Advice for a new ev buyer

[Anon70]

I know it's not an MG but these are the kind of deals that are out there...

5,000 miles a year
£2389.43 deposit
36 x £174.12 = £6268.32

So £8657.75 for 3 years of driving a brand new EV with full warranty

Best car leasing deals 2025: today's top lease offers on great new cars | Auto Express

Car leasing can get you behind the wheel of a new car for less. Our experts have picked the best around this week.

www.autoexpress.co.uk

 

[hmadsen]

I know it's not an MG but these are the kind of deals that are out there...

5,000 miles a year
£2389.43 deposit
36 x £174.12 = £6268.32

So £8657.75 for 3 years of driving a brand new EV with full warranty

Best car leasing deals 2025: today's top lease offers on great new cars | Auto Express

Car leasing can get you behind the wheel of a new car for less. Our experts have picked the best around this week.

www.autoexpress.co.uk

Do we know if this one has the same OBC as the E-Corsa (Peugeot 208 really)

In that case i would strongly advice against buying it, Stellantis made a really bad construction with this OBC and when i breaks your only option is to have it swapped out for a new one, which atleast from prices i have seen here is about £3000 AND you get a new charger that is not revised so liable to go bad again. (*)

Vauxhall also, atleast here, only offer 2 years of warranty and dont expect them to foot the bill if the OBC dies after 2 years 1 month.

If the OBC dies, the car will not be able to do AC charging at home, only DC fastcharging at chargers with CCS.

(*) It is not possible to buy a used unit, as these are coded to the car and will need coding and they will or can not re-code a unit that has already been "married" to another car.

 

[Bam Bam]

We do an embarrassing small amount of mileage. Between 3-4000

We used to do that much a year before Pebbles started her job with a commute last summer.

Is it a case of occasional long trips? Or lots of short ones?

If it is lots of short ones then an EV makes a lot of sense because they are so much more efficient around town and the relatively low range and slow charging speed of the early ZS isn't such an issue.

If you aren't doing a lot of miles then you can also look for a bargain on a high milage example that other people might be reluctant to go for. High milage EV batteries seem to be performing well but with all the scare stories other people might be avoiding them.

Just don't leave it sitting on 100% for long periods as that won't be good for the battery. Charge it up the night before you need it.

 

[fred12345]

We do an embarrassing small amount of mileage. Between 3-4000

I was in the same boat in April 2024, moving away from (ULEZ) diesel 5008. Wanted something to transition me into EV, but as cheap as possible until more and cheaper EV models come out, figured out I needed something for the next 2-3 years. Considered Mk1 ZS or MG5 Mk1 as the best/cheapest option (Mk1 being first model, pre- face lift) and in the end came across Mk2 ZS in Car Giant. Questionaboe service record but 2y old for £14K and 42k on the clock. That was about £5,000 more than the cheapest MG5 ex-uber. Gone for it and sooo happy so far. Will definitely keep it for much longer than 2-3 years

First, can you have your own charging point? I still use a £100 3-pin charger and works perfectly for me. No need to waste another £1000 on a new charging point. If you have nowhere to plug it in, still good but you'll need to charge it somewhere from time to time ...
List what you need the car for and what's the most you would drive in one day. Holidays? Then check finances and decide. ZS Mk2 is better than Mk1 due to longer range and few modernised extras but not a deal breaker... MG5 Mk1 seems quite a good value too. And no estate car is ever too big ! Love massive boot ...
Keep an eye on Car Giant website and go there to see the car in person, you can take the keys and sit in it for hours without anyone pestering you. Also, check MG website for approved used MG cars - slightly pricier but safer as you can ask them to repair it if something is amiss or even return it.

I would not buy privately or from another non-MG garage unless they have full service record from MG and unless MG garage checks it all over...

 

[Silver estate]

I was in the same boat in April 2024, moving away from (ULEZ) diesel 5008. Wanted something to transition me into EV, but as cheap as possible until more and cheaper EV models come out, figured out I needed something for the next 2-3 years. Considered Mk1 ZS or MG5 Mk1 as the best/cheapest option (Mk1 being first model, pre- face lift) and in the end came across Mk2 ZS in Car Giant. Questionaboe service record but 2y old for £14K and 42k on the clock. That was about £5,000 more than the cheapest MG5 ex-uber. Gone for it and sooo happy so far. Will definitely keep it for much longer than 2-3 years

First, can you have your own charging point? I still use a £100 3-pin charger and works perfectly for me. No need to waste another £1000 on a new charging point. If you have nowhere to plug it in, still good but you'll need to charge it somewhere from time to time ...
List what you need the car for and what's the most you would drive in one day. Holidays? Then check finances and decide. ZS Mk2 is better than Mk1 due to longer range and few modernised extras but not a deal breaker... MG5 Mk1 seems quite a good value too. And no estate car is ever too big ! Love massive boot ...
Keep an eye on Car Giant website and go there to see the car in person, you can take the keys and sit in it for hours without anyone pestering you. Also, check MG website for approved used MG cars - slightly pricier but safer as you can ask them to repair it if something is amiss or even return it.

I would not buy privately or from another non-MG garage unless they have full service record from MG and unless MG garage checks it all over...

