unreliability survey

[securespark]

One exclusion is the fitting of parts not approved by MG.

I wonder how far they would take this.

 

[Anon70]

Strange how one car magazine will tell you the MG4 is really unreliable, while another makes it their "Deal of the Day"

Car Deal of the Day: 429bhp MG4 XPower for less than £250 per month | Auto Express

Supercar performance for a supermini price; the MG4 XPower is our deal of the day for 8 October

newsletter.autoexpress.co.uk

 

[tsedge]

I haven't had to pay "big" money for anything, however.. I did have to pay £75 for a new footrest as it is considered part of the interior and therefore only covered for 12 months.

Equally, if I want my seat repaired or recovered, it will have to be at my own expense.

Also, after 3 months from new purchase, you may be charged a diagnostic fee of approx £100-120 for anything you ask your dealer to look at that MG does not consider a fault or covered by the warranty - MG will only pay for diagnosis free for the first 3 months, after that the dealer has to eat the cost or charge the customer.

Strange how one car magazine will tell you the MG4 is really unreliable, while another makes it their "Deal of the Day"

Car Deal of the Day: 429bhp MG4 XPower for less than £250 per month | Auto Express

Supercar performance for a supermini price; the MG4 XPower is our deal of the day for 8 October

newsletter.autoexpress.co.uk

Not strange, because it is:

• A fantastic drive and car generally
• Amazing value
• Not great for reliability and after sales

More than one thing can be true at the same time.

 

[Anon70]

Not strange, because it is:

• A fantastic drive and car generally
• Amazing value
• Not great for reliability and after sales

More than one thing can be true at the same time.

Schrödinger's XPower ?

 

[LenEV2016]

Be interesting to see if any of the forum members have been stung like this though. I've not seen anyone paying big money for repairs to the best of my knowledge.

Big money could be quite subjective £120 for a diagnostic check on a less than two year old car isn't the best.

12V batteries with only a years warranty, again isn't the best.

Seats as in @tsedge case is really poor, they aren't going to get better and wouldn't be cheap to replace, even buying seat covers to prevent further deterioration is an expense you wouldn't expect to fork out on a car just over a year old.

 

[smartn]

Big money could be quite subjective £120 for a diagnostic check on a less than two year old car isn't the best.

12v batteries with only a years warranty, again isn't the best.

Seats as in @tsedge case is really poor, they aren't going to get better and wouldn't be cheap to replace, even buying seat covers to prevent further deterioration is an expense you wouldn't expect to for out on a car just over a year old

I think on a 25K+ car you shouldn't be having to pay for any of these sort of things for at least a couple of years, however I would consider big money to be anything over a five hundred and in reality on a car these days big money is more likely to be in the thousands. I'm not defending MG in any way because I think the customer experience is terrible but I am yet to see any evidence of anyone paying 'big money' for anything.

 

[JonnyG]

.......... No MG4 is over 3 years old yet so all the big cost items should be covered.........

You'd have hoped so but MG UK seem to try everything to avoid expensive warranty issues? .... just look at the Xpower vibration issue which they have admitted to be a fault, but now MG UK will not fix it.

 

[smartn]

You'd have hoped so but MG UK seem to try everything to avoid expensive warranty issues? .... just look at the Xpower vibration issue which they have admitted to be a fault, but now MG UK will not fix it.

Again an example of how bad MG actually are, but has anyone actually paid for a resolution to this? As an MG owner I do get the feeling that you have to be prepared for a fight on anything that does go wrong.

 

[LenEV2016]

Again I believe it's subjective to an individual, you are paying over £20-£30k for a brand new car you really shouldn't be looking to pay for anything that needs replaced/has broken through normal usage in the first year or two.
And you shouldn't have to fight for anything

 

[tsedge]

I too haven't heard from anyone having to pay large sums of money for repairs - but if anyone has had that yet, please speak up here.

I want to reiterate that I still think buying an MG makes sense, because they make some great cars at great value, but I do want people to realise the downsides and be able to make an informed judgement on their purchase.

There's no free lunch and if you budget for some possible warranty exclusions / expected problems, possible difficulty with dealers, it is still a great proposition.

Remember overall satisfaction levels are high and many people here report no significant problems.

 

[smartn]

There's no free lunch and if you budget for some possible warranty exclusions / expected problems, possible difficulty with dealers, it is still a great proposition.

