Wish list of MG4 improvements

dsr said:

Tried my 11,000+ tracks on one USB stick. I think all the tracks are there and could be accessed sequentially, but I haven’t the time or energy to click next track forever. The main display shows “No Tracks”, so no joy and back to my four sticks with fewer tracks each.

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Could you tell me what audio format eg: FLAC etc that the audio system can read from stick drive?Thank you.

Page 9 of the Navi manual:

My suggestion for OPD would be simply to add it as another regen setting, meaning you could cycle through regens 1-2-3-A-OPD. When it couldn't be activated, then a simple message would pop up and it would skip to the next regen setting.

I'll also add that:

• The chosen regen setting should not reset every time you start the car... It's annoying;
• It would be great if we could have a setting with NO regen at all. 0-1-2-3-A-OPD would be perfect.

siteguru said:

Page 9 of the Navi manual:

View attachment 33260

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Sorry thank you for that guess me being lazy .. slapped my wrist

I’d like to see them put a little more effort into the finer finishes in the car - better plastics, better quality seat foam and some form of sound deadening / foam / tape to stop the bloody rattles!!

Oh and a light in the rear - what a daft thing to scrimp on!

In the nice to have but not essential list requests a rear door opening button for driver for easier loading unloading; perhaps hydraulic assist also to open close this rear hatch for we shorter weaker owners; as above easier hvac adjustments when driving; easier equaliser adjustments for speakers?

Might have been said before but if you're going to make the full-beam control a push on the lever don't put the lights toggle on the face of the lever. Twice this week I've accidentally turned the lights off when dipping the headlights on narrow back roads and it's not easy to get them back on again. The switch on the level for the lights in general isn't great.

docmjl said:

In the nice to have but not essential list requests a rear door opening button for driver for easier loading unloading; perhaps hydraulic assist also to open close this rear hatch for we shorter weaker owners; as above easier hvac adjustments when driving; easier equaliser adjustments for speakers?

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I’ve heard that they didn’t go hydraulic on the tailgate because they anticipated a lot of ride share drivers to buy these cars, and apparently that’s an issue for them. And I’m sure MG wanted to keep the price down. But I agree a factory option for hydraulic lift would be nice.

ReintjeWA said:

I’ve heard that they didn’t go hydraulic on the tailgate because they anticipated a lot of ride share drivers to buy these cars, and apparently that’s an issue for them. And I’m sure MG wanted to keep the price down. But I agree a factory option for hydraulic lift would be nice.

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If you take a wander through the "MG4 Upgrades" thread, I'm sure someone posted about an aftermarket kit for that.

WonkoTheSaneUK said:

If you take a wander through the "MG4 Upgrades" thread, I'm sure someone posted about an aftermarket kit for that.

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Yeah I saw a dude on YouTube put one in as well, I’ve also read some bad reviews on some of them, not worth the hassle to me, maybe when I’m older or if I get any lazier haha

I know that MG build a car to a price. But why not offer a printed manual as a purchasable item from the dealership? And other items such as interior rear light and all the things they leave off to keep the price down.

Vipar said:

I know that MG build a car to a price. But why not offer a printed manual as a purchasable item from the dealership? And other items such as interior rear light and all the things they leave off to keep the price down.

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Mine came with a printed manual, but it's pretty tiny. Explains why the pdf pictures are such low resolution. I just keep a digital copy saved to my iCloud so I can access it whenever and wherever I want.


For those looking to have the manual saved on their phone too

ReintjeWA said:

Mine came with a printed manual, but it's pretty tiny. Explains why the pdf pictures are such low resolution. I just keep a digital copy saved to my iCloud so I can access it whenever and wherever I want.

https://www.mg.co.uk/sites/default/files/2022-09/MG4_EV_Owner_Manual.pdf

For those looking to have the manual saved on their phone too

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Until this week, I also had the manual in the app (Australian version). Yesterday the manual was no longer there, (no data found), and the app frequently crashed when trying. Possibly because I have been voicing my opinions about said app. I politely rate it as "poor". I'm not usually polite about it.

So yesterday I downloaded a version from a local FB group, and it came with a print version in the glovebox.

