New MG ZS EV Trophy...it's bad

I'm not really that surprised. The consumption I knew about but everyone gets different mileage so I was optimistic that I might get okish numbers, but it's actually panning out to be a fair amount worse than official numbers.
The ZS's urban/city range is way overstated IMO, the real world urban range is nearer the WLTP combined range figure.
 
I too can compare the ZS to the 28kWh Ioniq, which was an "air knife" when it came to aerodynamics. Unfortunately, the range wasn't enough for my needs, and I bought it as a stop gap until the 64kWh Kona arrived in the UK. The Kona was a surprisingly efficient SUV and I regularly got over 300 miles of real world range.

The Kona did have some design flaws though and needed a new reduction gear after 12 months, and had started to wear again when I part exchanged it.

The ZS is roomier in the back and has a larger boot.
I love the sky roof and have had it open a lot during the mild autumn.

The suspension isn't has hard as the Kona and I find the handling is much the same.

As with any change of brand, the infotainment screen is . . . different. You just have to find your way around it and get used to it.

The regen in the ZS isn't as good as in the Kona, and I do miss the paddles to knock it up or down. However, the ZS does let you adjust KERS whether the ACC/Pilot is on or off, and you can set the speed while the car is stopped.

The iSmart app is not that bad, about the same as the Hyundai Bluelink app as far as I'm concerned.

Overall, very pleased with the car. :)

Oh, and P.S, far less phantom braking from MG Pilot than in the Kona.
 
I too can compare the ZS to the 28kWh Ioniq, which was an "air knife" when it came to aerodynamics. Unfortunately, the range wasn't enough for my needs, and I bought it as a stop gap until the 64kWh Kona arrived in the UK. The Kona was a surprisingly efficient SUV and I regularly got over 300 miles of real world range.

The Kona did have some design flaws though and needed a new reduction gear after 12 months, and had started to wear again when I part exchanged it.

The ZS is roomier in the back and has a larger boot.
I love the sky roof and have had it open a lot during the mild autumn.

The suspension isn't has hard as the Kona and I find the handling is much the same.

As with any change of brand, the infotainment screen is . . . different. You just have to find your way around it and get used to it.

The regen in the ZS isn't as good as in the Kona, and I do miss the paddles to knock it up or down. However, the ZS does let you adjust KERS whether the ACC/Pilot is on or off, and you can set the speed while the car is stopped.

The iSmart app is not that bad, about the same as the Hyundai Bluelink app as far as I'm concerned.

Overall, very pleased with the car. :)

Oh, and P.S, far less phantom braking from MG Pilot than in the Kona.
I'd disagree with 'its just different' assesment on the Infotainment. It needs a lot of work.

Both Hyundai and the VW I had before that did a much better job with the UI.

There are some really poor choices in the UI which obscure options and make it difficult to get to things. I think the black/grey look and feel is also a poor choice, it might work well for a tablet but it isn't inside a car.

The position of the screen isn't optimal either. Lots of people hate the higher up screen-tacked-on-a-dashboard look of something like the 38kwh Ioniq but it just works really well - it's the line of sight positioning that's needed.
 
I have driven 3 ZS EVs now - a test drive, a hire car (4 months) and our new ZS (2 weeks)

Each time we’ve had a better experience.

The first test drive SE (SR maybe?) was a little hairy/skippy around corners but otherwise ok.

The hire car, a new SE LR, felt a lot more planted but rather bouncy and clunky braking and in changing to reverse.

Our new ZS LR Trophy seems more refined in many ways - even my other half noticed! Less bouncy and the dampers seem to do a better job. The steering seems slightly lighter. The infotainment is noticeably more responsive, what took many taps before now works on a single tap and faster. The front and rear cameras seem improved and smoother image - with visibility of the number plates now. The braking seems smoother rather than bitey but that could just be a bedding in process.
We do have a rattle behind the front vents when heating that we need to explore and maybe some wind noise but nothing urgent to worry about.
I’m not a fan of the driving dial and have managed to engage reverse instead of drive on a steep slope and nearly put it in a hedge… but that’s pilot error.

The heater fogging up the screen is a little annoying but I’m guessing that’s because they don’t use the air con compressor alongside the PTC heater since it reduces the temperature.
So far we are quite happy with the car, the dealer experience not so much like @DrJohnny Fever
 
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Hairy, skippy and bouncy ride just suggests different tyre pressures, temperatures or makes to me. The suspension is the same on all three and there's only a 50kg difference in weight between the SE SR (1570kg) and the Trophy LR (1620kg), about the same as one small extra passenger.
 
