Things I love (or don’t) about my new MG4 – very subjective!

tonybridge

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Location
Berkshire
Driving
MG4 Trophy LR
1 week old and 300 miles - some initial thoughts:

GREAT
1 The lovely ‘Whoosh’ as the car accelerates! And instant torque, wow...
2 The looks: The front 100/100 The sides 95/100 The rear: 90/100 but love the red streaky lights on the rear spoiler! (just s a shame that you can't actually see them when they come on)
3 The quietness in the cabin: 4 of us had a conversation without raising our voices
4 The tight turning circle makes cornering very precise and the handling is excellent
5 Although I still look at petrol prices in the forecourts, it's just a habit which I'm fast growing out of (it's being replaced by a great smugness!)
6 There are lots more GREAT things about the MG4...

MEH
1 Steering wheel – I can’t make up my mind about it. Reminds me of the Maestro! Never quite sure where to hold it
2 The radio volume dims when in Reverse huh?! EDIT: so that you can hear the ‘proximity pings’ DOH!
3 Sometimes, the Radio volume randomly fluctuates up and down – not been able to pin down why or when, is there a setting for Dynamic Volume that I’ve missed?
4 The Sat Nav display is too tiny, but it functions well enough
5 What use are the side views when indicating, which appear and disappear seemingly at random?
6 Your phone needs to be plugged in to use Carplay
7 Although I love the side view of the car, there is a crease just below the C-pillar that looks fine when looking at it side-on, but when I approach the car from the rear, it always looks for a moment like a huge dent!
8 Wheel rumble – is it the new 18’’ wheels?
9 The greeting message often tells me that it is 2019 lol – I’ve switched it off now…
10 The A/C makes up its own mind about outside temperatures, seems to be out by 4 or 5 degrees?

‘ORRID
1 The new rear-wiperette just clears … the area of rear screen covered by the new 3rd headrest :censored:
2 The supplied Granny Charger’s cable is 2 metres long, completely useless! I bought an 8-metre on Amazon, which has been great, and will use this on my new Un-tethered Ohme charger from Octopus.
3 The error messages on the Driver’s screen are displayed for just a second - so you hear the beep, concentrate on whatever the incident is, then look down at the error message and it’s gone.

LKA
Doesn’t bother me in the slightest… I’ve never changed the setting, I think the default is Normal, or Medium, sorry just haven’t really looked at it, because it occasionally gives a slight twitch, and no more than that. Certainly not in any way dangerous. The only problem with it is that it is so random – on the same stretch of road, it can twitch one day, but not the next. When it's safe to do so, with no other car around, I deliberately drive over the centre-road markings and the car sometimes reacts, but usually just ignores the markings. EDIT - just discovered that it kicks in at 37mph, this must be the reason for this behaviour.

So, LKA is annoying because it doesn’t work when you expect it to, but when it does, it’s really no problem at all.
 
The MG-branded granny cable that came with my car is 4 metres long. (Although I'd have been OK with 2 metres because the charging port of the car is 1.5 metres from the power point when it's parked in the garage!)

It occurred to me the other day that one advantage of the lack of rear wiper on my car is that I can see through the entire visible area of the rear windscreen, I'm not trying to see through the smaller semicircle cleared by a wiper. (Take off your centre rear headrest and chuck it in a drawer somewhere.)

You might find that a change of tyres addresses the wheel rumble.

Just set the heating to 5 degrees warmer than you actually want (and explain why to your passengers) and it's all good.
 
Great that you got a 4 metre cable... not what I got!

I have taken off the 3rd headrest.

Change the tyres? I've just got 4 brand-new ones!

Yes, I'd figured out the compensation of the temp reading...
 
I've still got the original tyres, but I plan to change them soon because I'd normally change to winter tyres anyway. I think I'll try all-weather tyres as other forum members seem to be getting on well with them. So I'll see what difference that makes.

The tyre noise doesn't bother me, but knowing that it might be the tyres is useful - they won't last forever, even if you soft southerners don't have any reason to change them.

These are good if you need more reach for the granny cable. They have a range of lengths.

 
1 week old and 300 miles - some initial thoughts:

GREAT
1 The lovely ‘Whoosh’ as the car accelerates! And instant torque, wow...
2 The looks: The front 100/100 The sides 95/100 The rear: 90/100 but love the red streaky lights on the rear spoiler! (just s a shame that you can't actually see them when they come on)
3 The quietness in the cabin: 4 of us had a conversation without raising our voices
4 The tight turning circle makes cornering very precise and the handling is excellent
5 Although I still look at petrol prices in the forecourts, it's just a habit which I'm fast growing out of (it's being replaced by a great smugness!)
6 There are lots more GREAT things about the MG4...

MEH
1 Steering wheel – I can’t make up my mind about it. Reminds me of the Maestro! Never quite sure where to hold it
2 The radio volume dims when in Reverse huh?! EDIT: so that you can hear the ‘proximity pings’ DOH!
3 Sometimes, the Radio volume randomly fluctuates up and down – not been able to pin down why or when, is there a setting for Dynamic Volume that I’ve missed?
4 The Sat Nav display is too tiny, but it functions well enough
5 What use are the side views when indicating, which appear and disappear seemingly at random?
6 Your phone needs to be plugged in to use Carplay
7 Although I love the side view of the car, there is a crease just below the C-pillar that looks fine when looking at it side-on, but when I approach the car from the rear, it always looks for a moment like a huge dent!
8 Wheel rumble – is it the new 18’’ wheels?
9 The greeting message often tells me that it is 2019 lol – I’ve switched it off now…
10 The A/C makes up its own mind about outside temperatures, seems to be out by 4 or 5 degrees?