TonyF said:

Until this week, I also had the manual in the app (Australian version). Yesterday the manual was no longer there, (no data found), and the app frequently crashed when trying. Possibly because I have been voicing my opinions about said app. I politely rate it as "poor". I'm not usually polite about it.

So yesterday I downloaded a version from a local FB group, and it came with a print version in the glovebox.

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I forgot the app has the manual too haha, I’ve always (from when possible I suppose) had a digital copy of the manual saved to my phone so did the same for the MG4. No need for internet or servers.

I haven't seen this shared, and since it's based on this very thread, and is by a forum member, here you go:

TonyF said:

Until this week, I also had the manual in the app (Australian version). Yesterday the manual was no longer there, (no data found), and the app frequently crashed when trying. Possibly because I have been voicing my opinions about said app. I politely rate it as "poor". I'm not usually polite about it.

So yesterday I downloaded a version from a local FB group, and it came with a print version in the glovebox.

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I've just checked the availability of the manual and it is available in the app again.

Quality of Life improvements:

• Enable permanent 360° View: Currently, 360° can be turned ON by putting gear into R when parking in reverse, which is good. It can be turned on even with a button on the second page of the main menu. But there are occasions where having it ON would be superb (during R D R D R D maneuvering, or if you'd want to park nose in directly in the middle of the lines). It would be nice if the 360° View stayed turned ON, if selected from the main menu and stayed ON until the X is pressed on the infotainment display.
• Revert A/C menu to the original dashboard image: It was super cool and would like to see the return of it. The new blocky menu looks really dated. The only thing why the OG menu was wonky is because it had the option to tap on the airstreams to enable different airstreams. Remove these touch zones so airstreams can be changed only via the circular buttons on the side. Slightly increase the size of the temperature setting slider and add pill shaped buttons (blue and red) around the < and > to make them more visible and obvious.
• Remove Up/Down arrows and “Long press right hat-switch to reset” text: After pressing the double rectangle (middle) button on the right side of the steering wheel (used to switch right joystick between dashboard and infotainment functionality), the Up/Down arrows above and below the Accumulated / From Last Charge / Since Start should NOT be visible. Likewise, the text “Long press right hat-switch to reset” should also become invisible. It looks cluttered for no reason and the fix is literally very simple in code.
• Remove “Please plug in the charge connector” text: This should not be visible at all. It’s improperly prompting the user to plug the car in.

GoElectric said:

Quality of Life improvements:

• Enable permanent 360° View: Currently, 360° can be turned ON by putting gear into R when parking in reverse, which is good. It can be turned on even with a button on the second page of the main menu. But there are occasions where having it ON would be superb (during R D R D R D maneuvering, or if you'd want to park nose in directly in the middle of the lines). It would be nice if the 360° View stayed turned ON, if selected from the main menu and stayed ON until the X is pressed on the infotainment display.

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On the Trophy, the 360° view can be tied to the left star button.

I've had my new MG4 Xpower a few months now. It was an odd experience at first but have settled in and am happy with it overall, but have a few suggestions for improvement.

I will start with what I can argue are important safety features that really need to be addressed:
1. SAVE SETTINGS: not just a nuisance that it often doesn't save all setting, but actually dangerous because I expect things to be as they were and drive accordingly, such as unexpectedly being in NORMAL power mode instead of SPORT, and the handling is significantly different. Ditto, LKA with its jarring jerking.

Similarly it is a distraction to reset the settings while driving when it is noticed the settings have reset to defaults. This requires the driver to take eyes off the road, one hand off the steering wheel, scroll through a few menus, etc.

2. BIG BUTTONS: known flaws with on-screen 'software' / 'soft' buttons include:

• you must look at the screen as it may be in a different menu/screen, and the buttons are different
• you can't feel where a soft button is, whereas a hard button is always where it was so you get used to that, and you can feel when your finger is on it without taking your eyes off the road, or at least only for a very short glance
• when reaching over quite a way to press buttons on the far side of the screen, this is not at all good if something happens on the road that requires immediate action
• the soft buttons need to be much bigger to allow faster action with less time without eyes on the road, with larger fonts and ideally big distinct icons with maybe colours to also help quickly find and press them
• allow the screen to move and tilt to allow button pushing, and also to see the screen when light is shining at the wrong angle, especially when fingerprints have accumulated
• I'm in Australia so we drive on the left, so the screen is to my left, so I must use my left hand to push buttons, but this is awkward given I am right-handed
• I have never figured out how to get the spoken-commands feature to ever do anything useful... far from it. Unsure if it's my accent, but it's as distracting as having to go through screens pushing tiny buttons.

