Buying second hand - what to look for

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fred12345

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Hi everyone, just joined this forum with my only EV experience as an Uber passenger ! Had to scrap my old diesel and agonising over the past few months what to do - new, second hand, petrol,. EV, lease, cash, salary sacrifice scheme.... I would be able to make it without a car for a while but realised I might lose my no claims bonus if I don't insure a car and end up paying thousands extra once I get one... I think I have to buy something second hand and use it for a couple of years or so.
Looking at what's available, seems MG 5 or MG ZS around 2021/2022 costing between £10K-£14K with anything between 20-60K mileage is my best bet. I think I prefer MG5 long range, ideally Exclusive.

Help! What should I look for when buying second hand long range MG 5? I never bought a second-hand car and know almost nothing about EVs ... Having a 7 year warranty is all I can think of but even there, not sure what invalidates it...

Also, I will have to use a house 3-pin socket to charge until I install something; do I need to buy a separate 3-pin cable or this comes with the car?
 
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Fred, good luck with the search. 🙂👍
 
fred12345 said:
Hi everyone, just joined this forum with my only EV experience as an Uber passenger ! Had to scrap my old diesel and agonising over the past few months what to do - new, second hand, petrol,. EV, lease, cash, salary sacrifice scheme.... I would be able to make it without a car for a while but realised I might lose my no claims bonus if I don't insure a car and end up paying thousands extra once I get one... I think I have to buy something second hand and use it for a couple of years or so.
Looking at what's available, seems MG 5 or MG ZS around 2021/2022 costing between £10K-£14K with anything between 20-60K mileage is my best bet. I think I prefer MG5 long range, ideally Exclusive.

Help! What should I look for when buying second hand long range MG 5? I never bought a second-hand car and know almost nothing about EVs ... Having a 7 year warranty is all I can think of but even there, not sure what invalidates it...

Also, I will have to use a house 3-pin socket to charge until I install something; do I need to buy a separate 3-pin cable or this comes with the car?
Click to expand...
The 3 pin charger should come with the car. They came supplied with them when new and there isn't much of a market for them so there's no reason why it wouldn't be included. It is very very slow which might not be a problem if you aren't doing many miles.

I'm not sure I'd worry too much about the mileage - I have a feeling that EVs age differently from ICE cars but it is worth finding out the battery state of health which you can do yourself with an ODB reader and the car scanner app. The other thing mileage related is that there are different warranty rules for taxis so if it has a lot of miles on the clock it is worth checking.
 
If it has been used as a taxi then you will not get the 7 year warranty on the battery.
I have Excite so don't have the extras of the Exclusive but the seats are not red hot in the summer. I do miss heated wing mirrors.
 
fred12345 said:
Hi everyone, just joined this forum with my only EV experience as an Uber passenger ! Had to scrap my old diesel and agonising over the past few months what to do - new, second hand, petrol,. EV, lease, cash, salary sacrifice scheme.... I would be able to make it without a car for a while but realised I might lose my no claims bonus if I don't insure a car and end up paying thousands extra once I get one... I think I have to buy something second hand and use it for a couple of years or so.
Looking at what's available, seems MG 5 or MG ZS around 2021/2022 costing between £10K-£14K with anything between 20-60K mileage is my best bet. I think I prefer MG5 long range, ideally Exclusive.

Help! What should I look for when buying second hand long range MG 5? I never bought a second-hand car and know almost nothing about EVs ... Having a 7 year warranty is all I can think of but even there, not sure what invalidates it...

Also, I will have to use a house 3-pin socket to charge until I install something; do I need to buy a separate 3-pin cable or this comes with the car?
Click to expand...
I ran my MG5 LR for 2 years on the granny charger alone (3-pin). Yes it's slow, but if you're doing less than 60 miles a day you can easily put that back in overnight ... and yes it should come with the car in a little rectangular pouch.

fred12345 said:
Hi everyone, just joined this forum with my only EV experience as an Uber passenger ! Had to scrap my old diesel and agonising over the past few months what to do - new, second hand, petrol,. EV, lease, cash, salary sacrifice scheme.... I would be able to make it without a car for a while but realised I might lose my no claims bonus if I don't insure a car and end up paying thousands extra once I get one... I think I have to buy something second hand and use it for a couple of years or so.
Looking at what's available, seems MG 5 or MG ZS around 2021/2022 costing between £10K-£14K with anything between 20-60K mileage is my best bet. I think I prefer MG5 long range, ideally Exclusive.

Help! What should I look for when buying second hand long range MG 5? I never bought a second-hand car and know almost nothing about EVs ... Having a 7 year warranty is all I can think of but even there, not sure what invalidates it...

