MG4 Software Update Thread

[Rolfe]

Eight, although these vary in degree of concern. There are also four other points that are by way of customer feedback rather than complaint. I posted the list earlier.

Again, I agree with you that MG's attitude could certainly be improved. I don't see how this objective can be advanced by declaring that their bugs are intended features so there's no use complaining about them, though.

They changed tack on the rear wiper and central headrest fronts because of customer feedback, although these are certainly not no-cost options. My feeling is that they were hearing a lot of prospective customers commenting on these omissions, and decided to act. If they don't hear a lot of owners complaining about the software bugs, they're not likely to act, are they?

I think members of the forum as a whole would have a better chance of making a difference by contacting MG to complain about silly things like the external temperature readout, than by accepting them as deliberate cost-cutting decisions (which don't actually cut costs). If they're prepared to add cost-heavy hardware in response to customer feedback, it's not an impossible dream to imagine that they might fix what are actually tiny glitches the bloody software.

 

[AndyL61]

Again, after the amount of posting you do in here, you must have realised by now that MG will admit to nothing "They only sell the dealers the cars!"

MG need to shift there mentality away from the bag of bolts days of the MG 3 into the present where they really do make a very decent budget EV.

How many items have you included in your complaint to them?

Hope Mr Smart has time to read it all.

 

[Deleted member 10041]

Eight, although these vary in degree of concern. There are also four other points that are by way of customer feedback rather than complaint. I posted the list earlier.

MG will not admit to anything by way off response and I personally don't think they care about customer feedback.
Their stock response will be as always thank you for getting in touch please contact your dealer with any of the concerns you have, some of which are characteristics of the vehilce

 

[Rolfe]

You may well be right, but if they got a lot of similar communications, well, water wears down stone.

Checked my ismart just for fun. My luxury says 16c outside temp, and 25c interior. No way it is that much higher inside as car has been in the garage for quite some hours.

Maybe that is part of the reason why I have to set it to 26c for a comfortable temp inside!

Just an extension of what I said about the internal temperature sensor yesterday. I scanned the car again just now and it says 17C external, which is correct, but only 15C internal. This is the first time I have seen a lower internal than external. The car is sitting in the drive and is undoubtedly getting a lot of solar gain inside. It's absolutely not the cast that it's only 15C inside!

A repeat scan a moment later gave me 18C inside (while still correctly reporting 17C as the outside temperature).

I then went out to the car to fetch my USB stick to add more music to it. It's not baking inside, because the day is cloudy, but it's over 20C for sure, subjectively. I'd say 23-25 ish.

I think it's the internal temperature that's reporting - well, not random numbers exactly, but still numbers that are well away from the actualité.

 

[siteguru]

Probably why we have to set the AC target temperature 4-5 deg higher than actual.

 

[Deleted member 10041]

You may well be right, but if they got a lot of similar communications, well, water wears down stone.

Not in this case MG is particularly thick skinned and you want get enough people to join in to make them pay attention.

This is why you need good dealers and why someone like Miles who gives up his time to take part in discussions in here and on the podcasts is important. They know what is going on from the customers and they (dealers) probably have more chance of making MG take notice.

Him getting stick for something that hasn't even been confirmed as coming from him, will just stop him joining in chats in here, and that "IN" to MG could be lost.

 

[Rolfe]

I have no idea who Miles is, other than one of the MG dealers you seem to despise so much. Nor did I have any idea that a direct quote of something he apparently said on Facebook, coming from a regular member I would not have suspected of making stuff up, shouldn't be regarded as coming from him.

That quote appeared to me to be an absolutely standard example of the dealers' brush-off you yourself have criticised, claiming that an obvious fault was intentional on the part of MG. If that's not his usual style, I'm pleased to hear it.

Probably why we have to set the AC target temperature 4-5 deg higher than actual.

