MG4 - my thoughts
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- Опубліковано 11 жов 2024
- Please add your own MG4 thoughts below. Am I the only one with ACC issues?
Here's what I think, the good... the bad, and the ugly [good/bad/ugly scene]
The good:
The car drives like a go-cart. It's got plenty of pick-up from a standing start or while on the go.... much fun!
It sticks to the road around corners and round-a-bouts... thanks to it's 50/50 weight distribution
the tyres are actually decent! Continental tyres,so much better than some of the cheap chinese tyres some other brands put on their EV's.
Seats are comfortable, even after a couple of hours of driving.
Design is great. Very masculine. Brilliant job by the exterior designers.
Surprisingly easy to get in and out of. I thought it would be like a Tesla Model 3, which isn't great for old bones.
The turning circle is amazing! The benefit of being Rear Wheel Drive lets the front wheels rotate a lot more
You can plug in your Tesla charger
One Pedal Driving is brilliant. I had it on the strongest setting and it felt just like a Tesla. Fantastic.
The Bad:
One Pedal Driving has to be selected every time you start the car. Just make the car remember your settings please MG.
Water bottles don't fit into the back seat doors [it's the end of the world as we know it]
Although the infotainment unit isn't as fast as a Tesla, or even the Ora Cat.... . You have to give it a firm touch, which is annoying as a lot of the time you touch it twice, and then get conditioned to touch it twice anyway, and it still has a bit of lag.... but is so much better than the MG ZS EV, so it's improving, and isn't a deal-breaker (unlike the MG ZS EV for me). MG... use a faster processor or add more RAM or whatever you need to make the infotainment unit snappy
The interior materials aren't the best. I know it's been done to a price, I totally understand the reasoning for it, but I'm not sure how it will look after a few years
The base model misses out on some handy safety features:
-- Blind Spot Detection
-- Rear Cross Traffic Alert
-- Emergency Lane Keep Assist
I'm assuming the Excite 51 doesn't have the camera's and electronics included for those, so you'd have to pay $9k extra to get those features (and some more) on the MG4 Trophy. The MG4's direct price competition at around $40k (The Dolphin and Ora Cat) DO include all the features as the Trophy... so are $9k less when it comes to safety features and birds-eye-view camera's.
I myself couldn't go for the Trophy for an extra $9k, just for a few handy features and a funkier look. If MG could improve the infotainment unit, add a few of the safety features (even just blind spot assist) and electric folding mirrors back in and sell it for $43k.... that would be brilliant. All the Drive you need, with all the essential features.
Android Auto. I connected my phone really easily via the cable, and put in the address to navigate to.... all good so far. Many times though, it would disconnect, so I'd have to unplug my phone and connect again (sometimes it remembered the address, sometimes not). This was very very annoying, and happening at various times (sometimes 2 min apart, sometimes would last 10 min). I thought it might be my cable. But the next morning, I used Android Auto to take me back to the dealership... a 20 min drive.... and it didn't disconnect at all. So there may be some Android Auto connection issue's that still need to be ironed out).
The Ugly:
I don't know whether I was doing something wrong (I didn't adjust any settings), but when I put the car into Adaptive Cruise Control, it slowed down too much, even though the car in front was 5 car lengths away. It would slow down to about 60, then pick up again, then slow down again. A car was turning into a street to the left once, and the 4 slowed down to 45km/h (too much), and was going to slow down even more, even after the car had gone. I took over and got back up to speed. I tried the ACC out quite a bit to make sure, and it just kept being weird... I hated it. I thought it was dangerous. So definitely check that feature out on your test drive.
The service costs. I hate to upset MG, but there's no way around it.... the warranty service costs are a rip-off. It alternates every two years between $299 and $907. So in two years you pay $299.... ok.... but then two years later you pay $907 (!!). Seriously? There's bugger all on an EV to actually service. Tesla don't bother with warranty services at all; Ora charge $99 a year. I suppose you could just put it down to extra outlay for a very good value purchase.
Word:
The MG4 is an amazing car to drive. It's fun, manly looking, and amazing value for money.... FOR the Excite 51. I don't think the Trophy is worth the $9k extra, though either are much better value than the Cupra Born and many other hatchback EV's. Fantastic car, with just a few (mainly software) things to iron out.
