If the valves are tight, you won’t hear a thing but the top end of your engine will be copping a hammering. This is not a unique problem to the D-max it plagues all diesel engines living in the city. Most of them these days are coming out of China and, at the risk of starting a trade war, they’re generally not as good as the CVs being made in Japan. Always use an appropriate grade and type of grease, remembering that, at some point during the next school holidays, the vehicle will be standing sills-deep in (possibly salt) water.You can re-pack the bearings yourself if you know how to spot the wear signs, or a workshop can do it pretty cheaply as an add-on to your regular oil change service.

You can get a ScanTool or ScanGauge that interfaces with the vehicle’s on-board diagnostics and can tell you lots of useful things the standard dashboard doesn’t. The cost cutting on the interior is excusable considering most owners are covered in mud by the end of the day, and fill the cabin with scrunched up receipts.Mechanically the D-Max is brilliant. ………..2004 – 2014 approx ……….Note :– ISUZI beats Hi ace on towing limits Isuzi will tow 3500kg legal …… way ahead of Hiace … Check tow limits on carsales.com or dealers Redbook ( every dealer has access to Redbook data ) Gumtree often has wrong tow limit kg …….

Manually pull it back a gear, allowing the engine to get into its comfort zone and the torque converter to slip less, thereby producing less heat.Also, keep an eye on things in the longer term. I have a 08/2018 Isuzu D-max LS. Interior is basic compared to competitors, and yes I had to clean out the environmentally born egr valve after 60 odd k. ( now I am out of warranty I will install a catch can like my old patrol). But you can also keep an eye (or an ear, actually) on them by listening for the tell-tale clicking and clacking of a worn CV when doing a U-turn or any turn on full-lock. Greg .Greg again ……… correction ……. Under the front seat are the harnesses for the drivers and passengers airbags and seatbelt pretensioners. That way, you’ve taken a huge amount of stress off the rails and that’s got to be good news. So, if all you do is lurch about the city and suburbs in your D-Max or MU-X, pretty soon the DPF will be full of soot, the warning light will appear on the dashboard and you’re up for the not insignificant cost of having the filter manually cleaned. When you invest in a brand new car you expect a lot more than this history. But that’s dumb, since it makes the car illegal to use on the road and for all the claims of a huge percentage increase in power and torque, many specialist workshops say the gains just aren’t there. But then, it doesn’t have to be if you make it part of your regular maintenance schedule.This is a real simple one; have the front wheel bearings inspected and greased or replaced every 30,000km. And it’s worse for a business, which is why most workshops will run a mile before agreeing to carry out this modification. So, if all you do is lurch about the city and suburbs in your D-Max or MU-X, pretty soon the DPF will be full of soot, the warning light will appear on the dashboard and you’re up for the not insignificant cost of having the filter manually cleaned. Long term, you could easily damage the valve stems with loose clearances or damage a cylinder with not enough (tight) clearance.Treat checking – and adjusting if necessary – valve clearances as a once-every-40,000km routine job. That said, our experts reckon there’s a limit to this before the winch gets in the way of the air-con condenser and everything else at the front of the engine bay.Be careful where you mount a second battery, too, as the extra mass of a big battery could easily lead to the sort of engine-bay cracks reported. At which point the vehicle’s emission-controls aren’t working and it’s – technically - unroadworthy.The other symptoms can include a check-engine light illuminating on the dashboard as well as poor starting, a loss of power, reduced fuel economy, and rough idling.The best advice is not to wait until the EGR and intake manifold clogs up. And aside from leaving yourself open to a monster fine, the car will also be rendered technically unroadworthy and you might even find your insurance company will use such a modification as a reason to not return your calls.A GVM upgrade is possible through new suspension and there are kits around that are already certified and will do the job. Other times it won’t be, which is when you have to take a deep breath and front up at a workshop to have the filter either manually cleaned or, in extreme cases, replaced outright.You’ll be able to identify poor valve adjustment by a ticking noise from the top of the engine that is usually worst on cold start-ups. I have tried to read the instruction manual (which would drive a person insane) and there is nothing in there about it. Most of them these days are coming out of China and, at the risk of starting a trade war, they’re generally not as good as the CVs being made in Japan.

Isuzu, like all Japanese vehicles are more forgiving for poor maintenance than anything our Krout brothers produce.Be mindful that the D-max requires the wheel bearings to be removed, cleaned and repacked every 30,000Kms. That said, you can buy a kit that deletes the DPF but take it from us, its strictly for competition, non-road-going cars. 30,000km and never have any projlem with n people hearing me on the hands free.Spot on review. Be careful how high and how stiff you go when lifting or attempting to improve the load carrying of an Isuzu (or any other make and model) and be careful how radical you go suspension-wise.With its meaty 3.0-litre turbo-diesel engine and proper off-road smarts, the Isuzu D-Max and MU-X have become popular choices for touring and serious off-roading.