MG to lose customers for good?

Thanks to everyone that has provided useful knowledge, food for thought and engaged in friendly banter, but I'm out and wanted to say cheerio.

Having run an original ZS EV for a little over 3 years and had my name on a waiting list for an MG4 since September, I have concluded that I no longer want to own or drive an MG. The reasons for this are many and various. In my view the cars are simply not of a high enough quality and the support network is woefully inadequate. The MG4 drives very nicely, but in some areas feels unfinished, missing things like rear passenger lighting, and having warped undertray. Numerous faults relating the deadlocking, breather, software etc. are well documented and MG's response has just not been good enough. I simply cannot fathom for instance how MG can design a new breather to solve a problem then refuse to fit it until owners complain.

Many dealers appear to be disinterested in customer satisfaction, or seem to be economical with the truth. The dealership I had my MG4 order in with were not pro-active in contacting me and were vague and elusive whenever I tried to contact them. While I was awaiting delivery they advertised a number of cars meeting my EXACT specification on Autotrader and their website rather than offer one to me, but in some ways they have given me a chance to re-evaluate so have perhaps done me a favour.

The efficiency of the cars is worse than I would have hoped and the cabin of the MG4 did not feel like a special place to be.

My ZS was a fairly reliable workhorse, but the range and charge speed, especially in winter were significantly less that I hoped (and I have been driving EVs for 8 years so do understand how to use them). The final straw came when last week one of the rear doors deadlocked and could not be opened from inside the car or outside. I took it to the dealer who firstly said they would have to charge me £89 diagnostic fee to even look at it. On inspection they agreed it was a warranty repair but can give me no idea when the part will be available, though indicated it could be several months!!! The car was returned without the door panel being properly fitted and when I questioned that I was told that was because they tend to break when taken off and on more than once and that wouldn't be covered under the warranty.

So what to do instead? In my case, I noticed that Tesla has dropped their new vehicles by around £7k, and together with relative oversupply of the Model 3 made them good value. Yesterday I picked up a 2021 long range car with 15,000 miles on the clock for just a couple of grand more than a new MG4. It feels much more luxurious than any MG, has AWD, a full glass roof, a flat floor, no leaks, cameras all around, great software and app, well sorted autopilot, a decent hifi, built-in dashcam, sat nav, a range of around 370 miles, 0-60 time of about 4 seconds, super quick charging and access to the supercharger network.

I had a 150 mile drive home, and while perhaps not as much fun as a MG4, it did feel much more planted and grown up than the MG. On collection it only had an indicated range of 80 odd miles so I needed to visit a supercharger where I added over 200 miles range in 20 mins. As you can imagine I drove it pretty enthusiastically at 'ahem' motorway speeds, and still got around 4.2 miles per kWh on a cool February day. When I got home I connected to wifi and dowloaded the latest software over the air, which installed without incident. I was impressed with sentry mode and ability to view any of the cameras, check car charge and temperature etc. via the app even when miles away. My son thought the games and ability to generate fart noises was the best thing ever.

A hatchback form factor was not essential to me and I had the cash so was not tied to financing, and so for me it made loads of sense to get a lightly used Tesla rather than a new MG. For other people this might not be a sensible alternative.

I post this in the hope that MG will read, stop being so complacent and understand that even loyal customers, like I would have thought myself to be, will eventually get cheesed off and take their custom elsewhere. Once lost it will be near impossible to get them back on board. I hope they up their game and improve their offering and service to customers prepared to stick with them.

Good luck everyone.

I'm off to find a Tesla forum to inhabit.

Sorry to see you (and your sense of humour) go. I think that you have made the correct decision. But sadly I don't think that MGUK or SAIC care.

Surely better to send these observations to MG UK rather than hope they will read this forum?

Good luck with your Tesla.

Whilst part of me is gutted I'll miss out, having cancelled the ZS order, another part of me is looking at issues around general build/software/aftercare and thinking I may have dodged a bullet.

The ZE50 I'm having instead isn't the best EV around but I already know it's quirks and, if I ever need something fixing, the dealer isn't too bad and I should be able to get parts relatively quickly.
I think the only thing I will miss from the ZS is that it's CCS charging is much quicker, but given I rarely need to use it, it's not a deal-breaker.

Given the numbers MG are selling at the moment I'm not sure they're particularly bothered.

I have a ZS LR, indeed I've had it over 12 months. It's been fine, but a couple of things are niggling at me. The lack of a rear light, the fact it's still waiting for a new steering column (since August), how thin the paint appears to be, hands free that doesn't really work for incoming calls but is fine for outgoing.

Nothing is a real deal breaker (the steering thing isn't a safety concern, more of an annoyance) but added together it's making me question whether I want to keep for the long term.

But it is undeniably cheap, a 2021 Model 3 LR (I don't particularly want an early one due to build issues) will be about £150-200 more expensive a month. Its for that reason alone I've not changed it, but I feel its a matter of time before I do.

jamesie said:

Surely better to send these observations to MG UK rather than hope they will read this forum?

Good luck with your Tesla.

Click to expand...

Thanks.

I did give my reasons when I emailed my dealer to cancel the MG4. Predictably I've heard nothing and not seen the deposit back yet.

I don't kid myself they care about losing little old me. The purpose of my post (apart from getting grumbles off my chest) was as a courtesy to those I had exchanges with, rather than just disappearing.

I, like you cancelled my order and went elsewhere. I don't regret that decision for a minute, buying a car should be exciting and enjoyable not stressful.
The 4 is littered with issues too many to mention, a lot of software but also a lot of hardware issues, more than just the teething problems of a new model, as some like to wheel out to defend it.

The strange thing is some cars appear to have none (if your lucky) others one or two faults or in some cases loads. That to me just speaks volumes about MG's quality control.
You add that to MG UK's customer care and it's just a recipe for a disaster throw into the mix a poor dealer and the whole scenario just descends into a stressful mess.

The cars for the most part have turned out to be cheap, budget, low quality EV's, granted if you get a less faulty one they handle and drive well and have a good range, but that's the roll off the dice you take you may get a good one but there is certainly a chance you end up with a lemon.
The fact that in the MG4 thread you now have people rejecting cars and cancelling orders in some cases going back to ICE cars is a shame for the EV movement, MG have missed a trick here for the sake of a bit of extra quality control, communication and customer care.