You have to them on and off manually as they are not automatic.
BabyDrive Indepth - Car Seats
There are five seats in the cab of the D-Max, I easily fitted three child seats across the back row of seats but there is no ISO Fix at all, which is a serious downside. Although the D-Max does have a five-star ANCAP safety rating I wouldn’t buy a new car without ISO Fix.
The backrest comes forward as one complete panel where there are three top tether points on the bodywork of the cab. My experience with most other utes is that they have a tab on either side of the backrest to pull it forward and you have to go around to each side of the cab to pull them individually. However, in the D-Max there is just one tab to the side of the central headrestt towards the drivers side of the vehicle. It’s FANTASTIC! I did find its positioning a little inconvenient when installing a child seat on the other side because I had to come all the way round to pull the tab!
Having one continuous backrest makes fitting, and removing, three child seats a little more difficult as you have to attach or release all the top tethers at the same time, then click the backrest back in to place and then attach or undo the seat belts.
Three child seats fit really comfortably along the back row and the seatbelt clips were really well positioned. I don’t know if it is because there is no IsoFix that there is more flexibility in the position of the child seats and that’s why they fit so well? I found there were no difficult to access seatbelt clips underneath child seats, they all seemed perfectly positioned which rarely happens in cars I have driven.
It makes it really easy for the child in the middle booster seat to do up their own seatbelt, unlike in most cars I have tested where the seatbelt clip is underneath the booster seat making it impossible for them to access! The seatbelt comes from the shoulder on the backrest, not the ceiling which is preferable so it doesn’t cut into the child’s neck.
The ceiling height in the back makes posting Tulsi into her car seat from inside and outside the car easy. From the outside, I can lift her in okay but I have to climb up onto the step to do her straps up as I couldn’t reach from the ground. I didn’t have this problem with the Colorado because it was 5.5cm lower.
With only one child seat installed in the back, there is plenty of room to feed bub and the backrest is at a nice angle and not bolt upright.
All the seats are comfortably padded but they are leather-appointed with a plastic panel in the centre of the seat base and backrest which has a faux weave texture. I think this would be very sweaty in the summer and hard to clean with the grooves in the texture.
BabyDrive Indepth - Drive & Comfort
The front seat bases are long for my legs; I'm 162cm, they stick into my calves and because the steering wheel only adjusts up and down, not in and out, I can’t reach it properly so I have to sit with my shoulders leaning forward unsupported by the seat back.
On the upside this meanins I could definitely have a ponytail because my shoulders were not touching the backrest so my head wasn’t touching the headrest!
The aircon in the D-Max is really easy to use, there is a big round dial in the middle of the dashboard, it is lovely and simple!
There are no aircon vents in the back, but the four vents in the front are large and you could angle two of them so they go toward the back and the highest flow is strong so it should be enough to cool the cab quickly. I have found the Auto setting very good for quickly getting the cab to an ambient temperature.
There is no vanity mirror for the driver, there is one for the passenger but it has no light.
I do like to have a lit vanity mirror as I find nowadays the only time I get to look at myself or put makeup on is in the car mirror when Tulsi is asleep in the back of the car and I stop somewhere!!
There are two interior lights just above the driver with the glasses case and a rear light in the ceiling just behind the driver, which is well positioned as the driver can reach it from their seat.
I often will reach back to turn on the interior light if I am driving at night time, I find my little girl gets less distressed traveling at night that way. It helps if I can reach the interior light from the drivers seat so I can turn it on and off whilst driving. I often find my daughter will need it on as we start our journey in the dark but once she falls asleep I can turn it off.
It is also useful when there are lights situated above the doors where the handles are usually positioned. These are good for when putting baby into their child seats when visibility is poor, so you do not have to reach across them to a light situated in the ceiling centrally etc.
The windows are big and deep allowing good visibility, but the back windscreen is flat which I find is a really bad BabyDrive feature as it lets the sun straight in onto the rearward facing baby. Now Tulsi is a bit older it is good that she can see out of the back windscreen but the sun is often too strong to have it coming straight onto her face.
The side windows go back far enough that rear-facing babies get a good view out of the side windows too. None of the windows were tinted which I was surprised at being the top spec model. So I needed to put my window shades on the side windows, but putting them on the back window meant I wouldn’t be able to see out very well. This is always a downside to utes, but tinting the window would help considerably.
Visibility for the driver is very good, you sit really high in the D-Max, 5.5cm higher than the Colorado. The passengers front and rear facing have good visibility too. With three child seats installed, I can still see quite well out of the back, especially in the rearview mirror. The rear pillars are not too wide so there is still good vision around them.
With the headrests up, in addition to the pillars and the bars on the back corners of the tray, that area is harder for vision but at least the wing mirrors are nice and large and the rearview camera makes reversing fine. You do need to take extra care when changing lanes as there is no blind spot warning system on the D-Max.
Sitting so high up in the D-Max you can see well on the road, which is good because you feel like you fill your lane, if not as much as in the Amarok, but if you are driving next to another big vehicle then you definitely feel like you might touch!
When turning the D-Max feels like it dips and rocks. Slowing down to turn you can feel the vehicle dip to slow down and then rock as it turns.
The D-Max really pivots about, you feel as if you are driving off-road when it’s just around town! With lots of slow turning and up and down kerbs etc the D-Max really moves about.
My daughter protested strongly with these movements and because there is no ISOFix the child seats move around a lot more than perhaps they would with ISOFix. For a child in a child seat, it must be a bit of a roller coaster ride. Tulsi has protested more than usual about being put in the D-Max and I believe it may be down to how much it rocks around!
On country roads, I am aware of how tall the ute is and how easily they roll over. The D-Max feels top heavy.
