As I suspected, my wife was unable to obtain a copy of the legendary R63 archive… but at least she gave it a try.
I think there’s something fundamentally wrong in the way updates are handled at MG dealerships.
The car arrived with 1100R33 and 69.3.8.0 MCU.
They upgraded the MPU to R38 but failed to carry out the MCU upgrade (the version paired with R38 is 69.4.4.0).
When she collected the vehicle, she candidly mentioned the MCU to them, but their response was, "There's no need to upgrade."
She then asked if there were specific guidelines or a reason not to perform the update. Their explanation was that if something is functioning well, it shouldn’t be updated, as doing so might introduce bugs.
I am inclined to think they lack a deep understanding of the technology and have little grasp of how integrated systems function. On a broader scale, MG updates seem to be carried out in a chaotic manner. I’m not just talking about FICM updates but about all modules and ECUs across the car (BMS, HVAC...)
This is quite alarming, as it means every car ends up with a unique configuration. Such a broad range of versions can easily lead to unexpected bugs and likely explains why we all experience different behaviours in our vehicles, even with the same MPU release.