A very fair review. The ACC works well on the motorway, but is a pain on smaller roads. If you use the left joystick on the steering wheel you can get closer to the car in front before it slows down on ACC, that helps. I realise heated seats and steering wheel are not an issue in Perth, but they were enough to make me choose the Trophy in the UK. As you say, the MG4 is a joy to drive, just going round a roundabout is fun
Yes, it is a joy to drive. I was testing the ACC mainly on the highways. It could have been me not changing any settings.
Your going to confuse Australian buyers. The Trophy is a UK model. It's either excite or essence here.
Yes, fair enough. I didn't realise they'd renamed it Essence 64.
Thanks for the good, bad and fugly! We bought our Essence 64 about a week ago and apart from the "Lane keeping assist", which we found very "twitchy", have had no problems with the ACC. Beautiful car to drive. I'll probably only use the lane keeping function on longer highway trips. Good insurance if you do start to get weary without noticing it. Alan
Cool! Did you go Orange?
Great review , would you rather buy a 2019 Tesla 3 v new mg 4 for money for value and longevity
Yes, and no.
I have a rule, that if a car is within about $10k of the cost of a Tesla.... buy the Tesla. So much more engineering in the Tesla, it's worth it (easily), and will last a lot longer.
But.... I think the Model 3 is too low for me.... a bit harder to get in and out of (bad back from motorbike injury), so the Y (and hopefully the compact will be normal height) are much better for my back.
If you don't have back issues.... yes, absolutely the 3 over anything (as long as you test it out and like it).
And.... a 2nd hand Tesla is definitely worth buying even if it's 300,000km imho. The battery will last longer than the rest of the car.
After owning an MG4 for 9 days, my biggest concern is: can the MG4 actually rapid charge at 100 kW or more? This is critical for highway touring.
I really don't know, but it's not all down to the cars... it's also what the chargers can dish out.
If you bought the 51kW model, no. If you bought the 64 or 77, absolutely
140KW
@@warrenstewart3645on the essence LR yes
I've seen a lot of reviews that refer to the vehicle settings needing to be reset each time you get in the car. I have not driven this car or any other EV but I suspect that in order to earn the 5 star ANCAP (and other world safety standards) rating these systems have to be on by default. Of course you can turn them off each time or just get used to the them as the default settings. Keep in mind the Excite 51 is sold at under $40K driveaway making it the cheapest EV in Australia (at least at the time of this comment) and a realistic, affordable alternative to a Corolla or other hatches of that size. Imagine this as the family runaround doing the school run, the gym, the shopping etc and only needing to be pugged in on Friday night ready for the weekend. You acknowledge that it is built to a price and like all cars there is always a compromise between price and inclusions.
Absolutely.... some things have to go, or be cheaper, in order to meet a target price. The Ora is better value imho as it has all the fruit, good quality materials and drives well (the MG4 is better to drive, but has very little features).
The Ora does the same thing re settings being reset when the car is turned off. Tesla doesn't forget the drivers settings (and you can add multiple drivers, all with their own settings), so I don't think it's an ANCAP thing.
So glad they introduced the one-pedal driving setting, but they have obvious software problems. The ACC and Android Auto problems are a worry and service costs too? Still tossing up whether to buy an MG4 51 excite or not.
As I said in my reply to drxm (read his comment, he has a Trophy MG4):
I am buying an Ora SR as it has all the same features (I never had blind spot assist, and I really like it) as the LR, but $7k cheaper. It also has the birds-eye-view camera, which I also have in my 2016 Leaf.... VERY handy.
MG want you to pay more money for more safety features, and then a huge service cost (like, even most ICE don't cost that much for warranty service ffs). Most brands (except Tesla) has issues with their software... hello Volkswagen! Ora is no different... but I can live with having to turn on one-pedal-driving every time I change driving mode or turn the car on.... as they should (they'd better!) improve the software.
MG's infotainment unit is slower than Ora's. Both have User Interface (UI) and issues (such as losing all your settings every time you turn the car off... and they can't tell me it isn't possible to fix... Tesla don't have an issue remembering at least one driver's settings, and one-pedal driving doesn't disappear).
If you need to lug more gear around, and prefer a really well-balanced and powerful drive, then I'd go the Excite... and just live with the lack of features and the rip-off service costs. Ora for better features and materials and fair service costs. Still a zippy fun drive, but not as good as the MG4. Test-drive both. They are both great cars.
