X Power not liked by James and Kate

[Mennox]

I've watched a lot of their videos and briefly met him at Fully Charged once, but yes it was a bit overly negative and some bits were not quite correct. The speed test said dry conditions and he said it was squirming, but the wipers were going and you could see the road had puddles?!? The beeping and LKA stuff was dramatic too. I've never had the beeping as I did my research and just decided to change the setting to Lane Departure (no emergency). Getting so bored of the LKA stuff, it takes 10 secs to set up the car each time, YES we shouldn't have to fudge about with it, but a lot of these features are doing a great job. I didn't have half of these in my previous Audi E-tron lease and that car retailed at £60k. I've now got ACC, blind spot mirror warnings, Rear Cross Traffic Alert, Rear Collision Warning, Door Open Warning and best of all a heated steering wheel. Gonna miss it in the summer!! Plus it goes twice as quick to 60mph and is more efficient.

I had nothing like this in any of my previous 13 ICE cars, well perhaps the heated seats in the Volvo S40, and parking sensors on my BMW E60...

...so all of this was just new to me and I love a lot of the features like OPD/Regen, 360 camera, blind spot, ACC etc....I can deal with the likes of LKA if need be

Also if he was bothered to find out a little about the stereo settings, the sound quality can be changed to an amazing quality, I feel it's better than my Harmon Kardon which I had in my BMW

I have seen numerous compliants around the sound system but like you say, once you turn on the 3D virtual surround sound, it makes a massive difference and is actually quite decent.

 

[shinyrobot]

I have seen numerous compliants around the sound system but like you say, once you turn on the 3D virtual surround sound, it makes a massive difference and is actually quite decent.

It's still absolutely terrible.
I plan to upgrade mine.

 

[seamust1000]

It's still absolutely terrible.
I plan to upgrade mine.

Have you tried these settings? If so there is some wrong with your speakers

 

[shinyrobot]

Have you tried these settings? If so there is some wrong with your speakers

Yup, I did attempt to polish the turd.

 

[seamust1000]

There must either be something wrong with your speakers or your ears...before you say it, there is nothing wrong with mine, the audio is fantastic

 

[craigupnorth]

I thought I would need to upgrade the stereo - the stereo in the xpower i test drove seemed terrible. But for some reason the stereo / speakers of my xpower seems pretty good out of the box, I’m not planning to upgrade now

 

[JustAnotherMidlifeCrisis]

Just watched the J&K video. James overstates his case. The stereo is fine. The tyres are fine. The rear end is fine. He says the vibration is horrendous and comes from the rear. No one else says that. Efficiency? News to me that it's bad for the car's segment and power output. And then he says he'd be fine with the other trims. I just binned the review.

 

[Torryhun]

"You can please some of the people all of the time, or all of the people some of the time, but you'll never please all of the people all of the time."

Well I won that bet no problem

 

[tsedge]

Really the only road tests I pay much attention to are long term tests when the reviewers run the car for long enough to figure out how it works and correct initial misconceptions and reactions.

 

[salty]

Really the only road tests I pay much attention to are long term tests when the reviewers run the car for long enough to figure out how it works and correct initial misconceptions and reactions.

Agreed, and of course actual owners of that particular motor.

 

[siteguru]

Really the only road tests I pay much attention to are long term tests when the reviewers run the car for long enough to figure out how it works and correct initial misconceptions and reactions.

Although I think the J&K review was after having it for a week. So surely long enough to get to understand the foibles. (Maybe they didn't drive it that much during the week).

 

[lsb777]

Just watched the J&K video. James overstates his case. The stereo is fine. The tyres are fine. The rear end is fine. He says the vibration is horrendous and comes from the rear. No one else says that. Efficiency? News to me that it's bad for the car's segment and power output. And then he says he'd be fine with the other trims. I just binned the review.

Definitely agree. I really like the car and no regrets leasing for 30 months, especially as only £21p/m more than the Trophy LR that I'd ordered. I researched the hell out of it before ordering and whilst waiting (which I wish more people took the time to do as dealers in general don't give enough info or can mislead people). I knew there were issues like LKA but also knew there were quick & safe workarounds. I've changed all the stereo settings and it's fine for me as I've never been an audiophile and the tyres seem decent enough as I'm not trying to be a rally driver or wanting to end up in a ditch. Efficiency is decent, people have moaned when I said about doing motorways in Eco mode but do some people really bomb about all day in Sport looking for chavs & boy racers to goad? If they do, great but that's exactly why I got black so I can blend in and know I have the power if I need it.