I don't know what to think about that. The AC target temperature is consistent. So long as you mentally read "23" when you see "28" it's absolutely fine. But that's not a temperature reading, it's - as you rightly point out - the target we're asking the AC to get to. The app scan is (allegedly) reading the actual temperature in the car, at the moment of scanning. That isn't consistently off by a set number of degrees, rather it wanders around in the general vicinity of the actual temperature, often changing by several degrees in a couple of minutes, in a car that hasn't been opened - and now and again throwing in "87C" for good measure.

It does seem likely the faults are connected, but I'm not entirely convinced, because they're different things.

I don't really care about the internal temperature sensor or readout, to be honest. If the app returns the correct external temperature, as it seems to, it's not hard to take an educated guess about what the internal temperature is likely to be. On the other hand I might add it to my list of concerns for MG, just to give them some more bedtime reading.

 

[Emgie 4]

One thing I could never be accused of is sticking up for MG.
Apart from @bowfer and @PristDean I've probably been more critical of MG than most, which has resulted in a variety of responses from various keyboard warriors in here, just because I had the temerity to be critical of the car.

It's a cheap budget EV, they have had to save money in a lot of areas to make it so keenly priced.

There is questionable build quality and quality control on a decent percentage of there cars.

The material quality is questionable and the software goes from crap to slightly annoying.
The customer service is non existent and the dealer experience is also questionable in a large amount of cases.

The positives in all this is they have made a great riding, good sized family hatchback with a decent range.
This has been done on a budget by a budget brand. If you have received a car with no hardware issues and very little software glitches then you have received a really good car at a really decent price.
If MG had put support in place to back up their car then they would have really cleaned up

As I said I look forward to you sharing the reply you received from MG when you contact them with your concerns/complaints

I'd agree with most of what you say here, and thus far I'm thinking I am one of the more fortunate ones with no major hardware issues bar the warped tray (dealer has new one on order for me) and supplied with faulty type2 charging cable, (dealer replaced without a question, I'm thinking it was a one off as haven't heard of anyone else mention it)
As for software my 2 main issues of no connectivity and constant Bluetooth pairing were fixed with SW update one week after purchase R33 to R46, albeit mine is a Trophy and most complaints seem to relate to the SE.

One bugbear I have I don't see much talk about is range, I must admit a high % (+75) of my commuting is on M-ways so av speed is higher (and I expected to take some hit due to this) But when I collected car the GOM said 430km as per quoted range, and after 230km I was down to 8% ( didn't intend going so low, no chargers available) So only just over half quoted range! That seemed very low.
Mentioned to dealer and was told what do u expect at m-way speed, I said a bit more than that, fortunately the range has improved in last few weeks - tho I'm reducing my m-way speed significantly (down from 120kmh to 105kmh), but on a full charge I've yet to read or achieve anything over 350km, it's never displayed over 400km since collection date.
Am I wrong or is the MG4 range/efficiency just worse than other EVs at m-way speeds??
Note I only have car a month so am still gathering data before returning to dealer, and Im not driving aggressively by any stretch, mostly in Eco aswell ( and battery heating off)
Any one else with range issues?

 

[tsedge]

For an insight into dealer warranty experiences, I can recommend the current poll:

Poll: MG4 Warranty Experiences

I think it is time after a year to survey dealer warranty experiences. Last time many people had not yet needed to visit the dealer, so hopefully the results will be more useful this time. Please only vote if you have (or did have) an MG4. If you've had multiple visits for multiple issues...

www.mgevs.com

I'd agree with most of what you say here, and thus far I'm thinking I am one of the more fortunate ones with no major hardware issues bar the warped tray (dealer has new one on order for me) and supplied with faulty type2 charging cable, (dealer replaced without a question, I'm thinking it was a one off as haven't heard of anyone else mention it)
As for software my 2 main issues of no connectivity and constant Bluetooth pairing were fixed with SW update one week after purchase R33 to R46, albeit mine is a Trophy and most complaints seem to relate to the SE.