The main reason I'm going to buy an Ora is that I didn't want to spend another $7k (LR Ora) or $9k (MG4 Trophy) just for some extra range (100km for Ora), or extra features and range (Trophy)... just too big a jump from $40k for the SR Ora. I'm getting it via salary sacrifice as well (govt EV incentive so no FBT or GST).
Also, it's also about how you feel in the car and when you look at it. The MG4 is great to look at, but not that different to many other hatchbacks on the road (I even saw a very similar styled Toyota Corrola the other day... wtf? Toyota make the most boring looking cars normally), and the Orange I would have had it in isn't actually metallic (even though they say metallic (!?)), but bland. The Ora looks great to me, and I really felt excited to see and drive it (still going to be brutally honest about it though... it has some annoying things going on, but no car is perfect (except the Nissan Cube Z11... I would buy an EV version of that in a second)).
Good luck with your test drives and tell us what you think and what you decided. Another option is a used Tesla M3.... hopefully some will be around $40k soon.... and mileage doesn't matter on those.
The weird thing about touch sensitivity on the screen is that if you run Android auto the screen responds just fine. So the screen is fine and the responsiveness is fine in auto. The software engineer in me thinks the infotainment system is killing the CPU (when Auto isn't running) or isn't responding to input events properly, e.g. it's polling for them. I'd love to see the software they've written because I just know that it's a bit of a mess and non-optimal.
BTW I have a Trophy spec MG4. For that the main benefit is the 360 camera which is awesome for parking. I don't think there is much point getting it for the satnav or phone charger. I think all MGs would benefit from wireless Android Auto because the software is so janky. MG dealers in the UK and elsewhere should really be dogpiling onto MG / SAIC and begging them to fix their software, enabled OTA updates and take the infotainment system more seriously and fix it.
Interesting. I was thinking it's the CPU or lack of ROM/RAM.... but you're probably right... slow software.
I am buying an Ora SR as it has all the same features (I never had blind spot assist, and I really like it) as the LR, but $7k cheaper. It also has the birds-eye-view camera, which I also have in my 2016 Leaf.... VERY handy.
MG want you to pay more money for more safety features, and then a huge service cost (like, even most ICE don't cost that much for warranty service ffs). Most brands (except Tesla) has issues with their software... hello Volkswagen! Ora is no different... but I can live with having to turn on one-pedal-driving every time I change driving mode or turn the car on.... as they should (they'd better!) improve the software.
It drives really well, but man does it feel really cheap inside and i couldn't live with that touchscreen.
It is a bit cheap (built to a price, inc removing a bunch of features for the Excite 51), but it's not tooooo bad. The infotainment unit is faster than the ZS EV, that's for sure, though it's still a slug compared to most others.
All cars are cheap inside if you look well enough.
Unless of course you are prepared to shop in a different category
Very interesting, love to buy it, BUT it needs to work for us old farts, so looks like we will have to pay a lot more for the KONA, even though the front is very ordinary. The inside is brilliant if the ICE vertion is anything to go by.
A friend of mine owns a Kona electric, Tesla M3 and Nissan Leaf. The Kona is his favourite to drive, even though it's on an ICE chassis.
btw I think the Ora is better, overall. MG4 is a better drivers car, but cheaper build and rip-off service costs were a major negative for me.
BUY THE MG
Nah, I bought the Ora.... $40k. Better equipped. Great design (I don't need a bigger boot or RWD.... save that for the Cybertruck :) ), and reasonable service costs ($99 per year, vs $1200 every 4 years with an MG).
well, maybe its data driven? i mean the adaptive cruise control.
based on pysics..
you see 5 car lenght is around 20-25 meter, depending what car size you consider.
it used to be back in the day a term called following distance, which was in some country's even mandatory distance, now not anymore.
now, an average car with 60KM/h needs around 20meter to stop, but the worse part is, there is human reaction time which is another 17meter/second at 60KM/h speed... usually its 1.2s-1.8s, there are better and worse, then these numbers, but in general this is it.
now thats around 20m-30m.. so if you consider all the numbers, even with the most conservative numbers, 17m reaction time and 20m for breaking, you are either 7m or 17m short of space between two cars traveling at 60KM/h if you need to stop... let that sink in..
now the slows down and speeds up routine, is maybe configuration issue, and i assume with enough feedback this is simply curable with an software update.
but the numbers dont lie. people are used to drive recklessly, cos they "dont have time" they need to go to X places fast as possible, but disregard basic physics. thats why we have so many car accidents...
