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    What's your opinion on diesel engine remaps?

    Isuzu Isuzu Advice Isuzu D-Max Isuzu D-Max Advice Isuzu D-Max 2013

    I'm towing trailers every week with my 2013 Isuzu D-MAX and I have a 2.6 tonne caravan to take out on regular trips. My engine struggles with 2500rpm and keeping up to 90km/h on flat roads with the caravan attached. The odometer reads 147,000km. What's your opinion on diesel engine remaps?

    Answered by CarsGuide
    2 March 2022
    David Morley

    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.

    Disclaimer: You acknowledge and agree that all answers are provided as a general guide only and should not be relied upon as bespoke advice. Carsguide is not liable for the accuracy of any information provided in the answers.
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