MG4, not a good car.

I think MG's biggest failing is not that its not a good car. Having driven 1500 miles in the last 7 days in mine, it's definitely a good car. The issue is with the support from MG UK, the dealerships, and MG China when you do have issues.

I probably wouldn't buy another MG myself, not because its not a good car, I really enjoyed driving it on my Scottish roadtrip, but because I have a low degree of confidence of problems being fixed quickly and efficiently if/when they occur. Shame, as the 7 year warranty was a big plus point when i bought it.
I wanted to reply to this post as it does make a valid point. My comment/thread title that the 'MG4 is not a good car' was a throwaway comment and not specific enough.

Specifically, MY MG4 is not a good car, in so far as the amount of issues I've encountered in a relatively short space of time (in comparison to all previous cars I've had between 1999-2023).

As it's only early days in the resolution of this problem, it may come to pass that our problems are amicably resolved.
 
2 new posters comment on the same day with the same basic negative structure in their posts. I'll go with my experience and opinion on this.

There is absolutely no evidence at all that two different people didn't just happen to appear at the same time looking for help with their problems. If you believe this is a sock-puppet situation, report the posts rather than making public accusations, and let the admin look into it.
 
I have the MG4 Trophy long range and my LKA stays off. Do this: Go into the info system, select the car in the bottom right hand corner and set everything as you want it. When you've done this, turn ON towing mode. LKA will stay off but you will still need to turn off traffic sign recognition and driver attention system if you don't want them. I haven't needed to turn off the HATED LKA for months due to the fix from some random Dutch guy (thank you oh nameless one).
 
I had a Ford fiesta which the Ford garage couldn’t fix. Kept saying they couldn’t find a problem. It just died when it felt like it. When it stopped in the middle of a very busy junction my wife said it has to go. I lost a lot on that new car. So it’s not just MG. So far fingers crossed I love the MG, I have the Billy basic one and it’s brilliant. First MG and EV. I still have a diesel Motorhome 2017 Ford Transit which went wrong last week on the first day of a month away. ?
Looking at a £2000 bill and a ruined holiday.
 
To put my own perspective on MG cars by actually mentioning the 2 other EVs I owned might help.

I had one of the first BMW i3s and in 3 years of ownership it had £12,000 of warranty work and had covered around 18K miles when I got shot of it. I had to get rid of it because some of the big ticket items that were due to go wrong had not gone wrong yet. There was the charger rectifier fault and a range extender REME machine fault overdue. These faults to fix were months off the road and 4+6K to fix (+VAT) respectively. I selected another I 3 a later model 2017, drove to Bradford and around 30M from the garage finally saw the dreaded REME fault. We stopped for 30 minutes and had a cup of tea, fortunately when I went out the fault had cleared, but I went the rest of the way on battery only to try and help the Range extender fault pop up again. The dealer was looking over the car and fortunately no faults showed on the Dash. I had got rid of the Lemon back to a BMW dealer.

My 2017 i3 was absolutely fault free for 6 years. BUT, you NEVER want to run a BMW i3 without an extended warranty. The warranty costs round £900 per year with an excess of around £250 or £400. The problem is with an i3 bit like Josh Fiddler (Cary on camping), the minimum charge for anything is £1000. In fact on my first i3 the garage stripped all the bolt receivers (clip on) and bolts on my engine cover and on one service presented me with a bill of £750+VAT (the only time I had seen a bill for less than £1K. 30 bolts and receivers at £20 each + £150 to replace them. Needless to say I refused to pay this as I hadn't damaged them and I didn't think it was reasonable the threads would all strip after the hatch had been removed 3 times at most, I also suggested they start them by hand rather than spin them in all the way with power tools.

The point of the story, first i3 = lemon of epic proportions, 2nd i3 = fault free.

I suspect it's the same with MG4 EVs. Sure mine had a fault with the charge controller and the software is so pants it's unbelievable. Designed by a bicycle riding Chinese person no doubt. With the software the main niggles are:
  • It's hard to find stuff and some things are not explained well (e.g. Intelligent battery heating..never, ever turn it on)
  • It won't stay with the last settings you used and you have to spend 3m setting it up before you drive off
  • You can have speed limit control, which is great, but why oh why can't you have cruise control available at the same time
  • It sometimes throws up an Autohold fault
  • I can no longer find the intelligent battery heating option anywhere except the app since the last update
  • No one gives you a list of what the updates are set to address
  • If you have DAB radio on google maps/android auto gives no voice commands, although it does quiet down the radio when it would be doing so
To balance things out some software functions are good. Overall the MG4 is way better than the BMW I had even though I had the top spec World trim. The BMW was too clever and advanced for its own good. Special tyres, £1K if a dealer fitted, carbon fibre body, mag alloy underpinnings etc.. all to minimise power consumption per mile, which rarely topped out at 4.8 miles per kWh in perfect conditions at a steady 50 mph. Do 60 mpg and it did a Monica Lewinski on your battery, draining it really fast. My Max range 125 ml in summer for a car that cost 42K then!

