How do you treat your MG4?

[Rolfe]

Between 18,000 and 19,000.

These trips I describe are my regular daily-drive sort of things. If I couldn't do these without stopping to charge I'd have got a longer-range car. But I seldom do much more than 100 miles in a day and Caliban can eat that for breakfast. He can easily do 150 miles in summer, fast. If I go further I'm happy enough to take my time.

I got back from Glasgow last night at 30%, charged (and heated the battery) overnight, then got back from Melrose today on 52%. Both times I pre-heated using battery energy, twice on the Glasgow trip. I also heated the battery using battery energy before going to Glasgow, because I didn't leave till 5.20 so there wasn't a lot of point in heating it overnight. As a result I set off for Glasgow on 95%.

I literally don't even think about range on a daily basis, pre-heat the car any time I like, and always have the heater on for the entire journey in winter. This should really be the experience of most people with home charging. It's utterly painless. Even if I had to do two trips in a day, say the hospital run had happened on the same day as I was going to the theatre in the evening, I'd just bump charge at home in the afternoon, and if there wasn't time to get to at least 80%, I'd leave the car on an AC charger while I was at the theatre.

My neighbour across the road, identical house, has just bought a bloody hybrid. Whatamaroon.

 

[rjkirk]

This is the first time I have ever had a brand new car, never mind an EV...so I treat it with kid gloves, to the point where if I accidentally scuff the interior bottom of the door with the sole of a trainer, the microfibre cloth is out immediately. I crawl over speed bumps, ease it round corners, stay away from gravel and use every control gently as though it's about to break.

I suspect this may change once the inevitable stone chips start appearing.

Stone chips will appear very quickly, MG use the cheapest and thinnest amount of paint possible to cut costs. I was quite shocked at how thin and how easily the paint comes off.
MG4 TROPHY 2023 Model.

 

[siteguru]

FWIW I've not noticed stone chips on mine ... maybe the Camden Grey colour is good at hiding them.

 

[DerekH]

Wow! Thanks for putting up that video, not seen that one before. I am 1.5 years and 31,000km in on my 2023 Camden Grey 77kw LR, west coast OZ. Zero issues so far. That video should be used by MG for marketing purposes . I have ridden most of those "roads" to Karala on a royal Enfield and can say that that bloke has some balls to take the MG4 out there.. never will I complain about the lack of charging infrastructure here. Given the altitude he did I would be having som3 range anxiety issues!!! Not to mention if he got a flat or had an issue mechanically. There wouldn't be a part for that thing anywhere close. I have taken mine with MTB on the bike rack off the beaten track on gravel roads but nothing like this nor as remote as that. Something that was impressive is the fact that altitude doesn't affect the EV like it does petrol vehicles. Even the bikes struggled at altitude across Nepal. Pretty impressive to be honest. I also have no issue with thin paint, stone chips. The couple I have are from rocks flicked up by other vehicles and hitting bloody hard at speed. No paint would come away unmarked from the ones I have had hit me. Not affiliated at all but I can fully recommend the Dr Colorchip product for making chips close to invisible. Used it on a previous MX5 and Mazda 3 and does magic due to its unique 2 part application process that anyone can do..

 

[Rolfe]

I had a little cluster of three stone chips on the off-side wing, which the paint shop kindly fixed at the same time the scratch I picked up on the Bealach na Bà was being fixed. I haven't noticed any problem with the paint at all.

Yesterday I stupidly missed a turnoff on the M8 and had to drive all the way round by the A720 to get home, an extra 10 miles. By the time I got home I'd done 120 miles and the car was on 20%. I barely remembered to look at the % charge all day.

 

[DaevM]

Love that video. Bloody english gets every though doughnut ? .
I always take extra care with every 'new' car for the honeymoon period of a month or two but after that it better do what I want, when I want. Although, to be fair that has become less adventuresome over the last few years. Suffice to say UK roads / potholes. And something that seems to have come along with other signs of the aging process ( me, not the car), such as deteriorating vision, hearing, memory and white hair is the pleasure I get from cleaning it and having a nice shiny motor - oh, the joys of getting old

 

[Everest]

And something that seems to have come along with other signs of the aging process ( me, not the car), such as deteriorating vision, hearing, memory and white hair is the pleasure I get from cleaning it and having a nice shiny motor - oh, the joys of getting ol

Maybe we just don't see the dirt at our age any more

 

[MG Clive]

Stone chips will appear very quickly, MG use the cheapest and thinnest amount of paint possible to cut costs. I was quite shocked at how thin and how easily the paint comes off.
MG4 TROPHY 2023 Model.

I actually thought the paint on mine looked decent thickness and quality, the paint on my previous MG3 Hybrid was worse.

 

[Phil]

I actually thought the paint on mine looked decent thickness and quality, the paint on my previous MG3 Hybrid was worse.

Here in Australia you have to be prepared for stone chips. I’m still ‘getting around to’ sourcing some touch up paint (Volcanic Orange/Fizzy Orange). It’ll get worse before it gets any better

 

[Ian Key]

Modern paints can take anything from 30 to 90 days to fully harden depending on the type used so your brand new pride and joy will chip easier in the first couple of months of ownership.