Hairy, skippy and bouncy ride just suggests different tyre pressures, temperatures or makes to me. The suspension is the same on all three and there's only a 50kg difference in weight between the SE SR (1570kg) and the Trophy LR (1620kg), about the same as one small extra passenger.
I’m not sure if there are variances in multiple suppliers or component updates over time.
The springs do seem stiffer and the damping softer which is quite welcome - maybe it’ll loosen up over time.
 
I have driven 3 ZS EVs now - a test drive, a hire car (4 months) and our new ZS (2 weeks)

Each time we’ve had a better experience.

The first test drive SE (SR maybe?) was a little hairy/skippy around corners but otherwise ok.

The hire car, a new SE LR, felt a lot more planted but rather bouncy and clunky braking and in changing to reverse.

Our new ZS LR Trophy seems more refined in many ways - even my other half noticed! Less bouncy and the dampers seem to do a better job. The steering seems slightly lighter. The infotainment is noticeably more responsive, what took many taps before now works on a single tap and faster. The front and rear cameras seem improved and smoother image - with visibility of the number plates now. The braking seems smoother rather than bitey but that could just be a bedding in process.
We do have a rattle behind the front vents when heating that we need to explore and maybe some wind noise but nothing urgent to worry about.
I’m not a fan of the driving dial and have managed to engage reverse instead of drive on a steep slope and nearly put it in a hedge… but that’s pilot error.

The heater fogging up the screen is a little annoying but I’m guessing that’s because they don’t use the air con compressor alongside that since it reduces the temperature.
So far we are quite happy with the car, the dealer experience not so much like @DrJohnny Fever

After some.more driving I've decided I'm not a fan of the ride quality. It's okish, it just seems to have a sort of unsettled quality to it. One of another drawbacks of the jacked up suspension on these cross over style vehicles.

Hoping that the trend gradually goes back to lower cars.
 
I too can compare the ZS to the 28kWh Ioniq, which was an "air knife" when it came to aerodynamics. Unfortunately, the range wasn't enough for my needs, and I bought it as a stop gap until the 64kWh Kona arrived in the UK. The Kona was a surprisingly efficient SUV and I regularly got over 300 miles of real world range.

The Kona did have some design flaws though and needed a new reduction gear after 12 months, and had started to wear again when I part exchanged it.

Sorry for the hijack - what were the symptoms of that please? Has the ZS shown similar? I'm sure mines getting whinier....🤔
 
Interested post..was looking for something along the lines of a “what I like and dislike about the ZS” but came across this..

( I’ve had the car since Friday 18/11/22)

what I dislike about the car..

That black line below the face, makes it look like a stupid ugly face..
could do with more poky holes for change, bits and bobs, I have to put change in the door handle..not great.
maybe it’s just me, but I don’t seem to be able to get the car warm? have to put the seats on..
again maybe just me, but it seems to fog up a lot?..I have the front and back window on and off all the time..
am starting to have problems with the radio playing music off my phone..
not too keen on the drive knob, had a Mercedes and it was on the side of the steering wheel (miss that)
the lane keep..so that’s gone off..
why hasn’t it got a frunk?
why it hasn’t got anywhere to put sunglasses..
no electric boot operation..
I wonder how good the seats will feel in time..

guess there’s nothing too bad really..

what I like about the car..

well I guess like most..the sun roof..
the price of it, for what you get on it..
the boot..(not as big as the Mercedes, but that was an estate)
not having to pay for Dino juice or road tax at the minute.
sitting a bit higher and seeing over the top of other cars..
I like the way the brake hold, just comes on..(had to press the foot brake on the Merc)
like the lights, they do seem very bright..
and maybe unlike most, I like the way it just doesn’t come to a stop (one foot driving) as I leave it in regen 3 and roll up to the car in front..
plug on the window for a dash cam.

and right down here I’ll put worse thing I hate…the time it’s taken to get the car, plus the MG dealership I’ve had to deal with…

look forward to others post on the subject..
The front screen does fog up an awful lot. So did the petrol ZS though.
 
Thought I'd add my so-far brief experience with the ZS here, rather than create a new thread.

I got mine (Long Range Trophy) a few days ago and haven't yet done any long journeys, only a few local runs - max 10 miles.

So far I have had similar experience to many here I think.

In general, I would also describe the car as OK, but a little disappointing in some aspects.

I have been driving a Hyundai Kona 64kwh Ultimate up until now and had a test drive of the ZS a couple of months ago.