Also, I will have to use a house 3-pin socket to charge until I install something; do I need to buy a separate 3-pin cable or this comes with the car?
Click to expand...
Oh and check under the bonnet for surface rust on the holes, had some on mine after only 2 years (28k miles) but it was white car so showed up more than most ... see Jomarkh's rusty holes ;)

Rusty holes

Hi, has anyone else seen rust appearing around the holes under the bonnet?
www.mgevs.com www.mgevs.com
 
blader1611 said:
I may be misguided but he has a 21 plate MG5 SR and wants 24000 for it, that is certainly not value. Is that right?
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They're extracting the urine. Here's the Sheffield one:

Auto Trader UK - New and Used Cars For Sale

Find your next car with Auto Trader UK, the official #1 site to buy and sell new and used cars. Over 400,000 cars online. Simple, easy, quick!
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Hello! I'm new here! Hijacking the "what to look for" thread, sorry... is there a Battery SOH indicator on the vehicle? I'm about to upgrade my venerable 2016 Leaf to an MG5 (pre-facelift), and I wondered if there's a menu somewhere with battery status info. Some dealers get a bit grumpy when you whip out the ODB2 adapter (some don't even know what it is!) - many thanks!
 
DoctorWhen said:
Hello! I'm new here! Hijacking the "what to look for" thread, sorry... is there a Battery SOH indicator on the vehicle? I'm about to upgrade my venerable 2016 Leaf to an MG5 (pre-facelift), and I wondered if there's a menu somewhere with battery status info. Some dealers get a bit grumpy when you whip out the ODB2 adapter (some don't even know what it is!) - many thanks!
Click to expand...
Really you need to stick to competent EV sellers who can give you a full battery SOH

It's not only battery % remaining, say 98% by total, its cell balance & quality that spots dodgy cells that will result in a battery failure. Very rare, but it only takes one to have been in a flood / crash.
 
Cooperman1955 said:
I'm considering an MG5.
I had a look on there and they had just one for sale.
It was over 3 years old and £24k.
How can this be considered "Best Value"?
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From my not very extensive experience over the past few months of frantically searching...
4 options really...
1. Buy from MG dealer, cost you maybe £1,000 more than it should but it should guarantee servicing and 7 year warranty + anything goes wrong with it, you know where they are
2. Buy from other dealers - hit and miss price wise but need to check all the paperwork. Would go for this over MG dealer only if paperwork spotless and at least £1- 2K cheaper than MG dealer... some people had bad experience with those dealers unable to provide follow up EV fixing if needed...
3. Private sale - I find it scary... Even with full service records, why are they selling it?
4. Big dealers type of Car Giant that buy ex lease cars - best price, servicing could be hit and miss...
(5. auctions - no idea how that works apart from potential bargain and blind buying..)

I bought ex lease with questionable service history for really good price (I think). It was worth the risk as (according to "buy my car" quotes) I should get almost what I paid for it if I go to part exchange... edit: just got health check and service done and it's apparently "all good", no idea what the battery state is but will find out soon ...

DoctorWhen said:
Hello! I'm new here! Hijacking the "what to look for" thread, sorry... is there a Battery SOH indicator on the vehicle? I'm about to upgrade my venerable 2016 Leaf to an MG5 (pre-facelift), and I wondered if there's a menu somewhere with battery status info. Some dealers get a bit grumpy when you whip out the ODB2 adapter (some don't even know what it is!) - many thanks!
Click to expand...

Are you anywhere near London? I was going to go for the same model...
 
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DoctorWhen said:
Hello! I'm new here! Hijacking the "what to look for" thread, sorry... is there a Battery SOH indicator on the vehicle? I'm about to upgrade my venerable 2016 Leaf to an MG5 (pre-facelift), and I wondered if there's a menu somewhere with battery status info. Some dealers get a bit grumpy when you whip out the ODB2 adapter (some don't even know what it is!) - many thanks!
Click to expand...
In a word....no

However a quick check you can do is turn the car on, everything such as heater etc set to off and mode in it's default Normal. Reset the accumulated trip meter.
If the car were at 100% State of charge the GOM would show 250 miles but any degradation in SOH would be reflected in the GOM - so 245 miles = 98% SOH.

Of course the car won't be at 100% when you look at a dealers but a very good approximation would be using the %age, so if car is at 60% SOC and GOM shows 146 miles..... SOH is approx

250 (WLTP) x 60 (SOC) / 100 = 150

146 (GOM) / 150 (from above) x 100 = 97.3% SOH

Substitute your own figures for SOC and GOM of course and this is a good guide but not necessarily precise result because 50% SOC might could be anywhere between 49.6 and 50.4.

*WLTP for LR and SE LR is 250, Trophy is 235.
 
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Gomev said:
In a word....no

However a quick check you can do is turn the car on, everything such as heater etc set to off and mode in it's default Normal. Reset the accumulated trip meter.
If the car were at 100% State of charge the GOM would show 250 miles but any degradation in SOH would be reflected in the GOM - so 245 miles = 98% SOH.

Of course the car won't be at 100% when you look at a dealers but a very good approximation would be using the %age, so if car is at 60% SOC and GOM shows 146 miles..... SOH is approx

250 (WLTP) x 60 (SOC) / 100 = 150

146 (GOM) / 150 (from above) x 100 = 97.3% SOH

Substitute your own figures for SOC and GOM of course and this is a good guide but not necessarily precise result because 50% SOC might could be anywhere between 49.6 and 50.4.

*WLTP for LR and SE LR is 250, Trophy is 235.
Click to expand...
Good thinking! Cheers.
 
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