WalkingBootWeather
Established Member
Thanks to everyone that has provided useful knowledge, food for thought and engaged in friendly banter, but I'm out and wanted to say cheerio.
Having run an original ZS EV for a little over 3 years and had my name on a waiting list for an MG4 since September, I have concluded that I no longer want to own or drive an MG. The reasons for this are many and various. In my view the cars are simply not of a high enough quality and the support network is woefully inadequate. The MG4 drives very nicely, but in some areas feels unfinished, missing things like rear passenger lighting, and having warped undertray. Numerous faults relating the deadlocking, breather, software etc. are well documented and MG's response has just not been good enough. I simply cannot fathom for instance how MG can design a new breather to solve a problem then refuse to fit it until owners complain.
Many dealers appear to be disinterested in customer satisfaction, or seem to be economical with the truth. The dealership I had my MG4 order in with were not pro-active in contacting me and were vague and elusive whenever I tried to contact them. While I was awaiting delivery they advertised a number of cars meeting my EXACT specification on Autotrader and their website rather than offer one to me, but in some ways they have given me a chance to re-evaluate so have perhaps done me a favour.
The efficiency of the cars is worse than I would have hoped and the cabin of the MG4 did not feel like a special place to be.
My ZS was a fairly reliable workhorse, but the range and charge speed, especially in winter were significantly less that I hoped (and I have been driving EVs for 8 years so do understand how to use them). The final straw came when last week one of the rear doors deadlocked and could not be opened from inside the car or outside. I took it to the dealer who firstly said they would have to charge me £89 diagnostic fee to even look at it. On inspection they agreed it was a warranty repair but can give me no idea when the part will be available, though indicated it could be several months!!! The car was returned without the door panel being properly fitted and when I questioned that I was told that was because they tend to break when taken off and on more than once and that wouldn't be covered under the warranty.
So what to do instead? In my case, I noticed that Tesla has dropped their new vehicles by around £7k, and together with relative oversupply of the Model 3 made them good value. Yesterday I picked up a 2021 long range car with 15,000 miles on the clock for just a couple of grand more than a new MG4. It feels much more luxurious than any MG, has AWD, a full glass roof, a flat floor, no leaks, cameras all around, great software and app, well sorted autopilot, a decent hifi, built-in dashcam, sat nav, a range of around 370 miles, 0-60 time of about 4 seconds, super quick charging and access to the supercharger network.
I had a 150 mile drive home, and while perhaps not as much fun as a MG4, it did feel much more planted and grown up than the MG. On collection it only had an indicated range of 80 odd miles so I needed to visit a supercharger where I added over 200 miles range in 20 mins. As you can imagine I drove it pretty enthusiastically at 'ahem' motorway speeds, and still got around 4.2 miles per kWh on a cool February day. When I got home I connected to wifi and dowloaded the latest software over the air, which installed without incident. I was impressed with sentry mode and ability to view any of the cameras, check car charge and temperature etc. via the app even when miles away. My son thought the games and ability to generate fart noises was the best thing ever.
A hatchback form factor was not essential to me and I had the cash so was not tied to financing, and so for me it made loads of sense to get a lightly used Tesla rather than a new MG. For other people this might not be a sensible alternative.
I post this in the hope that MG will read, stop being so complacent and understand that even loyal customers, like I would have thought myself to be, will eventually get cheesed off and take their custom elsewhere. Once lost it will be near impossible to get them back on board. I hope they up their game and improve their offering and service to customers prepared to stick with them.
Good luck everyone.
I'm off to find a Tesla forum to inhabit.
Having run an original ZS EV for a little over 3 years and had my name on a waiting list for an MG4 since September, I have concluded that I no longer want to own or drive an MG. The reasons for this are many and various. In my view the cars are simply not of a high enough quality and the support network is woefully inadequate. The MG4 drives very nicely, but in some areas feels unfinished, missing things like rear passenger lighting, and having warped undertray. Numerous faults relating the deadlocking, breather, software etc. are well documented and MG's response has just not been good enough. I simply cannot fathom for instance how MG can design a new breather to solve a problem then refuse to fit it until owners complain.
Many dealers appear to be disinterested in customer satisfaction, or seem to be economical with the truth. The dealership I had my MG4 order in with were not pro-active in contacting me and were vague and elusive whenever I tried to contact them. While I was awaiting delivery they advertised a number of cars meeting my EXACT specification on Autotrader and their website rather than offer one to me, but in some ways they have given me a chance to re-evaluate so have perhaps done me a favour.
The efficiency of the cars is worse than I would have hoped and the cabin of the MG4 did not feel like a special place to be.
My ZS was a fairly reliable workhorse, but the range and charge speed, especially in winter were significantly less that I hoped (and I have been driving EVs for 8 years so do understand how to use them). The final straw came when last week one of the rear doors deadlocked and could not be opened from inside the car or outside. I took it to the dealer who firstly said they would have to charge me £89 diagnostic fee to even look at it. On inspection they agreed it was a warranty repair but can give me no idea when the part will be available, though indicated it could be several months!!! The car was returned without the door panel being properly fitted and when I questioned that I was told that was because they tend to break when taken off and on more than once and that wouldn't be covered under the warranty.
So what to do instead? In my case, I noticed that Tesla has dropped their new vehicles by around £7k, and together with relative oversupply of the Model 3 made them good value. Yesterday I picked up a 2021 long range car with 15,000 miles on the clock for just a couple of grand more than a new MG4. It feels much more luxurious than any MG, has AWD, a full glass roof, a flat floor, no leaks, cameras all around, great software and app, well sorted autopilot, a decent hifi, built-in dashcam, sat nav, a range of around 370 miles, 0-60 time of about 4 seconds, super quick charging and access to the supercharger network.
I had a 150 mile drive home, and while perhaps not as much fun as a MG4, it did feel much more planted and grown up than the MG. On collection it only had an indicated range of 80 odd miles so I needed to visit a supercharger where I added over 200 miles range in 20 mins. As you can imagine I drove it pretty enthusiastically at 'ahem' motorway speeds, and still got around 4.2 miles per kWh on a cool February day. When I got home I connected to wifi and dowloaded the latest software over the air, which installed without incident. I was impressed with sentry mode and ability to view any of the cameras, check car charge and temperature etc. via the app even when miles away. My son thought the games and ability to generate fart noises was the best thing ever.
A hatchback form factor was not essential to me and I had the cash so was not tied to financing, and so for me it made loads of sense to get a lightly used Tesla rather than a new MG. For other people this might not be a sensible alternative.
I post this in the hope that MG will read, stop being so complacent and understand that even loyal customers, like I would have thought myself to be, will eventually get cheesed off and take their custom elsewhere. Once lost it will be near impossible to get them back on board. I hope they up their game and improve their offering and service to customers prepared to stick with them.
Good luck everyone.
I'm off to find a Tesla forum to inhabit.