Compare that to my MG4 LR, cheaper for parts, cheaper to work on, no clever tyres or body tech and 5.4 miles per kWh at 60 mph. Range of almost 290 miles at 60 mph, costing £28,500 and servicing at 1/2 the price. So IMHO it's the better car.

That said, it's important to realise that EV's are all disposable cars, at around 10 years old they will be worthless and no one will ever put a new battery in them!
 
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I can honestly say with one exception my 1 year old MG4 is one of the best cars I have owned. With very careful driving I am getting 315 miles of range with 100 per cent charge. Singular issue is faulty on board charger which means I can’t charge at home. Just waiting call from Dealership to say part has arrived.
 
I can honestly say with one exception my 1 year old MG4 is one of the best cars I have owned. With very careful driving I am getting 315 miles of range with 100 per cent charge. Singular issue is faulty on board charger which means I can’t charge at home. Just waiting call from Dealership to say part has arrived.
Blue one by any chance? I walked past one of that hue on my way down to the Turkish Pizza place at the square last week ?
 
We've got two MG4s, one SE SR 2023 and one Trophy SR 2023. Both have had faults within the first year of purchase but the SE is the clear winner. In 13 months, we've had 4 warranty repairs (5 between the two). I've driven many a car since 1999 but this one takes the "trophy'.

• 1: Considerable amount of water found in boot after rain. *Fixed seal
•2: Water under rear passenger footwell, separate issue to 1.
*Fixed seal
3: Passenger front door button dead.
*Fixed, new handle and button.
4: Rear passenger window does not function via driver door or passenger door selector.

I'm not going to talk long about the suicidal AI (as this is common on the forum) which deems it fine to slam on for no reason OR has the penchant for pulling us into incoming traffic for lols.

Or in my particular case, MGs infotainment (Android Auto) which won't connect to my phone if I plug it in before the system starts or sometimes even after it starts. It'll just disconnect me after a few moments (replugging doesn't work, get out of car works lol).

Yes, we've had the latest updates straight from MG.

Shambles, will be our last MGs.
Well our MG4 has been perfect but also will not buy another. Basically it's like having a great laptop with a sh1t operating system. The lane assist feature which keeps turning on since the last update is shocking & dangerous. Intelligent speed limiter is a joke mostly it can't read any speed limits & those that it does are often wrong. A real shame.
 
I can honestly say with one exception my 1 year old MG4 is one of the best cars I have owned. With very careful driving I am getting 315 miles of range with 100 per cent charge. Singular issue is faulty on board charger which means I can’t charge at home. Just waiting call from Dealership to say part has arrived.
Which MG4 model do you have (your details refer to you driving an MG5)? Presumably an ER? I’m certainly impressed by the 315 miles - which is beyond me and my driving.
 
Which MG4 model do you have (your details refer to you driving an MG5)? Presumably an ER? I’m certainly impressed by the 315 miles - which is beyond me and my driving.

I'm assuming it must be the long range and he is going by the guess o meter, mine has often shown 320+ miles range, but I've never sucked it dry to find out.
 
Ours broke down after just 300 miles (multiple error messages and parking brake would not release, even with override switch so was stuck on driveway). On way back to dealer today. Not happy at all.

Hoping for a quick and comprehensive fix but already I think this will be our last MG.
Sounds like a low/faulty12V battery, or terminals not tight.
 
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I'm in two minds if I'll get another MG. I enjoy driving it and it does what I want from a car with only the passenger door handle needing to be replaced so far.

I've probably been spoilt with the service my local independent garage has given me over the years with my second hand cars. Nothing was too much trouble and in an emergency could fit you in and get the car back on the road pronto at a reasonable price.

I can forgive the time it takes to get parts as that should improve and the software glitches which seem to getting fixed but what is putting me off is the lack of support MG give their dealers. They don't trust the dealers experienced technicians, who have been on courses by MG, to diagnose faults correctly and then make them jump through hoops. No wonder some dealers can't be arsed to give a good service.
 
Intelligent speed limiter is a joke mostly it can't read any speed limits & those that it does are often wrong.
What is this "Intelligent speed limiter", is it something that comes with recent updates? I don't want any more unnecessary pushing of buttons to switch some new half-baked garbage feature off before taking off.
 
