Thing is, I don't think the Japanese or Koreans cracked the UK market by offering cars where bits of trim broke. Basic cars, well designed and very reliable worked for them. Dacia aren't perfect, but you don't hear complaints of broken trim. MG need to up their game unless yours is not representative.
I concur Dacia trim is very robust ( having access toa 2014 Duster , 2013 Stepway and 68 reg Duster and now a 19 reg duster the trim is as many report in car reviews hard and compared to more expensive rivals less tactile but certainly robust. The mg is a similar beast size and cost wise and from the review above is doing well very minor niggles aside, compare this to cars 3 times the price that have far greater problems its refreshing that budget (New) motoring is a very viable option these days.
Look forward to the next review to see how the mg fairs.
Be good if there was a area made available on here for owners reviews to be stored for others to see as well as the main HJ section.
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Et Voila!
https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/owner-reviews/mg/zs-2017
I am not being all rosy eyed about it.. MG motors know about the review and know that it is as it is. The good bits are good and the niggles are just that, but because I like the car, and It is good value for money in this part of the market, I am writing my review and updating monthly and being honest about it..
The niggles are just that, niggles, but not annoying.
Dealer, Kerridges ( Needham Market) are good...
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Et Voila!
https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/owner-reviews/mg/zs-2017
I am not being all rosy eyed about it.. MG motors know about the review and know that it is as it is. The good bits are good and the niggles are just that, but because I like the car, and It is good value for money in this part of the market, I am writing my review and updating monthly and being honest about it..
The niggles are just that, niggles, but not annoying.
Dealer, Kerridges ( Needham Market) are good...
Exactly
Even £40k Land Rover Discovery's have niggles from new ( some so niggly you see them on back of recovery trucks rather frequently! Id rather pay less for niggles as every manufacturer seems to include them for free!! ;-)
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I'd rather pay less for niggles as every manufacturer seems to include them for free!! ;-)
Even the Kia Venga, with the 7 year warranty had some little ones. The one that made me change half way through the 7 year warranty was the second fuel system failure in a month..
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Thing is, I don't think the Japanese or Koreans cracked the UK market by offering cars where bits of trim broke. Basic cars, well designed and very reliable worked for them. Dacia aren't perfect, but you don't hear complaints of broken trim. MG need to up their game unless yours is not representative.
No, They just rusted away like everything else at that time........
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The Japanese came to my attention not through rust, because everything rotted to bits in those days, but because of the mechanical, component and electrical integrity, which was streets ahead of the typical european mass produced cars of the era, and apart from the odd glitch they in typical conservative Japanese fashion didn't fix what wasn't broken, and long may that continue to be the case.
I was a kerbside cowboy in those days, and all i ever needed to do with Japanese cars was service them, where when it came to British cars of the time, well put it this way i was on first name terms at the local Ford parts desk, yes Japanese cars generally were scrapped due to rust, but in many cases everything electrical and mechanical was still working well when it went to the scrappy.
British cars of RWD design with north south engines were generally easy to keep running if for no other reason than swapping engines and gearboxes was childs play, compared to the massive operation that equivalent jobs might be on almost all FWD designs.
Japanese cars have long been described as boring, and yes that understandable because total reliability could be boring when you were used to spending your weekends up to the armpits in grease fixing the latest failure on your european car of the period.
Remember when Rover group had that affair with Honda and the massive strides made towards quality, how different things might have turned out had greed not seen the sale of parts of the business to BMW.
I'm glad the car is doing what you ask of it ORB.
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Thing is, I don't think the Japanese or Koreans cracked the UK market by offering cars where bits of trim broke. Basic cars, well designed and very reliable worked for them. Dacia aren't perfect, but you don't hear complaints of broken trim. MG need to up their game unless yours is not representative.
Really? Do you remember the early Protons? The Hyundai Pony and Stellar? Some of the trim felt like the plastic trays you get in chocolate boxes and lasted accordingly. Mechanically they were better than the Fords, Vauxhalls and BLMC cars of the day, they rusted even faster though.
Dacia haven't had to start from scratch(y plastic), the plastics are effectively Renault - ie acceptable quality. It's easy to get the basics right when the parent company have spend billions in development investment over 50+ years.
Edited by SteveLee on 29/04/2019 at 21:55
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Thing is, I don't think the Japanese or Koreans cracked the UK market by offering cars where bits of trim broke. Basic cars, well designed and very reliable worked for them. Dacia aren't perfect, but you don't hear complaints of broken trim. MG need to up their game unless yours is not representative.
Really? Do you remember the early Protons? The Hyundai Pony and Stellar? Some of the trim felt like the plastic trays you get in chocolate boxes and lasted accordingly. Mechanically they were better than the Fords, Vauxhalls and BLMC cars of the day, they rusted even faster though.
