LKA useful or a hindrance

[Buster72]

I have to admit that I find the LKA feature useful for the following.
It makes me concentrate more on the road and especially the lane I am in.
I have it on the Low setting and very occasionally it bleeps and the steering wheel corrects any drifting in the lane.

 

[Emgie 4]

I have to admit that I find the LKA feature useful for the following.
It makes me concentrate more on the road and especially the lane I am in.
I have it on the Low setting and very occasionally it bleeps and the steering wheel corrects any drifting in the lane.

Good to hear some positive feedback in defense of LKA, even if your reasoning (I think) would seem counterintuitive to what it's designed for

 

[bowfer]

Good point, one reason that pops into my mind, whether we like to agree with it or not LKA is considered a safety system (tho many would just say a driver's aid) and any tinkering with a safety system opens a hornets nest of issues, warranty invalidated for starters.
God forbid an accident happens and the change is found in the investigation (regardless if LKA related to crash) I think any judge would throw the book at u - and then throw the key away.
Most lads tinkering via OBD/software are doing it mostly for power gains (that also may have consequences but I'd suspect on a lesser scale)
Also I suspect a lot of that group aren't embracing the EV transition yet, and for now are sticking with ICE cars
Lastly EV makers are much more likely to monitor their cars, often remotely OTA, some even with ability to remotely disable and leave you stranded (Tesla)

I disagree with your warranty and accident thing.
The system is there to be switched off, legally.
All you’d be doing with an OBD is taking away the necessity to press the switch all the time.
You’re not removing a safety system, you’re just telling it to stay off.

 

[Shez879]

My 2 cents on LKA after having the car for around a month with mixed country roads and motorway driving:

Our country roads are not suited for LKA mainly because the lines are not always present properly, and if driving through a tree line road, the sun going in and out also affect the LKA camera. It's not been too 'violent' for us but on the very frequent times we have had cyclists and needed to swerve round them, the LKA wanted to steer us back. I know we are meant to indicate and go into the other lane but sometimes you just want to get past the cyclists. On the motorway, it functions generally well and if you indicate when changing lanes, there's no issues there. I was veering near the lines on one occasion and it corrected me back into the lane and that was good. The thing that confused it on the motorway was the dreaded cones. It was at night and the white bits on the cones must have been appearing as road dotted line and this was confusing the hell out of it so had to disable it whilst driving.

We set it to alert only as soon as we get in the car now as we do mostly local driving and even the motorway drives means we'll use country roads to get to it plus there's bound to be some cones at some point on the journey knowing out road systems

 

[Rolfe]

I disagree with your warranty and accident thing.
The system is there to be switched off, legally.
All you’d be doing with an OBD is taking away the necessity to press the switch all the time.
You’re not removing a safety system, you’re just telling it to stay off.

The manual actually instructs the driver to switch off LKA "immediately" if it starts to misbehave, for example on a road with ruts that are being mistaken for lines. This is sensible. But it's impossible, as the car is designed.

There can be no insurance, warrantly or criminal liability downside to doing what the manual tells you to do - turn off LKA if it's unhelpful.

 

[tsedge]

LKA needs a button to easily switch it off.

I drove a Fiat 500e EV on holiday recently and all I had to do was double press a button on the end of the indicator stalk. Nice and easy and not a menu to be seen.

MG need to enable this to be mapped to a real button, eg one of the cruise control buttons when the car is in P.

 

[bowfer]

LKA needs a button to easily switch it off.

I drove a Fiat 500e EV on holiday recently and all I had to do was double press a button on the end of the indicator stalk. Nice and easy and not a menu to be seen.

MG need to enable this to be mapped to a real button, eg one of the cruise control buttons when the car is in P.

Agreed, Kia we had on holiday also had a physical button.

 

[djenson]

LKA needs a button to easily switch it off.

I drove a Fiat 500e EV on holiday recently and all I had to do was double press a button on the end of the indicator stalk. Nice and easy and not a menu to be seen.

MG need to enable this to be mapped to a real button, eg one of the cruise control buttons when the car is in P.