One bugbear I have I don't see much talk about is range, I must admit a high % (+75) of my commuting is on M-ways so av speed is higher (and I expected to take some hit due to this) But when I collected car the GOM said 430km as per quoted range, and after 230km I was down to 8% ( didn't intend going so low, no chargers available) So only just over half quoted range! That seemed very low.
Mentioned to dealer and was told what do u expect at m-way speed, I said a bit more than that, fortunately the range has improved in last few weeks - tho I'm reducing my m-way speed significantly (down from 120kmh to 105kmh), but on a full charge I've yet to read or achieve anything over 350km, it's never displayed over 400km since collection date.
Am I wrong or is the MG4 range/efficiency just worse than other EVs at m-way speeds??
Note I only have car a month so am still gathering data before returning to dealer, and Im not driving aggressively by any stretch, mostly in Eco aswell ( and battery heating off)
Any one else with range issues?

The MG4 has average efficiency, it is neither terrible nor great. There are far worse cars.

All EVs suffer reduced range as speed increases due to their greater efficiency being proportionally more affected by aerodynamic drag (than an equivalent ICE car, which is far less efficient to start with). You will see far better figures at 100km/h or 105km/h than 120km/h because of this effect.

This is not well advertised. Also, on the Trophy the rear wings negatively affect the aero, so we have extra drag the SE does not have.

 

[PristDean]

I have been toying with 'Adaptive' regeneration, right now it appears to give a bit more range over the journeys I have taken but the regenerative braking is less apparent than on '3' so I suspect a bit more wear on brake pads. Another plus is it provides a smoother drive with better free wheeling.

I also suspect a warped rear under tray will only have an adverse effect on range as it may induce more downward force due to air flow, coupled with the Trophy rear spoiler, hence more drag. Once I have mine repaired it will be interesting to see what difference it makes

 

[Deleted member 10041]

I have no idea who Miles is, other than one of the MG dealers you seem to despise so much. Nor did I have any idea that a direct quote of something he apparently said on Facebook, coming from a regular member I would not have suspected of making stuff up, shouldn't be regarded as coming from him.

That quote appeared to me to be an absolutely standard example of the dealers' brush-off you yourself have criticised, claiming that an obvious fault was intentional on the part of MG. If that's not his usual style, I'm pleased to hear it.

You need to make your mind up, earlier on you had a pop about me not wanting to apportion any blame to MG and now I seem to despise MG dealers.

I don't despise anyone and have never singled an individual out at a dealership, I certainly wouldn't be throwing allegations about on here naming people and accusing them of stuff unless I had concrete evidence, I don't think random hearsay would constitute that, it is however true that I don't rate some of the service some members have received from certain dealers, and MG UKs customer service failings are well documented.

I certainly don't despise Miles and take my hat off to him that he takes time to come on here and update us about stuff, he is very knowledgeable.

Please don't try and imply otherwise

 

[Yandards]

Couple of points regarding the highly controversial outside air temperature sensor.

For climate control to work effectively the system needs to know both internal and external temperatures so it can regulate correctly.

In modern vehicles it makes sense to use this sensor to also drive a low temperature/possible icing conditions warning. Just because you don't have a displayed image of the outside air temperature doesn't meant the car can't throw up the icing conditions warning. I'm not saying it does or doesn't but there is no reason it couldn't.

ACC and speed drop off depending on steering angle, having had the pleasure of a skid pan session a few years ago it was quite enlightening. Modern vehicles with any form of stability management system use a wide range of sensors - one of which is the steering angle sensor. In the skid pan car (Honda Civic) with full lock and the throttle floored the car would limit power to prevent a skid condition - basically ended up driving around in circles at about 15mph. I've felt similar from the MG when pulling away from a junction with a bit of urgency - it bogs down until the steering wheel is straightened up.
It seems the stability management system might be a bit aggressive, especially when in ACC mode, even on the motorway it was triming power back on gentle curves for me last week. I believe the jerkiness during power transition is down to the regen mode, level 3 is pretty aggressive.

 

[siteguru]

As for software my 2 main issues of no connectivity and constant Bluetooth pairing were fixed with SW update one week after purchase R33 to R46, albeit mine is a Trophy and most complaints seem to relate to the SE.

I can say with almost 100% certainty that most (if not all) complaints about connectivity and Bluetooth pairing are with Trophy models ... SE models seem to be rock solid in this respect.