 

[Anon70]

Most annoying thing I see in all the MG4 reviews is...
You must use the touch screen to change the HVAC settings...
...unless they bother to RTFM then it changes to...
...Unless you set up the steering wheel options to do this

Err so you just set up the option MG give you so you don't have to use the touch screen for HVAC settings and don't complain about it or make it something negative in your review or in my eyes everything else you say about the car loses credibility

 

[tsedge]

Although I think the J&K review was after having it for a week. So surely long enough to get to understand the foibles. (Maybe they didn't drive it that much during the week).

A week isn't a long term test - needs to be 3-6 months for good reliable info.

 

[Bricktop X PWR]

Definitely agree. I really like the car and no regrets leasing for 30 months, especially as only £21p/m more than the Trophy LR that I'd ordered. I researched the hell out of it before ordering and whilst waiting (which I wish more people took the time to do as dealers in general don't give enough info or can mislead people). I knew there were issues like LKA but also knew there were quick & safe workarounds. I've changed all the stereo settings and it's fine for me as I've never been an audiophile and the tyres seem decent enough as I'm not trying to be a rally driver or wanting to end up in a ditch. Efficiency is decent, people have moaned when I said about doing motorways in Eco mode but do some people really bomb about all day in Sport looking for chavs & boy racers to goad? If they do, great but that's exactly why I got black so I can blend in and know I have the power if I need it.

Personally, I love bombing about ALL day in Sport, looking for chavs & boy racers to goad.

And I take it you have blacked out your caliper covers and changed your wheels ???

Because if you haven't, any clued up chav or boy racer will be onto you in a heartbeat.

But that won't matter as you have the power to kiss them all goodbye

 

[lsb777]

Personally, I love bombing about ALL day in Sport, looking for chavs & boy racers to goad.

And I take it you have blacked out your caliper covers and changed your wheels ???

Because if you haven't, any clued up chav or boy racer will be onto you in a heartbeat.

But that won't matter as you have the power to kiss them all goodbye

Haha good for you. It's a fun car to drive so go for it Mine is a salary sacrifice so I can't really change anything without the hassle of unpicking it all in a few years. In my experience most boy racers like the sound of their stupid over body-kitted cars so I doubt they've bothered to look at EVs apart from Teslas as a lot of ICE people assume that is the only competition benchmark. Enjoy, watch out for those speed cameras though!

Most annoying thing I see in all the MG4 reviews is...
You must use the touch screen to change the HVAC settings...
...unless they bother to RTFM then it changes to...
...Unless you set up the steering wheel options to do this

Err so you just set up the option MG give you so you don't have to use the touch screen for HVAC settings and don't complain about it or make it something negative in your review or in my eyes everything else you say about the car loses credibility

I use voice control a lot for this. Very simple "Hello MG...increase fan speed" etc

 

[siteguru]

A week isn't a long term test - needs to be 3-6 months for good reliable info.

But a week is still far more than most reviews are based on.

 

[JonnyG]

I'm with Mat Watson and what he said in his X-Power review on CarWow

Here's a few quotes that made me smile

".....fricken hell ... for like real world speed this thing just picks up like nothing else ..."

"....the amount of traction and thrust you get out of a corner is just unreal .... crazy, crazy car.."

"....for this money the performance is just absolutely unbelievable...."

".....that kind of instant acceleration can never get boring...."

"....so if you want the most performance for your money you should go right ahead and buy the MG4 X-Power"

and let's face it ... that's why people choose to buy the X-Power, not for the range or speakers etc. etc... but for all of the above

 

[Anon70]

OK just watched this all the way through

Interesting things said...

"It doesn't have the traction it needs to go with that amount of power"
I suspect most cars with over 400hp when you floor them in wet conditions will lose traction

"It's a bit boy racery"
"It's got it's orange callipers and it looks like a fast car" (looks like other MG4's apart from the callipers)

Every other review calls it a sleeper car and says MG have not made enough styling changes over the other MG4 models

"Torque vectoring is really good for efficiency"
Then tells us torque vectoring is decoupling the front and rear motors
"I don't think they are doing this here"
"They need to be doing this mainly for efficiency"

So if they had bothered to do any research they would know
XPower has active braking on the inside wheel (so a form of torque vectoring)
4 Wheel drive changes with mode selected and traction available (so it does change if front and rear motors are both working or not)

This was a poorly researched review with most comments about the whole MG4 range not specific to the XPower.

I notice they have bolted some extra comments on the end where they say the XPower is the best bang for the buck car performance wise you can buy. They also did not find the ex-demonstrator cars on AutoTrader selling for between £27,000 and £29,000 and at those prices you can't beat the value.

 

[tsedge]

But a week is still far more than most reviews are based on.

Still not long enough.