MG do have a physical button for LKA on the HS (Maybe MG5 gen1 too) on the end of the stalk. They have gone backwards in this world of everything controlled via a screen nonsense

 

[Rolfe]

In the SE at least, the two volume buttons under the central screen are entirely unnecessary. One could do the LKA and the other the fog lights.

 

[Emgie 4]

I disagree with your warranty and accident thing.
The system is there to be switched off, legally.
All you’d be doing with an OBD is taking away the necessity to press the switch all the time.
You’re not removing a safety system, you’re just telling it to stay off.

I hadn't looked at it that way, you make a good point.
Altho warranty might still be compromised for any kind of tinkering with software.

 

[Emgie 4]

In the SE at least, the two volume buttons under the central screen are entirely unnecessary. One could do the LKA and the other the fog lights.

100% agree, great idea

 

[Rolfe]

I've heard someone say that there are circumstances in the Trophy where these buttons are needed to control the volume. Fair enough. But the Trophy and the SE have different software systems, and I can't see any reason why this modification couldn't be made to the SE.

 

[Emgie 4]

I've heard someone say that there are circumstances in the Trophy where these buttons are needed to control the volume. Fair enough. But the Trophy and the SE have different software systems, and I can't see any reason why this modification couldn't be made to the SE.

Hmmm, not sure about that, I have a Trophy and never use the +/- vol buttons
Only thing they may be refering to is if you select the pages/options button on the wheel the up/down toggle then controls submenus on the driver display, you will need to deselect it to re-enable volume control, but I don't see this as issue.
And I guess the +/- buttons do allow the passenger have volume control

 

[Rolfe]

Would you rather have the ability to permit your passenger to control the volume of the sound system, or the ability to turn the LKA and the fog lights on or off with a single button press? It's a no-brainer.

However, the point you make about the pages/options button also applies to the SE, and it's not relevant, as you say. Nobody sits with the pages, or even the HVAC, controls open while they're driving. You switch to one or the other for a few seconds while you adjust, then move back.

I thought it was something to do with needing the buttons for some other volume control that only the Trophy has? Dunno.

 

[Grriff]

Drove our MY23 Trophy for the first time today. LKA was useful on the motorway, mainly because of the audio alert warning about drifting towards another lane. Also drove on country roads and didn't seem to get any problems. There was the occasional twitch on town roads.
We'll keep it on at present until we get more experience.

 

[smartn]

Good review just posted by Fully Charged of the MG4. Robert has driven one for about 2.5k miles and has only really got one complaint. Same as everyone else. He hates the LKA! Come on MG sort this out!

 

[JeffMcC75]

Fully Charged Show has a complete rant about it in their long term review of the MG4

 

[OriginalBigAl]

I like everyone else would like this to change, but taking a different look at it might afford it an advantage. Suppose, you get in your car ( present configuration ) turn off LKA , and other systems you do not want, you drive along and are involved in an accident , quite serious, with another modern car , systems turned off. Accident is 50/50 fault or even slightly against you. Society, Police, and insurance companies do not like 50/50 claims , there has to be a blame factor. Yours and the other car are carted off to the police compound for technical inspections, on powering up yours, all systems are working ( thank you default ) the other car ( switchable ) are not . The 50/50 split has now shifted in your favour.

 

[Rolfe]

The manual says to turn off LKA "immediately" in certain circumstances. I do not think that having it turned off could be used against anyone.

 

[tsedge]

I like everyone else would like this to change, but taking a different look at it might afford it an advantage. Suppose, you get in your car ( present configuration ) turn off LKA , and other systems you do not want, you drive along and are involved in an accident , quite serious, with another modern car , systems turned off. Accident is 50/50 fault or even slightly against you. Society, Police, and insurance companies do not like 50/50 claims , there has to be a blame factor. Yours and the other car are carted off to the police compound for technical inspections, on powering up yours, all systems are working ( thank you default ) the other car ( switchable ) are not . The 50/50 split has now shifted in your favour.

You are still liable; the safety systems are considered assistance only, if you crash the car doesn't receive any blame unless there's a provable technical fault. You can't invoke LKA as a defence and nor can you use evidence of safety systems being off as a case for the prosecution. They will only look at the actions of the two drivers and whether they were within the law or created unnecessary risk. Only in the case of a directly provable fault will a safety system have any relevance to blame.