 

[DaevM]

Modern paints can take anything from 30 to 90 days to fully harden depending on the type used so your brand new pride and joy will chip easier in the first couple of months of ownership.

Good point - luckily mine was sitting around 'hardening' for 10 months before I bought it. Must admit I'd been wondering why no chips etc were appearing. Reached tank standard I reckon
( Head on, write off crash, not a scratch )

 

[T1 Terry]

I keep that protective layer on all my vehicles, you never see rocks fly up and chip the road, so that protective layer is sort of a camouflage so the rocks don't identify it as a vehicle with nice fresh paint.
Rocks are bit like bored kids, they like to leave a tag on a freshly cleaned wall, I'd have to wash one of my cars to see any stone chips .... I can't see that happening any time soon

T1 Terry

 

[OriginalBigAl]

Good point - luckily mine was sitting around 'hardening' for 10 months before I bought it. Must admit I'd been wondering why no chips etc were appearing. Reached tank standard I reckon
( Head on, write off crash, not a scratch )

Lets hope its not a Russian tank!!! Seriously though I think the metallic sparkly finishes are a bit tougher than the single colour flatter paints , The bonnet of my orange one has acquired around 8 chips ,all small , in its thin coating. Down to grey "primer" protective electro adhered coating , can just about feel them when running a finger across them. A couple also on the plastic bumper section with a black background.

 

[tallman]

My biggest concern is ground clearance. Even in an ICE car you can very quickly damage the engine with a misplaced rock that wasn't as small as you thought like I did when I tore open my sump in the middle of nowhere on one of my old cars years ago. I don't know how much protection there is under the MG4. I will say with my MG4 Essence here in Australia I haven't any any problems on gravel/dirt roads, but I'd be taking it pretty slow on anything that is not a well graded surface and not taking it off road. Damage to the underside of your ICE is expensive and inconvenient, but damage the underside of your battery and you could be up in flames.

 

[T1 Terry]

My biggest concern is ground clearance. Even in an ICE car you can very quickly damage the engine with a misplaced rock that wasn't as small as you thought like I did when I tore open my sump in the middle of nowhere on one of my old cars years ago. I don't know how much protection there is under the MG4. I will say with my MG4 Essence here in Australia I haven't any any problems on gravel/dirt roads, but I'd be taking it pretty slow on anything that is not a well graded surface and not taking it off road. Damage to the underside of your ICE is expensive and inconvenient, but damage the underside of your battery and you could be up in flames.

A full front to rear skid plate is the go then? That would make it easier to get air over the speed humps

T1 Terry

 

[dicky ticker Dave]

This is the first time I have ever had a brand new car, never mind an EV...so I treat it with kid gloves, to the point where if I accidentally scuff the interior bottom of the door with the sole of a trainer, the microfibre cloth is out immediately. I crawl over speed bumps, ease it round corners, stay away from gravel and use every control gently as though it's about to break.

I suspect this may change once the inevitable stone chips start appearing.

There’s nothing wrong with looking after your car with kid gloves. £26k to £30 something for a car is still a lot of money. Look after it and it will(hopefully look after you) we will hopefully be picking up our first MG4 trophy on the 1st of march. Just keep polishing.

 

[salty]

Congrats on your new motor, Dave.
Not long to go now.

 

[RaspberryMan]

There’s nothing wrong with looking after your car with kid gloves. £26k to £30 something for a car is still a lot of money. Look after it and it will(hopefully look after you) we will hopefully be picking up our first MG4 trophy on the 1st of march. Just keep polishing.

I'm also on a lease deal, so I don't want to give the lease company the slightest excuse to even think about wear and tear penalties.

 

[T1 Terry]

When we picked up our new MG4 51 on Tuesday (yes, we have 3 of them now) the dealership sold my wife on paint protection and tinted windows ... for another $2,000 thankyou very much

When we picked up the car, they told us not to wash it for 7 days and only use ph neutral products .... when I asked if rain was ph neutral, because that's the only washing any of our cars have had in the last 7 yrs ..... there was a roll of the eyes and a laugh ...... then they looked out the window at the EB Fairmount we rolled up in ....... and the laughter died away I mentioned it had over 200,000 kms on the clock and still going strong and our '08 Gen 2 Prius had 740,000kms on the clock, our '74 VW Kombi is approaching the 1 mill kms .... and I expected this MG4 to outlast all of them, because it was the first new car we have ever purchased ..... the looks were worth bottling

T1 Terry

 

[Phil]

My biggest concern is ground clearance. Even in an ICE car you can very quickly damage the engine with a misplaced rock that wasn't as small as you thought like I did when I tore open my sump in the middle of nowhere on one of my old cars years ago. I don't know how much protection there is under the MG4. I will say with my MG4 Essence here in Australia I haven't any any problems on gravel/dirt roads, but I'd be taking it pretty slow on anything that is not a well graded surface and not taking it off road. Damage to the underside of your ICE is expensive and inconvenient, but damage the underside of your battery and you could be up in flames.

I’ve been driving Australian roads since 1971… never had any stone damage to the underside of the many vehicles I have drive although did pick up a snake once