 

[tsedge]

Couple of points regarding the highly controversial outside air temperature sensor.

For climate control to work effectively the system needs to know both internal and external temperatures so it can regulate correctly.

In modern vehicles it makes sense to use this sensor to also drive a low temperature/possible icing conditions warning. Just because you don't have a displayed image of the outside air temperature doesn't meant the car can't throw up the icing conditions warning. I'm not saying it does or doesn't but there is no reason it couldn't.

ACC and speed drop off depending on steering angle, having had the pleasure of a skid pan session a few years ago it was quite enlightening. Modern vehicles with any form of stability management system use a wide range of sensors - one of which is the steering angle sensor. In the skid pan car (Honda Civic) with full lock and the throttle floored the car would limit power to prevent a skid condition - basically ended up driving around in circles at about 15mph. I've felt similar from the MG when pulling away from a junction with a bit of urgency - it bogs down until the steering wheel is straightened up.
It seems the stability management system might be a bit aggressive, especially when in ACC mode, even on the motorway it was triming power back on gentle curves for me last week. I believe the jerkiness during power transition is down to the regen mode, level 3 is pretty aggressive.

On the ACC, have you tried it with adaptive regen?

 

[siteguru]

I have been toying with 'Adaptive' regeneration, right now it appears to give a bit more range over the journeys I have taken but the regenerative braking is less apparent than on '3' so I suspect a bit more wear on brake pads. Another plus is it provides a smoother drive with better free wheeling.

In my experience, as soon as you press the brake pedal (when using Adaptive) then the regen level increases to increase the "braking force" - I don't think the actual brakes are used unless the brake pedal is more-firmly pressed.

 

[Yandards]

On the ACC, have you tried it with adaptive regen?

I have and on twisty A roads it was much better.

But it kicks it out of eco mode to do that and unless I'm driving the car on some fun stuff I'd like to keep it in eco mode.

Cake and eat it I guess

 

[PristDean]

In my experience, as soon as you press the brake pedal (when using Adaptive) then the regen level increases to increase the "braking force" - I don't think the actual brakes are used unless the brake pedal is more-firmly pressed.

Ooo... i'll continue playing with it. But I have noticed I have had to apply the brakes when pulling up behind a car unless I give a good distance to roll up.

 

[CassHernandez]

I thought it could be useful to have a thread for software update news. I am collecting my car tomorrow and have a feeling that I will be back several times for software updates. Perhaps we can use this thread to keep each other informed when updates appear (I wouldn't rely on my dealer to be on the ball with this)

Yes please

 

[Rolfe]

You need to make your mind up, earlier on you had a pop about me not wanting to apportion any blame to MG and now I seem to despise MG dealers.

I don't despise anyone and have never singled an individual out at a dealership, I certainly wouldn't be throwing allegations about on here naming people and accusing them of stuff unless I had concrete evidence, I don't think random hearsay would constitute that, it is however true that I don't rate some of the service some members have received from certain dealers, and MG UKs customer service failings are well documented.

I certainly don't despise Miles and take my hat off to him that he takes time to come on here and update us about stuff, he is very knowledgeable.

Please don't try and imply otherwise

I'm sorry, everything I say seems to annoy you. This is not my intention. It was you yourself who said you were unhappy with MG dealer service, although you say Miles is different.

I have never interacted with him, and have only seen that quote where he is reported as saying the external temperature display on the SE was reporting random numbers, which it clearly isn't. And it's not that we've "seen the display in pictures", lots of us have it on our cars and know it's fine.

Perhaps I'll see a post of his on the forum some day.

 

[Emgie 4]

I can say with almost 100% certainty that most (if not all) complaints about connectivity and Bluetooth pairing are with Trophy models ... SE models seem to be rock solid in this respect.

Oops, just reread my comment and realised the mistake in my phrasing,
I meant to say I thought there was more SW issues raised on SE's overall v's Trophy ones, excluding the Bluetooth and connectivity problems, but also I was not aware the SE had no problems relating to them at all, some good news for SE owners I guess.