We have now owned our 2022 MG4 Trophy LR for three months and we can honestly say that it is far and away the most dangerous vehicle we have had the misfortune to drive. The journey home from the dealer in Oldham where we purchased the car was bad enough as we did not know how to disable the wretched lane-assist software which repeatedly tried to steer my wife into the nearside kerb or ditch. The software (and the connected cameras) are an absolute crock of excrement, clearly designed by some clueless geeks who are simply incompetent. The driver has little control over the behaviour of the car which is what makes the car so dangerous on the road. The so-called ‘safety features’ which the dysfunctional software controls have supposedly been incorporated in order to achieve an NCAP 5-star safety rating but as they don’t work properly, they have the opposite effect on the driver’s ability to control the car safely. We cannot believe that cars like this are allowed to be sold in the UK
This evening, the car has given us the fright of our lives. We were driving home at around 9.30pm along a clear, straight, tarmac, suburban road with a 30mph speed limit, a white line down the middle and kerbs on either side. I was maintaining 30mph up a slight incline with another car behind us. There were no parked cars on either side of the road and no oncoming vehicles. All of a sudden, the car slammed its brakes full on and brought the car to an abrupt halt for no reason at all that either of us could see. How the car behind us avoided running into the back of us, I don’t know but he must have thought we were drunk or stupid (we were neither). The ELK was disabled but some of the other ‘safety’ functions were enabled by default. We have regularly had the car brake suddenly for no reason, especially when travelling through contraflow road works with oncoming vehicles waiting at the lights on the opposite side of the road. The stupid software thinks that the car is heading for a head-on collision so brakes hard before the driver has a chance to steer the car through the chicane. This is not a safe feature, it is bonkers and effectively removes any control the driver has over what is a simple manoeuvre. As a 73 year old IAM Advanced Driver and a former saloon car racing driver, I wonder whatever happened to driver skill and responsibility. What if the car behind us crashes into us when the car slams its brakes on? Who is responsible then?
I don’t suppose the car’s software is clever enough to ‘remember’ or record the reason it had for slamming the brakes on tonight with no visible hazard. I recall seeing some message in RED that flashed up on the driver’s screen as the brakes were slammed on and I think the touchscreen briefly showed a picture of the road in front of us but both of these disappeared within seconds of the car being brought to a stop. We probably both sustained chest bruising from the seat belts in addition to the trauma of having the car decide to stop suddenly for no reason. We have now lost all confidence in the car so it will have to be replaced with something that allows the driver to have full control. We also own two classic cars, a 1949 Alvis TA14 and a 1999 Jaguar XKR. The Alvis has no seat belts, airbags or power-steering but it is a lot safer to drive than the MG4
I will be taking the car to my local MG Dealer but as the software is not covered by the manufacturer’s warranty, they will likely charge us £144 to poke around in the car’s computer brain and more than likely tell us that there is nothing wrong with the car. Looking at the various threads on this forum, it is clear that MG have known about this software malfunction for years
Some folk to seem to drop on a bad un.