So far, the ZS is very nice to drive. Compared to the Kona, I feel nice and high on the road. The handling is good and it is very comfortable. Acceleration is almost as quick as the Kona. The interior looks good and is very spacious (one of the reasons for switching was that the Kona is too small for my needs).

The issues I have are lots of small niggles, which on their own probably wouldn't matter but there are quite a few of them and some have been discussed here already.
  • The sat nav doesn't work. It gets the initial location, then just sits there. I see others suggesting to change a setting called "dead reckoning", however this makes no difference. It's going to MG to get that looked at
  • The USB music has no option to sort by track number, playlist, album etc. It's just a long list of tracks sorted by ID3 title.
  • No album art appears for tracks on USB or Bluetooth. Not a big problem but why have the square for it?
  • When starting the car, it seems to pick a random source for music. Sometimes USB1, sometimes USB2 (even though nothing plugged in to that), sometimes Bluetooth.
  • I don't even see the option for Amazon Music, which is supposed to be present on the current Trophy model, since the Connect version was retired.
  • The dash display randomly changes to the Pilot screen.
  • The drive mode and cruise control distance resets every time I start the car.
  • When using cruise control, even on a straight road, it will seemingly randomly adjust the steering. Is that just to keep me awake?!
  • Also in cruise control, it really slows down round corners even when already going slow.
  • The brightness of the centre screen is too dim during the day and too bright in the dark. No way to easily adjust it.
  • The headlights do not automatically switch off when turning the car off, instead it beeps like cars used to 20 years ago. I want my headlights on all the time when I am driving, not just when the car thinks it is dark enough.
  • KERS could be stronger and also really should work when using cruise control. When I did the test-drive, it did feel similar to the Kona but now it is nowhere close. I don't know if this is a configuration issue.
  • The cup holder is in an odd position - if I have a cup in it, every time I go to use the indicator or cruise control stick, I bash the cup with my elbow.
  • No way (as far as I can tell) to import places into the sat nav (e.g. from a kml file)
As I said, any one of these on their own wouldn't be a problem - no car is perfect after all - but there are just so many little niggles. I didn't pick up on these in the test drive because most of the software related ones I honestly didn't and wouldn't think to check. I generally expect software to work to a certain level but such basic things as an mp3 player having standard features that have been around for years - especially on an Android-based system - I wouldn't even ask about it. Also, in a 15 minute test-drive, you don't generally pick up on the little things anyway.

I'd be interested to know if anyone has suggestions for these niggles - it may well be there are solutions or workarounds.

Thanks
 
Thought I'd add my so-far brief experience with the ZS here, rather than create a new thread.

I got mine (Long Range Trophy) a few days ago and haven't yet done any long journeys, only a few local runs - max 10 miles.

So far I have had similar experience to many here I think.

In general, I would also describe the car as OK, but a little disappointing in some aspects.

I have been driving a Hyundai Kona 64kwh Ultimate up until now and had a test drive of the ZS a couple of months ago.

So far, the ZS is very nice to drive. Compared to the Kona, I feel nice and high on the road. The handling is good and it is very comfortable. Acceleration is almost as quick as the Kona. The interior looks good and is very spacious (one of the reasons for switching was that the Kona is too small for my needs).

The issues I have are lots of small niggles, which on their own probably wouldn't matter but there are quite a few of them and some have been discussed here already.
  • The sat nav doesn't work. It gets the initial location, then just sits there. I see others suggesting to change a setting called "dead reckoning", however this makes no difference. It's going to MG to get that looked at
  • The USB music has no option to sort by track number, playlist, album etc. It's just a long list of tracks sorted by ID3 title.
  • No album art appears for tracks on USB or Bluetooth. Not a big problem but why have the square for it?
  • When starting the car, it seems to pick a random source for music. Sometimes USB1, sometimes USB2 (even though nothing plugged in to that), sometimes Bluetooth.
  • I don't even see the option for Amazon Music, which is supposed to be present on the current Trophy model, since the Connect version was retired.
  • The dash display randomly changes to the Pilot screen.
  • The drive mode and cruise control distance resets every time I start the car.
  • When using cruise control, even on a straight road, it will seemingly randomly adjust the steering. Is that just to keep me awake?!
  • Also in cruise control, it really slows down round corners even when already going slow.
  • The brightness of the centre screen is too dim during the day and too bright in the dark. No way to easily adjust it.
  • The headlights do not automatically switch off when turning the car off, instead it beeps like cars used to 20 years ago. I want my headlights on all the time when I am driving, not just when the car thinks it is dark enough.
  • KERS could be stronger and also really should work when using cruise control. When I did the test-drive, it did feel similar to the Kona but now it is nowhere close. I don't know if this is a configuration issue.
  • The cup holder is in an odd position - if I have a cup in it, every time I go to use the indicator or cruise control stick, I bash the cup with my elbow.
  • No way (as far as I can tell) to import places into the sat nav (e.g. from a kml file)
As I said, any one of these on their own wouldn't be a problem - no car is perfect after all - but there are just so many little niggles. I didn't pick up on these in the test drive because most of the software related ones I honestly didn't and wouldn't think to check. I generally expect software to work to a certain level but such basic things as an mp3 player having standard features that have been around for years - especially on an Android-based system - I wouldn't even ask about it. Also, in a 15 minute test-drive, you don't generally pick up on the little things anyway.

