First journey...... initial thoughts

[Weeble]

I took the car for its first run today for about 75 miles. Overall I was very happy with the performance and handling, but found several 'niggles' that i need to sort out... so here's a couple of questions to begin with.

1. Is there any way of retuning the DAB radio? I've seen reports that the radio is not the best quality but it dropped out so regularly that it got beyound a joke. Not a case of weak signals as the route was one I travel regularly with no reception problems. I just wondered if it had been originally tuned in a different area and needs resetting. But how?

2. Is there a way of making Google maps the default navigation system? I found the inbuilt navigation system and Google fought each other sometimes when returning from another menu selection... biggest annoyance was that it often deleted the route in google.

More to follow.

 

[5teep]

DAB reception might be down to the antenna, you could check and possibly upgrade it if you need to.

 

[Jamesrr]

2. Is there a way of making Google maps the default navigation system? I found the inbuilt navigation system and Google fought each other sometimes when returning from another menu selection... biggest annoyance was that it often deleted the route in google.

Yes, just use Android Auto and don't turn on the inbuilt nav system. I recommend never using cars inbuilt satnav systems. They're invariably worse than AA / Google maps and you are reliant on the manufacturer to keep them up to date.
AA does this automatically and also has all the traffic data collected by the millions of users driving around you.
Further I use AA for all my music entertainment while driving including radio and don't generally even use the inbuilt DAB/FM but YMMV.

*Note we have 2 MG4s rather than the S5 but they're very similar so I can't see why the above doesn't apply.

**Does the inbuilt satnav automatically turn on in your S5?

 

[Bam Bam]

1. Is there any way of retuning the DAB radio? I've seen reports that the radio is not the best quality but it dropped out so regularly that it got beyound a joke. Not a case of weak signals as the route was one I travel regularly with no reception problems. I just wondered if it had been originally tuned in a different area and needs resetting. But how?

No idea, but I read that as 'returning' and I wondered how you were planning to return the radio. D'oh.

2. Is there a way of making Google maps the default navigation system? I found the inbuilt navigation system and Google fought each other sometimes when returning from another menu selection... biggest annoyance was that it often deleted the route in google.

Can you plug your phone in and use android auto?

That is what us plebs have to do with the standard MG4.

 

[Alb]

AA is wireless on the MGS5.

 

[gus]

Here are my thoughts on my first long journey (well return journey) ACC worked really well until it had a motorbike in front, then it just didn’t know what to do, it even recognised that it was a motorbike on the display, dropped 20mph speed and wanted about 1/2 mile gap!! In Wales the auto limit really struggled (it did save me a ticket at one point) yet in England so far it has been ok. It just doesn’t like the speed signs right after the roundabout and misses them. Economy a heck of a lot better than the ZS, in 32 degrees the air con kept us at a fantastic 19 degrees. Shame I had to get out when we got home. Radio reception a bit dodgy in the valleys but along the A40 and M4 didn’t drop at any point.

 

[Slipstream]

No idea, but I read that as 'returning' and I wondered how you were planning to return the radio. D'oh.


Can you plug your phone in and use android auto?

That is what us plebs have to do with the standard MG4.

Me too works fine

 

[gus]

Yes you can plug in and use AA and charge, or you can use wireless.

 

[Weeble]

OK, I spent an hour yesterday trying to recreate the AA satnav problem and I now confess it was mainly down to 'finger problems' (or to be more precise, 'voice problems') and lack of familiarity with the new car setup. I've just changed from an XC40 where the infotainment system is 100% AA based.

The 'situation' (not calling it a 'problem' any more) was that if I selected another screen while running AA satnav, in order to get back to the AA screen I originally found I had to select the MG Home menu screen then select the AA screen from there. To simplify this I started to retrieve the AA screen using Google Assistant (GA) -- i.e. by just saying "Hey Google" or "Hey Google....... show me the map".
99% of the time this worked, and the AA map, with route, came to the fore.

HOWEVER, I discovered that this sometimes didn't work. In which case GA responded normally to "Hey Google" but the AA screen remained hidden behind the active MG screen.

In this case I found that by manually going back to the Home screen and selecting AA, the the AA screen appeared but the route information was occasionally missing -- i.e. AA presented a virgin map. I couldn't reproduce a sequence that caused this the missing data, so I no longer put this down to a conflict between the MG and AA navigation applications, more of an AA integration problem.

Every day is a learning day!

 

[5teep]

AA is still after all these years a clunky pita to use.