Don't worry, it defaults to off every time the car starts. You don't even get to see the option if the cruise control is on.
 
I have the MG4 Trophy long range and my LKA stays off. Do this: Go into the info system, select the car in the bottom right hand corner and set everything as you want it. When you've done this, turn ON towing mode. LKA will stay off but you will still need to turn off traffic sign recognition and driver attention system if you don't want them. I haven't needed to turn off the HATED LKA for months due to the fix from some random Dutch guy (thank you oh nameless one).
I have been playing around with this. It would be an ok workaround if it didn't permanently disable the Rear Driving Assistance. Given my wife's and my history of parking I choose to not use this method. I have to say that I don't quite understand the logic with the software. I have been towing with my Mazda 6 for years and the trailer does not set off the rear parking sensors. Besides, a more sensible interlock would be to detect the electrical plug-in and then disable RDA. A manual towing mode activation is not really required.
 
What is this "Intelligent speed limiter", is it something that comes with recent updates? I don't want any more unnecessary pushing of buttons to switch some new half-baked garbage feature off before taking off.
In the menus you can either selected ACC/TJA (speed target mode, for want of a term) or Speed Limit mode ... the latter limits the vehicle maximum speed based on the speed limit sign recognition. (You can override the limit by pressing down on the accelerator).
 
I have been playing around with this. It would be an ok workaround if it didn't permanently disable the Rear Driving Assistance. Given my wife's and my history of parking I choose to not use this method. I have to say that I don't quite understand the logic with the software. I have been towing with my Mazda 6 for years and the trailer does not set off the rear parking sensors. Besides, a more sensible interlock would be to detect the electrical plug-in and then disable RDA. A manual towing mode activation is not really required.
I think that for the 99.9% of MG4 users who will never fit a towbar , that a manual activation of towing mode, which some find beneficial for their mental wellbeing in that it is a get around for disabling LKA plus other unwanted systems, is a stroke of genius by the MG engineers. If the losses outweigh the gains , then the option is not to use it. More electrical interfaces just for the 0.01 % is the last thing this car requires. :cautious:
 
In the menus you can either selected ACC/TJA (speed target mode, for want of a term) or Speed Limit mode ... the latter limits the vehicle maximum speed based on the speed limit sign recognition. (You can override the limit by pressing down on the accelerator).
I use the speed limit mode where there is a 20 mph or 30 mph speed limit, since it can be difficult to stick to these limits when you don't have a manual gearbox to help (i.e leave it in 2nd in a 20 mph area). However the camera does pick up signs on side roads and can suddenly brake as a result.
I find it easier to turn off the speed limit mode using the 'Pilot 'button on the steering wheel. The problem with pressing down on the accelerator is that the car accelerates so fast that it may exceed the actual speed limit.
 
We've got two MG4s, one SE SR 2023 and one Trophy SR 2023. Both have had faults within the first year of purchase but the SE is the clear winner. In 13 months, we've had 4 warranty repairs (5 between the two). I've driven many a car since 1999 but this one takes the "trophy'.

• 1: Considerable amount of water found in boot after rain. *Fixed seal
•2: Water under rear passenger footwell, separate issue to 1.
*Fixed seal
3: Passenger front door button dead.
*Fixed, new handle and button.
4: Rear passenger window does not function via driver door or passenger door selector.

I'm not going to talk long about the suicidal AI (as this is common on the forum) which deems it fine to slam on for no reason OR has the penchant for pulling us into incoming traffic for lols.

Or in my particular case, MGs infotainment (Android Auto) which won't connect to my phone if I plug it in before the system starts or sometimes even after it starts. It'll just disconnect me after a few moments (replugging doesn't work, get out of car works lol).

Yes, we've had the latest updates straight from MG.

Shambles, will be our last MGs.
Had mine for nearly 3 months. In garage more than out. Repeated faults appear on dash. New t box new aerial to fix connection issues. Had to go back for updates for cameras as it thinks motorway is a 15 mph zone and constantly loose Bluetooth for phone. I want my Zoe back.
 
I use the speed limit mode where there is a 20 mph or 30 mph speed limit, since it can be difficult to stick to these limits when you don't have a manual gearbox to help (i.e leave it in 2nd in a 20 mph area). However the camera does pick up signs on side roads and can suddenly brake as a result.
I find it easier to turn off the speed limit mode using the 'Pilot 'button on the steering wheel. The problem with pressing down on the accelerator is that the car accelerates so fast that it may exceed the actual speed limit.

I just use the ACC, set to the speed limit.
 

Are you enjoying your MG4?

  • Yes

    Votes: 910 77.7%
  • I'm in the middle

    Votes: 171 14.6%
  • No

    Votes: 90 7.7%
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