I'd be interested to know if anyone has suggestions for these niggles - it may well be there are solutions or workarounds.

Thanks
Yes I'd agree with a lot of that. The Nav I just ignore completely, it's just bad.

After another week of my car my top hates are:

Brightness all over the place on the Infotainment

No instant / realtime consumption indicator

Consumption getting very bad now temps have dropped now a good 30% less range than my Ioniq in winter despite a battery that's 50% bigger. Estimated at 142 miles this morning at 100% charge. On a 51kwh battery, even with a larger frontal area than an Ioniq, I'm sorry but that's awful given the last journeys have been 50mph gentle a-road driving.

Mess of a layout in the instrument binnacle.

Lane assist that basically wants you dead. I am seriously considering reporting it to VOSA.
 
Regarding Kers, 2 things I noticed. 1. If battery charged above 95% Kersey won't kick in. 2. I've noticed that sometimes KERS is on a weaker setting, so I know rotate up and down and that seems to resolve it not sure if speed if a factor too.

As for amazon does your Trophy have sunroof, if so this won't have it as its not newer Trophy model.
 
It does indeed have a sunroof. So despite it being a 72 reg, and being told it was the latest model - it's not actually so.
As all the facelift orders from last year and early this year haven't been delivered yet, I doubt any of the combined Trophy without sunroof will arrive until the end of next year.
 
As all the facelift orders from last year and early this year haven't been delivered yet, I doubt any of the combined Trophy without sunroof will arrive until the end of next year.
OK - well that's more the fault of the company I leased it from as they didn't specify that it isn't the version advertised on the MG website. I guess that means I won't get the traffic updates either. One of the main reasons I went for the Trophy was for the Traffic updates.
I know I can use Android Auto and Google Maps, but as it also seems you can't use AA via Bluetooth that means plugging the phone in each time. Yet another niggle. (Maybe that changes in the new version).
Perhaps I should swap to something else and wait for the new model to actually become available.
 
As all the facelift orders from last year and early this year haven't been delivered yet, I doubt any of the combined Trophy without sunroof will arrive until the end of next year.
I believe the Sky roof was dropped for NEW ordered made in either June / July 2022 ( can’t be 100% sure of the actual cut off date ).
As orders are so late coming through I agree, I think it will be mid 2023 before we see any coming through less the Sky roof.
Firstly, hen did the lease company place the order with the MG dealer and when did the dealer place the order for the car.
That should give you a good indication if the car will come through with a sky roof or not.
 
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What I dislike about our ZS:
  • MG Dealers,
  • MG France,
  • MG Europe and
  • the fact that after waiting 6 months for the steering to be 'repaired' (new column), it's now 5 times worse than it was before and MG have washed their hands of it saying 'it's supposed to be like that' (with the steering wheel vibrating wildly and metallic thuds from the column and suspension whenever the car goes over even the smallest bump)
 
I would like another level in the software hierarchy that enables you to save current profile. This would save all the current settings as a named profile (for up to 5 named options).
This should be a fairly easy addition to the software, it just takes someone with common sense to give the software people a good kicking.
Oh, and they should employ someone from Yorkshire to sense check the software before release. :unsure:
 
What I dislike about our ZS:
  • MG Dealers,
  • MG France,
  • MG Europe and
  • the fact that after waiting 6 months for the steering to be 'repaired' (new column), it's now 5 times worse than it was before and MG have washed their hands of it saying 'it's supposed to be like that' (with the steering wheel vibrating wildly and metallic thuds from the column and suspension whenever the car goes over even the smallest bump)
Take it to the nearest contrôle technique centre for a safety check. If it fails then MG should be in trouble.
 
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