Yeah will need a software update. No other car I've driven (EV or ICE) does this though.
I get annoyed when Software issues don't get stomped even after a year having the car out...
Built to a price, so didn't want to spend on a decent CPU.
@@stormjuice you know someone in Russia could probably get crysis running on that
lol
Nice one. Will you order one?
I'm really not sure. It's between this and the Ora Cat.... and I'm kinda leaning to the Cat tbh
I'd only get the base model of the MG4 though... the Cat's bigger battery version is only $6k more (vs the MG4 which is $9k more for the same features and battery as the Cat).
The cats shit believe me
@@Whocares17032it was the suspension tuning for me. And I want RWD
Why's that? I actually ended up buying one about 7 months ago. It's brilliant. Best value EV in Australia.
Yeeey ! Someone from Perth !! 😊
Yeeeeep! If you are around Bedford you'll see my Ora on the road (it has the Stuttgart Stripes, as the Ora was designed by Emanoel Derta (ex Porsche), who got inspiration from the Porsche 911, which is made in Stuttgart (each cities factory has it's own stripe design).
Really? You had the car for one day. This is a pretty ordinary effort. You don’t show anything but stock footage.
BUT you are an expert on fixed service costs? How do you know what they are doing? What qualifications, industry experience or expertise are you basing your claim on? It’s OK to make claims and you could be right but you need to do much more to show why your claim is correct. The services are 2 years apart.
The services may be 2 years apart, but wow, the price in year 4 is crazy! Possibly the most expensive EV to service (?).
$299 in year 2, then $906 in year 4? Then repeat.
Vs $0 per year for a Tesla, $99 per year for GWM Ora. There's bugger all to do for an EV. And if you say they have to change the fluid for X every 4 years.... they obviously have shit fluid or engineering.
I think I'm pretty fair... I list all the good points (of which there are many), and also the bad points (just a few), but I couldn't actually go through and buy an MG4, no matter how great it is to drive (apart from the dodgy Cruise Control, but like I said... I might have been unlucky), and how many great reviews it's gotten elsewhere.... the lack of features in the base model (which come standard in the Dolphin and Ora), underpowered infotainment (with fuzzy touch sensitivity), plus the kerrazy ongoing costs (services).... it was a NO from me.
I bought a GWM Ora instead, because for $40k it has all the safety features, better materials, seemed better build quality, responsive infotainment (Snapdragon processor.... and infotainment speed is a big deal to me.... can totally change the joy of owning an EV) and the total cost of ownership is WAY less.
Btw I liked your post, because I appreciate your opinion, even if I don't agree with it. You are correct, though, that if I had been able to test the car for more than a day, I could have discovered even more (good and bad). And no, I don't know why the service costs are so expensive in year 4.... I will ask.
Don't forget, that apart from those few things (which some people may not care about as much as I do), I did really like the MG4... it's a brilliant car for the price (well, they could have included all the safety features, instead of making people by the premium version just to get them), and the look of joy I had at the amazing turning circle (thanks to being RWD) and the brilliant one-pedal-driving (WOW, only Tesla's is as good).....
@@stormjuice It may be that the cost seems excessive but the central issue is how do you know. When it comes to servicing I would rather it was thorough than skimpy. I would love to know what it is they have included at the 4 year service. Is it brake servicing, coolants, parts, control units? I have no issue with the claim - I would just like to challenge you to justify it beyond what others do. From my point of view the 6 year costs for servicing the MG is less than I was paying per year for my aging ICE.
Understanding what EV systems are and exactly how they work is so often overlooked and on one seems to be basing their analysis on specific qualifications or insights. How does traction control on the MG 4 work? Who builds the motor and drive system? It looks like a Borg Warner unit. How exactly does the electronic differential actually function?
I don't think it's necessary to go into all the minute details of the construction (although I do find it interesting) and what exactly is included in a service, for a general thoughts and review video.
You can't compare ICE service costs to EV.... EV should be MUCH cheaper. Tesla is $0. Ora is $99. Same basic components. Anything more than $99 per service on an EV is gouging, imho.
@@stormjuice Utterly insignificant compared to the service costs of a VW diesel over a similar time period. I will certainly ask for a detailed breakdown of the reasons for the charges for me it’s not something that is worth worrying about.