I'm not even sure what voice commands to use, such as whether I can just say like "turn up volume" and it will understand and equate it with similar meaning phrases like "increase volume", "turn up sound", "make sound louder", "stereo volume increase", and any combination and ordering of words. I've tried lots but no good.

Or must I say commands that are in effect just pushing buttons on the current screen page, so that I must look at the screen to know it is on the home page, then say "audio button", then see if it has accepted this and gone to the audio page to then say "sound up". This is very distracting and worse than pushing buttons.

- FASTER BRAIN: the info, settings, environment, entertainment system is quite slow, and as above, any time spent not looking at the road is dangerous. In this day and age I am surprised by how slow the processor appears to be, or probably non-ideal code.

- GLITCH FIX: if you open the driver's door under some circumstances, probably when in "D" but not entirely sure, but foot is on the brake, the car will glitch, requiring me to lift my bum off the seat (or get out entirely) to then turn the car off then on again otherwise it remains frozen. This has been both very embarrassing but also dangerous. Why open the door? To operate car door keypads, grab food from drive-thru windows, swipe cards, insert coins, etc.
Dangerous if you have to get out of the car while there's a bunch of aggressive hoons behind you looking for any excuse for a road rage attack. Depends what type of area you're in I guess.

- AUTOMATION: it is distracting to have to keep adjusting the windscreen wiper speed to match rain intensity AND car speed, or else suffer poor visibility. Needs automatic adjustment like most cars in that price range.
Ditto, sound system volume. Very simple to have it such that the volume goes up as the speed increases, and vice versa so the driver doesn't need to continually adjust it manually.

- AIRCON: I am a microbiologist presently working with mould (mold) and often see vehicles with harmful amounts of mould growth on the dashboard, windscreen and vents because it grows very fast on the wet chiller fins and coils when the car is turned off before the fins dry off. They warm up and this makes everything humid in the A/C system and nearby, including the whole car cabin interior if the windows are kept closed and the weather is warm and humid. People get quite sick from this, and it is expensive to remove it all as just spraying with something does nothing good.
Hence, a safety feature would be to have the fan continue to run for at least 5 minutes after the car has stopped and the A/C was in use, longer if cool humid weather. Ideally there'd be a moisture or humidity sensor in the A/C heat exchanger that detects when the fins are wet / dry and activates the blower accordingly

- HEAT KILLS: every summer many pets and children die when left in a car as the temperature increases amazingly. Yup, people should not do this, but all same they do. As a safety measure, have the fan turn on automatically above some temperature (and it is cooler outside), and perhaps run the A/C, and alert the driver via the app. Hell, crack the windows down a bit, or in an emergency situation allow the doors to unlock and windows roll down completely.
Also a comfort feature as anyone in Australia will tell you just how unpleasant getting into a hot car is, especially when it's maybe 65'C easily.

- DASHCAM: there are plenty of cameras all around the car, yet no apparent way to record them. Odd as I thought it would be simple to have an optional extra I'd pay good money for to just have an SSD connected to the cams that also includes location, time/date, speed, whether speeding up / braking, etc. This is very important information in the unfortunate event of a fatal collision, or more likely the dispute about who was at fault, or whether it was a fault with the car.

- CRASH DETECTION: turns out many drivers and passengers die because they had a collision, especially single-car accidents where they go off the road somewhere not visible to other traffic, because they are unconscious or otherwise incapacitated of calling for help. It's a thing. Some cars are being fitted with a black box that reacts to air-bag deployment, then asks the driver to indicate if they're OK. If no response in a minute after repeated alerts, it can send an emergency txt telling chosen phone contact and emergency services where the car is located and that there was a collision and the driver is not responding.

Yup. That's a few safety features and fixes I'd like to see.

GoElectric said:

Quality of Life improvements:
Enable permanent 360°...........

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I just put an indicator on at low manoeuvring speeds and up pops the camera full view.