Safe as houses: Isuzu D-Max scores five-star ANCAP
Isuzu’s leading safety credentials help it achieve a top five-star ANCAP rating in the toughest year of testing yet.
Isuzu’s new D-Max is the first ute to score a full five-star ANCAP rating to stringent 2020 standards, satisfying the vehicle safety authority for all variants available of the new model.
ANCAP says the Isuzu D-Max is the “safety benchmark for the competitive ute segment.”
Not only is the rating a win for Isuzu and customer safety, but the latest rating is certified to 2020 standards, which introduce new, more stringent measurements of safety than before.
“Our 2020 requirements again set the bar higher to promote further vehicle safety improvements and address some of the ongoing challenges on our roads,” said ANCAP director of communications and advocacy, Rhianne Robson.
Underpinning the new safety systems is Isuzu’s Isuzu Intelligent Driver Assistance System (IDAS), which uses a Hitachi-supplied twin-camera system mounted high on the windscreen and is critical for forward collision warning, AEB with pedestrian and cyclist detection and turn assist, adaptive cruise control and lane departure warning and automatic steering assist. The system is fitted to every variant including entry-level models. It also traffic sign recognition, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert and emergency lane keeping, among further features.
On top of technology systems, Isuzu D-Max is also the first ute in the world to fit a front-row centre airbag as standard for added occupant protection and bringing the total number of airbags to eight.
“The D-MAX rating has been highly anticipated by fleet and private buyers, and re-establishes the safety benchmark for the competitive ute segment where the introduction of safety features has tended to lag that of passenger cars and SUVs,” added Robson.
“With the new challenges set by ANCAP from 2020, it is extremely pleasing to see manufacturers achieve good results against these increasing standards, and take responsibility by prioritising safety to provide their customers with the safest vehicles they can.”
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From personal experience driving interstate regularly and mostly on country roads when at home Isuzu produces value for money reliability and good all round performance, towing 1.8 tonnes easily.
And over 90,000 Kilometres since late in 2017.
Isuzu is superbly reliable as I experienced with my 1997 Holden Rodeo (built by Isuzu), never missed a beat during 70,000km, nothing loose, nothing gone wrong, in my opinion, no 1 in reliability from Japan.
Always excellent as usual guys(and Gals?) Keep up the good work.
I am told one can’t put an aluminium tray on the dual cab as a lot of the safety technology is tucked away in the rear tray and it’s too hard to transfer it to the aluminium tray which seems a bit stupid for a newly designed truck. I guess Mazda’s dual cab will have the same problem. If this is true the Isuzu and Mazda are not fit for the purpose of being used by tradesmen for work and family purposes..
We reviewed the new D-Max as a cab-chassis with tray and it had the normal IDAS system features and they all worked. However, the manual does not have the same level of safety as the automatic.
Just a heads up. The IDAS system is extremely dangerous on rural roads. I have a new DMAX and have to press a button on the steering wheel 22 times to deactivate the emergency braking and lane assist. Has caused numerous near misses and a couple of serious accidents in 4 weeks. Dealing with ISUZU at the moment because every time you turn the key on it resets the settings. Needs to be resolved ASAP.
Can you please elaborate on this? I am considering buying this ute but this is very concerning.
Thanks Stephen, we’ll investigate this. Feel free to drop us a note to add more details.