Agree with this. For us early adopters we didn't really know what the MG ownership experience was going to be like. If I'd known then what I know now I would probably have gone elsewhere, but not because it's not a good car.

It's been said many times across these forums, its a great car being let down by MG and the dealers (although there are some good dealers out there who really do try within the parameters MG UK allow.)

 

[Rolfe]

I took one look at the warranty period for the seats and bought seat covers when the car was only a month old.

 

[tsedge]

I took one look at the warranty period for the seats and bought seat covers when the car was only a month old.

I think that was very wise, although I suspect the SE seat material is also more robust.

 

[Tonych]

Being an ex mechanic with 50 yrs in the trade, MG was always a car you drove for fun, they were not known for their lack of problems ..... Being one of the BMC range, they had the reputation for having an external oil cooler, the oil cooled as it leaked out and was cooled by the time it covered the driveway
I did note in the survey, they listed what the problem areas were for each of the cars listed .... until it came to the MG4 ....... Let's face it, if the entertainment system has glitches ... hardly a life threatening or driveability issue, more of a first world problem, same as a lot of the issues.
The biggest issue seems to be the poor fault fixing by the dealerships .... probably down to poor technician (not mechanics any more) training and that all comes back to the central office for the country concerned ..... maybe complaints direct to the parent company might shake loose some of the apathy in the UK head office, or maybe once asked, they can point to the area up line that is giving them the bad name ....... or maybe someone can do a Gilbert and Sulivan performance based on the Pirates of Penzance to embarrass them into action

T1 Terry

So right Terry!

 

[Rolfe]

I think that was very wise, although I suspect the SE seat material is also more robust.

I think so too actually. But I still thought that protecting it was a good idea.

 

[Tonych]

This is an interesting further survey that seems to contradict the issues with EVs being scrapped for relatively minor damage. It seems that at all ages EVs are half as likely to be scrapped compared to ICE vehicles

MSN

 

[FrancisM]

Well, I bought my MG4 because of an offered discount when a rational voice in my head was telling me to wait a while and test drive a Citroen eC3 and Renault 5 E-Tech for comparison. Thing is, those two alternatives have yet to become available in the UK and buying them would be an unknown risk in terms of reliability. In hindsight, I should have considered a used reliable brand from a dealer with a good reputation. Anyhow, I'm happy overall with my MG now the undertray has been fixed.

 

[LenEV2016]

I don't see how anyone can disagree with the survey, of course not all cars are going to have issues but it is well documented on here and other social media platforms the common issues a lot of MG 4s have. Even the people on here trying to say they have no issues need to check some of their previous posts from a while back where they are mentioning the issues they have.
It doesn't matter if it is a small issue or a big one the fact is it's an issue and people are answering the survey as per that to do otherwise is just trying to hide the obvious

 

[smartn]

I don't see how anyone can disagree with the survey, of course not all cars are going to have issues but it is well documented on here and other social media platforms the common issues a lot of MG 4s have. Even the people on here trying to say they have no issues need to check some of their previous posts from a while back where they are mentioning the issues they have.
It doesn't matter if it is a small issue or a big one the fact is it's an issue and people are answering the survey as per that to do otherwise is just trying to hide the obvious

When I bought my MG4 almost two years ago I expected some software problems etc. What I did not expect was MG's reluctance to actually do anything about it (2 years to fix LKA and still no sign!).

Not a brand I intend to buy into again unless something changes.

 

[LenEV2016]

When I bought my MG4 almost two years ago I expected some software problems etc. What I did not expect was MG's reluctance to actually do anything about it (2 years to fix LKA and still no sign!).

Not a brand I intend to buy into again unless something changes.

Absolutely. You only have to look at some of the faults (and yes there will be some on a brand new car).

There are now legal cases against MG in more than one country for the X Power issue (characteristic).

LKA fixed on some not all.

Under tray, over 2 years now, starting to get fixed (characteristic).

Oil leak best part of a year.

CCU failure several months

Issues with paint (flaking and apparently pretty thin).

Aircon chirping, apparently normal no other car I've owned has made that noise (and I've had 3 EVs).

Software poor at best and future OTA not likely to happen.

As has been said, great car to drive, let down badly by after sales service and especially MG UK.