I hate my MG4!

I had an old shape 1988 Rover 216i Vitesse EFI, a veritable pocket rocket, it used to see the Ford XR3s off at the lights. A shame it was such a rot box and not suitable for unleaded fuel with the BL 1.6L O-series fuel injected engine.
Rover-216-Vitesse.webp
 
I had an old shape 1988 Rover 216i Vitesse EFI, a veritable pocket rocket, it used to see the Ford XR3s off at the lights. A shame it was such a rot box and not suitable for unleaded fuel with the BL 1.6L O-series fuel injected engine.
View attachment 36696
I used to very much like that design back in the '80's, thought it was crisp and modern at the time.
 
Update!

I’m very pleased to say that I eventually managed to get my hateful car booked in with MG Portsmouth back in July to get the very temperamental air conditioning fixed and to (at long last) get a software update (I was still rolling around with R33, as MG Southampton had told me on two separate occasions that no software updates existed for my car 🤦🏻‍♂️).

To my great satisfaction, after having the car for 3 weeks while they carried out troubleshooting, they not only fixed the A/C (it needed a new compressor) but they also updated the software to R63, and my god what a difference it has made!

I can honestly say that I no longer hate the car. A good number of the issues on my original post (top of page 1) have now been dealt with, which is of course great news. I can see why people with newer software than R33 were much happier with their cars than I was, but it’s left me rather confused…

Why on Earth would MG release a car that was originally so shockingly bad? It seems to me that they must have done very little testing indeed, and instead just rushed it out to market and crossed their fingers. The car is now very usable, and I only have fairly minor complaints, but having had it in such a terrible state for two years, and having had to fight battles with both dealerships and MG UK to get it fixed, I still will never get another MG again. It’s very clear to me that they’re an untrustworthy manufacturer who cares more about quick profits than long term customer loyalty.

Fingers crossed my final year with the car doesn’t throw anymore issues my way… 🤞🏻
 
Update!

I’m very pleased to say that I eventually managed to get my hateful car booked in with MG Portsmouth back in July to get the very temperamental air conditioning fixed and to (at long last) get a software update (I was still rolling around with R33, as MG Southampton had told me on two separate occasions that no software updates existed for my car 🤦🏻‍♂️).

To my great satisfaction, after having the car for 3 weeks while they carried out troubleshooting, they not only fixed the A/C (it needed a new compressor) but they also updated the software to R63, and my god what a difference it has made!

I can honestly say that I no longer hate the car. A good number of the issues on my original post (top of page 1) have now been dealt with, which is of course great news. I can see why people with newer software than R33 were much happier with their cars than I was, but it’s left me rather confused…

Why on Earth would MG release a car that was originally so shockingly bad? It seems to me that they must have done very little testing indeed, and instead just rushed it out to market and crossed their fingers. The car is now very usable, and I only have fairly minor complaints, but having had it in such a terrible state for two years, and having had to fight battles with both dealerships and MG UK to get it fixed, I still will never get another MG again. It’s very clear to me that they’re an untrustworthy manufacturer who cares more about quick profits than long term customer loyalty.

Fingers crossed my final year with the car doesn’t throw anymore issues my way… 🤞🏻
Great stuff. Glad you got sorted after all your headaches.

I'm surprised though that they haven't updated your car to R67 - as that's the latest version.

I got mine installed last week, and although the software is still far from perfect - the aircon now works great and the phone no longer has to be paired up with every day or two 👌
 
Why on Earth would MG release a car that was originally so shockingly bad? It seems to me that they must have done very little testing indeed, and instead just rushed it out to market and crossed their fingers.
Sadly, this is the way car manufacturers work these days, could be worse, you could be selling cars renowned for safety tech with brakes that fail due to poor software...


 
Great stuff. Glad you got sorted after all your headaches.

I'm surprised though that they haven't updated your car to R67 - as that's the latest version.

I got mine installed last week, and although the software is still far from perfect - the aircon now works great and the phone no longer has to be paired up with every day or two 👌
What's more surprising (or not) was it took 2 years to get MG to fix it and the original garage claimed there were no updates.

Shocking service which appears all to common and goes some way to explain why MG came bottom of the pile in the What Car reliability/after sales survey
 
Bear in mind the RXX series are only the infotainment software update. Some of the most important updates are to the various car modules that control the various systems and it is these being updated that make the most difference to many problems.

It is a great shame that people seem to have such problems getting updates. I've found my local MG garage has been on the ball and I have had many updates that have improved things, but clearly some dealers are not so forthcoming. I know it is because they have to get MG to approve them as warranty work in order to get paid to do them.
 
Can't believe I'm being 'that guy' but wouldn't it have been an S-series?
It was 30 od years ago and I get the two confused, they look the same but one runs on unleaded and the other doesn't, the one I had in the Rover didn't, I had to add the lead additive.
 
Update!

I’m very pleased to say that I eventually managed to get my hateful car booked in with MG Portsmouth back in July to get the very temperamental air conditioning fixed and to (at long last) get a software update (I was still rolling around with R33, as MG Southampton had told me on two separate occasions that no software updates existed for my car 🤦🏻‍♂️).

To my great satisfaction, after having the car for 3 weeks while they carried out troubleshooting, they not only fixed the A/C (it needed a new compressor) but they also updated the software to R63, and my god what a difference it has made!

I can honestly say that I no longer hate the car. A good number of the issues on my original post (top of page 1) have now been dealt with, which is of course great news. I can see why people with newer software than R33 were much happier with their cars than I was, but it’s left me rather confused…

Why on Earth would MG release a car that was originally so shockingly bad? It seems to me that they must have done very little testing indeed, and instead just rushed it out to market and crossed their fingers. The car is now very usable, and I only have fairly minor complaints, but having had it in such a terrible state for two years, and having had to fight battles with both dealerships and MG UK to get it fixed, I still will never get another MG again. It’s very clear to me that they’re an untrustworthy manufacturer who cares more about quick profits than long term customer loyalty.

Fingers crossed my final year with the car doesn’t throw anymore issues my way… 🤞🏻
I'm still waiting for the updates on mine, it's going to a different dealer next week so i will see how that goes!
 

Are you enjoying your MG4?

  • Yes

    Votes: 1,012 77.9%
  • I'm in the middle

    Votes: 191 14.7%
  • No

    Votes: 96 7.4%
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