‘ORRID
1 The new rear-wiperette just clears … the area of rear screen covered by the new 3rd headrest :censored:
2 The supplied Granny Charger’s cable is 2 metres long, completely useless! I bought an 8-metre on Amazon, which has been great, and will use this on my new Un-tethered Ohme charger from Octopus.
3 The error messages on the Driver’s screen are displayed for just a second - so you hear the beep, concentrate on whatever the incident is, then look down at the error message and it’s gone.

LKA
Doesn’t bother me in the slightest… I’ve never changed the setting, I think the default is Normal, or Medium, sorry just haven’t really looked at it, because it occasionally gives a slight twitch, and no more than that. Certainly not in any way dangerous. The only problem with it is that it is so random – on the same stretch of road, it can twitch one day, but not the next. When it's safe to do so, with no other car around, I deliberately drive over the centre-road markings and the car sometimes reacts, but usually just ignores the markings. EDIT - just discovered that it kicks in at 37mph, this must be the reason for this behaviour.

So, LKA is annoying because it doesn’t work when you expect it to, but when it does, it’s really no problem at all.
I have also had my mg4 xpower a week and agree with your GREAT list. And for your MEH list 1) I rather like the functionally styled wheel shape. 4) if you tap on the small home screen nav box it goes full screen! You can’t get any bigger than that. You can also have a small one in front of driver. 5) side camera view to check for cyclists? It’s changeable in the settings. 6) i just bought a box off amazon to make carplay wireless (also does netflix etc) 9) i customised mine to say greetings ‘my name’
LKA works fine for me. As does TJA, ACC, Intelligent speed limiting.
 
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3 Sometimes, the Radio volume randomly fluctuates up and down – not been able to pin down why or when, is there a setting for Dynamic Volume that I’ve missed?

In the Audio section of the car settings there's an option for the intensity of 'SDV' which is speed-dependent volume, prob worth checking what yours is set to - can turn it off too.

Also in the horrid section, the tiny rear wiper made 100% more sense to me once I got the car and realised it only cleared the section between the headrests as it's not like you can see through them anyway ?
 
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These are good if you need more reach for the granny cable. They have a range of lengths.

'I bought an 8-metre on Amazon'...:)

I have also had my mg4 xpower a week and agree with your GREAT list. A for you MEH list 1) I rather like the functionally styled wheel shape. 4) if you tap on the small home screen nav box it goes full screen! You ca’t get any bigger than that. You can also have a small one in front of driver. 5) side camera view to check for cyclists? 6) i just bought a box off amazon to make carplay wireless (also does netflix etc) 9) i customised mine to say greetings ‘my name’
LKA works fine for me. As does TJA, ACC, Intelligent speed limiting.
'You ca’t get any bigger than that' Yes, got that, but still too small for me - or rather not close enough to the detail? '
side camera view to check for cyclists?'
Yes, I thought so to start with, but the view is not wide enough, and anyway, as I say, a bit random and too delayed for useful info.

In the Audio section of the car settings there's an option for the intensity of 'SDV' which is speed-dependent volume, prob worth checking what yours is set to - can turn it off too.
Well, I'll check that out, thanks... but the volume seems to come and go at random, doesn't seem to be related to speed. At a constant speed, the volume is going up and down, sometimes disappearing altogether, But I shall check SDV. (btw, don't you just love the Chinese devotion to three-letter acronyms? :p
 
Well, I'll check that out, thanks... but the volume seems to come and go at random, doesn't seem to be related to speed. At a constant speed, the volume is going up and down, sometimes disappearing altogether, But I shall check SDV. (btw, don't you just love the Chinese devotion to three-letter acronyms? :p
Are you using DAB? The aerial isn’t great so the signal fluctuates a lot. Try FM and see if it helps.
 
MEH
1 Steering wheel – I can’t make up my mind about it. Reminds me of the Maestro! Never quite sure where to hold it
My first car was a Maestro. Steering wheel was round, so not sure what you mean by this. Although only two spokes like the MG4, but it was very offset spokes compared with the MG4. I'm used to weird steering wheels as my Land Rover has a two spoke steering wheel. I do wonder if I stand on the brakes whether I would bend the steering wheel :ROFLMAO:
 
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Yes, I am using DAB. Going back to FM seems a retrograde step, but I’ll give it a go!
Couldn’t agree more. I’m back on FM due to the frustrating dropouts that DAB has. In really good signal areas it’s not too bad, but once you move into anywhere that doesn’t have perfect signal then it’s flaky at best, downright awful at worst!
 
'I bought an 8-metre on Amazon'...:)
I thought you meant you bought a new granny cable that's eight metres long on Amazon. Just letting people know that there are suitable extension leads available.
I thought he meant he'd bought an 8m Type 2 cable. (There's reference to an Ohme charge point I think?) ?‍♂️
 
I think your radio volume may be due to switching between DAB and FM? Do you notice any jumps in the position in the sound content when the volume changes?
 
I think your radio volume may be due to switching between DAB and FM? Do you notice any jumps in the position in the sound content when the volume changes?

I have to switch manually between DAB and FM. I didn't know it was possible for the car to do this itself.
 
It should do if you are tuned to a national station like the BBCx, Smooth etc.

Though I have found if you travel a distance it sometimes seems to lose its list of alternate frequencies. My Golf seemed to be much better at keeping itself up to date with the local frequencies.
 
My Golf always found the best signal, absolutely seamlessly (it only had FM, not DAB). The MG4 constantly has to be nudged manually find a better signal, even just within FM.
 
I thought you meant you bought a new granny cable that's eight metres long on Amazon. Just letting people know that there are suitable extension leads available.
Yes, I bought an 8-metre granny cable. I have an Untethered Ohme charger on order from Octopus, and already have a Type 2 cable to use with it.
 

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