Re MG5’s Richmond in Portsmouth have 3 soon to be 4 for sale
And as you say an estate is never to big and is quite capable town car as well as a motorway one

 

[Bam Bam]

Re MG5’s Richmond in Portsmouth have 3 soon to be 4 for sale
And as you say an estate is never to big and is quite capable town car as well as a motorway one

I assume they mean too long for navigating and parking in tight London streets.

 

[fred12345]

I assume they mean too long for navigating and parking in tight London streets.

No problems for London streets really, I never had any problems with 5008 wich was 4.5m
just looked it up ZS is 4,323 mm L and MG5 4,544 mm L

 

[cheerios]

We used to do that much a year before Pebbles started her job with a commute last summer.

Is it a case of occasional long trips? Or lots of short ones?

If it is lots of short ones then an EV makes a lot of sense because they are so much more efficient around town and the relatively low range and slow charging speed of the early ZS isn't such an issue.

If you aren't doing a lot of miles then you can also look for a bargain on a high milage example that other people might be reluctant to go for. High milage EV batteries seem to be performing well but with all the scare stories other people might be avoiding them.

Just don't leave it sitting on 100% for long periods as that won't be good for the battery. Charge it up the night before you need it.

It's mainly shorter trips. I occasionally commute to work, which is about 10 mile round trip. We do an occasional trip to Bedford, about 100miles. So it's definitely shorter commutes around the city/ close by.

 

[Jomarkh]

Re MG5’s Richmond in Portsmouth have 3 soon to be 4 for sale
And as you say an estate is never to big and is quite capable town car as well as a motorway one

How many miles has your 5 got on it and is it an exclusive LR?

 

[Silver estate]

How many miles has your 5 got on it and is it an exclusive LR?

11350 excite

 

[Jomarkh]

I was looking at getting a LR which has the Tesla update to go with my SR.

 

[Anon70]

Vauxhall also, atleast here, only offer 2 years of warranty

In the UK it is 3 years but I suspect it does use standard Stellantis underpinnings

 

[Bam Bam]

It's mainly shorter trips. I occasionally commute to work, which is about 10 mile round trip. We do an occasional trip to Bedford, about 100miles. So it's definitely shorter commutes around the city/ close by.

Sounds like the MG ZS is perfect for you, then. I'm sure you had already worked out already but we were all curious!

I'd just check auto-trader or similar for bargains regularly and see when one comes up that is good for you.

Good luck finding one and hopefully you can get some pointers from people on here about any potential red flags (which was probably your original reason for posting!)

Over to you, ZS phase one owners!

 

[cheerios]

Sounds like the MG ZS is perfect for you, then. I'm sure you had already worked out already but we were all curious!

I'd just check auto-trader or similar for bargains regularly and see when one comes up that is good for you.

Good luck finding one and hopefully you can get some pointers from people on here about any potential red flags (which was probably your original reason for posting!)

Over to you, ZS phase one owners!

Thanks. Helpful to get views. We've got some h/w to do in terms of sourcing / test driving a car.

The checklist that was flagged looks really good.

 

[DB Go Rex]

Living near someone that has a Kia (Same as Hyundai) i can tell you that i feel, the only reason anyone should buy one of these is if they absolutely hate their neighbors.

The Kia owner, that by the way lives 3 houses down and around a corner, backs out of his driveway every day at about 5.30, which is about 45 minutes before i wake up. In summer we have the windows on tilt to keep the temperature below 40C and every morning, without failure that loud and obnoxious airplane bong bong sound, wakes us up. (Imagine how loud that is for his next door neighbors)

I was told, the reason it is so loud is, because even though it is meant to warn people that the car is reversing, they put the speaker in the front so it has to be loud in front to be heard in the back.

I even tried googling how to turn the sound down, would have popped the instructions in his mailbox, but it's just not possible to turn it down at all.

Far from the only one that was annoyed, i saw people had made "manuals" on how to remove the bumper, stick a screwdriver in the speaker for the bong bong unit and reassemble. Could not simply unplug it, as the car would then show an error message that the speaker was disconnected.

It really isn’t that loud

If that’s the only complaint, It’s a win

 

[hmadsen]

It really isn’t that loud

If that’s the only complaint, It’s a win

Disgree.

No matter what, this "feature" has made me vow, to never buy a Kia or Hyundai, every other car manufacturer have been able to make a "pedestrian noise" that warns pedestrians, but does not bother anyone else.

 

[Truly]

We do an embarrassing small amount of mileage. Between 3-4000

We have had a C3 Picasso for 15 years and there are so many good features about it, we are struggling to find the right EV.

 

[Bam Bam]

We have had a C3 Picasso for 15 years and there are so many good features about it, we are struggling to find the right EV.

The EC4 seems very good value to me.

It was on my shortlist but Pebbles didn't like the way it looks.

 

[DB Go Rex]

We have had a C3 Picasso for 15 years and there are so many good features about it, we are struggling to find the right EV.

A lot of EVs are going to be a massive step up from 15 year old C3 Picasso.

 

[Truly]

A lot of EVs are going to be a massive step up from 15 year old C3 Picasso.

Unfortunately, we are really struggling to find anything suitable. We need to tow about 500Kg, good ground clearance to access our house, reasonably flat boot space when the seats are down (Picasso is brilliant for that) and would like 200+ mile real range for holidays. Very disappointed with the MG ZS because it has an "armrest" central console, which you bang your elbows on.