In terms of parking and visibility, I find the D-Max really easy to park especially reverse parking. Forward parking in a really tight supermarket car park I found a little tougher because of how narrow the spaces are and how wide this ute is. When I needed to park front end in I found it easier to find a double space and turn in.
One thing I have noticed since being a mum is I hate it when I reach a destination or get home from being out and Tulsi has either done really well in the car or she is screaming her head off and I have done really well to keep it together for the entire journey (usually the latter!!) and it takes 10 minutes to park the car! It can be really stressful. Usually I dread when we get the big cars and utes as they take longer in our tight apartment block carpark, the D-Max was not difficult to park!
In the D-Max I found I needed to park front in if I needed to access the boot/tray to get the pram out. Because it is so long and fills the whole parking space I wasn’t able to get the tailgate down to get the pram out if I reversed in. This is an important BabyDrive consideration with a vehicle of this size.
Without needing to access the tray, and using the camera, I found reverse parking incredibly easy. The model I drove didn’t have any parking sensors and I found it fine without sensors, if anything it was easier, perhaps because I was more relaxed without anything ‘beeeeeeeping’ at me!!
There are handles on either side in the back ceiling that I used for hanging a child's toy from. I noticed their positioning wasn’t great in the D-Max and the toy hung in Tulsi's face and she was constantly batting it out of her way.
There are two 12V sockets; one in front of the gear lever and the other inside the lidded storage shelf above the glove box.
The general aesthetics of the D-Max cab is simplicity and I like it, it looks clean, neat and with the basics of what you need and nothing more.
The steering wheel feels solid in your hands, the surfaces all feel basic but easily cleanable plastic which will scratch and mark over time but they will be hardwearing.
The rubber floor mats throughout the cab of the D-Max are GREAT! Nice thick rubber that you can just take out and hose down. Perfect for kids sand, mud and food spillages!
The whole of the tray base also has a big rubber floor mat which I think is my favourite surface of all the different Utes I have experienced. The Amarok had a grippy bitumen like texture that was great for holding things still but it scratched the strollers. The Colorado had just the bare metal which was too slippy and gave no padding. The rubber mat means it grips objects so they don’t slide around too much without scratching them, it gives some cushioning and it is easily hosed down!
For mum sitting in the back of the D-Max the seats are nice and comfortable. It is spacious for feeding Bub and the seat backs are not too upright, they have a slight recline. They do have the same plastic centre panel which I fear in the summer may become sweaty.
For the first year of Tulsi's life when we would go out as a family, if I wasn’t driving, I would travel in the back with Tulsi so it’s important to check the back seat comfort as you may be spending a lot of time in them! They were never something I gave any thought to before but I definitely notice a good or bad back seat now!
The central seat has a fold-down armrest in the backrest but is still comfortable, you don’t have a hard rectangle sticking in your back like in most vehicles, probably because there is no plastic cup holder in there and it is just made from padding.
There is good leg, knee and foot room for the central seat too, with a good amount of space before the central console so you don’t have to straddle it with your legs.
Sitting at the side the leg room is ample too and the roof height is good, the ceiling does taper in at the edges but is high enough that taller passengers shouldn’t have to tilt their head.
The high ceiling helps provide ample space when posting baby into the car seat from the inside as well.
BabyDrive Indepth - Safety
We drove the 4WD LS-T model D-Max, which like all 4WD and high ride 2WD models has a five-star ANCAP safety rating. (Isuzu also do some 2WD low ride models which do not score fives stars).
The five-star rating is thanks to most models coming with heaps of active and passive safety features.
All the LS models come with reversing cameras fitted as standard and they’re also available as extras for the SX and EX models.
You would hardly know all the active safety features like electronic stability control, emergency brake assist, anti-lock braking system, hill decent control, daytime running lights, electronic brake force distribution, traction control system, stability and hill start assist are all working away in the background the whole time you’re driving.
All models have six airbags as standard; dual frontal, side and curtain airbags and pre-tensioner seatbelts which pull you back when the airbags are activated. The D-Max has a safety cabin shell with anti-intrusion bars in the doors which provide increased protection in the event of a side impact. There's also a pedestrian safety bonnet and an impact absorbing chassis.
The D-Max doesn’t come with many of the safety features that come as standard in a lot of new cars and drive me crazy as a mum, filling the dashboard with buttons and the cab with beeping alarms! This is something I have REALLY enjoyed whilst driving the D-Max.
You would need to weigh up carefully when considering the D-Max which safety features are important to you in a family car.
Some of these safety features are also features that drive me crazy as a mum! Like the lane departure and forward collision alert or the parking sensor beeping sound.
I want all the safety technology AND to be able to mute the sound when Tulsi’s asleep!
I find the speed and weight of the tailgate dropping down a little worrying. It is the same for all the utes I have tested and none of them have a damped motion for this. It is definitely something to be aware of with little ones around. The tailgate is just at toddler head height and would cause quite an injury if it dropped down or they walked into it.
Hi there,
Nice review – I am seriously considering an Isuzu D Max as a very good option of a family car.
However, it’s a bit strange that in Australia the D Max has no ISOFIX since the European version seems to have it
Best regards,
It is odd but vehicles are often different in various parts of the world. For example, the Toyota HiLux has had autonomous emergency braking in Europe for a long time and is only now getting it in Australia.
What would the prospects of two cars seats and an adult do for the back seat space (with two more adults up front, of course)?
I think you would get all five of you in. I could fi between the two child seats in the back seats and I’m 162cm
Hello, thanks for the great review. Do you think you could fit 3 maxi guard pro seats in the D-max?
Thanks! We did get three BIG forward-facing seats across the back: https://babydrive.com.au/reviews/utilities/2018-isuzu-d-max-ls-t-crew-cab/