But they didn't crack the market with those cars - they got people looking for cheap cars. Kia and Hyundai started getting good sales when they started to to introduce good quality cars that were built well and backed up with 5/7 year warranties. Proton never moved on and are no more in the UK market.
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Korean early days, i was highly impressed by the Kia Mentor, they were used on some rental fleets alongside Hyundai Lantras and a few Accents, ok they weren't the latest thing in style or flash interiors, but they proved completely reliable and in the case of Lantras especially grateful retirees along the south coast snapped them up like hot cakes when defleeted.
Hyundai Sonata another fine vehicle, running alongside Kia Magentis, i've long thought they both missed a market changing trick here, if they'd had the option of real squarish estate versions, when the market was moving to rounded rear fashion coupe style, but a shadow of previous models losing so much loading space (eg Pug 407, C5 2008 on, both poor replacements for previous model good family sized estates), they would have been class leading.
Kia changed everything when they released the Ceed, not only with the superb warranty...which detractors call out and some still do...but the overall build quality, particularly underneath was in a new league, underbody build well up with the better make's attention to detail, a pity that the subframes etc were not primed better as they can rust badly as the years go by though they are hardly alone in this, hopefully lesson learned, as our MPs have been saying for all of my life every time they repeat the same mistake :-)
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“Really? Do you remember the early Protons? The Hyundai Pony and Stellar? Some of the trim felt like the plastic trays you get in chocolate boxes and lasted accordingly. Mechanically they were better than the Fords, Vauxhalls and BLMC cars of the day, they rusted even faster though.”
Early Hyundai’s did rot, in fact it’s still the bane of later examples underneath but the early Protons were based on the old Mitsubishi Lancer that was by that stage quite a solid thing structurally and the Proton was built to similar standards. The later Persona was very good at resisting rot too. Quality plummeted afterward though.
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Clip holding string for parcel tray, replaced, not worth doing a warranty claim for £2.44...
Usb socket re-attached, about 30 minutes work, MG pay for the first time, but my excellent local dealer (Kerridges) reinforce the holding clip.
Drivers seat bolster clips re-attached.
Had to smile the other day, left home, fuel warning light came on just down the road, so filled her up a mile further on.. 48 litre tank,,,, took 45.5 litres to brim.
Oof!
Edited by oldroverboy. on 01/06/2019 at 11:29
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2.5 litres isn't much of a low fuel warning is it. A little over 20 miles.
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Hello ORB. Do you know if the MG is capable of towing? Engine size, power output and kerbside weight are all factors. Interested to know if they can tow a caravan of 1400kg or so.
Cheers Concrete
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Hello ORB. Do you know if the MG is capable of towing? Engine size, power output and kerbside weight are all factors. Interested to know if they can tow a caravan of 1400kg or so.
Cheers Concrete
Nope... 500 kilos, so no good to you.
Car itself doesn't weigh that much...
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I just came across HJ's own Mark Nichol reviewing the car (video on You Tube)...ouch!
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Probably peed off 'cos he didn't get a Ferrari or the new Defender to review!
We Know it is a budget First SUV try from SAIC, Hasn't he realised that?
As you can all read in HJ's Good and Bad for the car and my own personal review his doesn't come out of real world experiences. Looks more like he didn't want to like the car.
The equivalent Kia with the non dog 170hp petrol engine is £23,235, so for £9000 less at list price I can live with a few minor faults.
Am I satisfied with the car, YES!
Would I buy another, YES!
It drives fine for me, it'll pick up its heels and go if you push it a bit. I have also (on empty roundabouts accelerated firmly around them and it is as well behaved, if not better than the venga it replaced. I am also still getting a very acceptable 40-42 MPG out of it overall,
But, Hey HO! he won't get many stars for being all soppy and wide eyed about it.
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I suppose that the average car owner doesn't buy them to get turned on every time they drive it! Lots of people want decent, value A to B transport.
I also think that sooner or later, the high price of new cars will catch up with a lot of people, and value-for-money will come back into vogue. Whilst many of this car's rivals easily beat it on many fronts, like with the Dacia, they aren't what you'd call 'reasonably priced' any more, even so-called mid-range brands.
I think what will help attract and more importantly, keep custom, is for makes to design their cars so that they don't cost a small fortune to maintain/repair - most people don't mind changing their cars every few years if they don't cost the earth, but increasingly are keeping their existing mid 2000s - ealry 2010s cars longer because new ones are getting really expensive and the price of consumables and parts is also going up a lot.
Good for backstreet garages doing refurbing/cleaning parts and sellers of cleaning equipment and tools (for DIYers - even I'm attempting some work now to save money), not so good for the main dealers.
Maybe MG needs to follow the same route as Dacia and (when they were doing well) Proton by showing their good value over rivals. They rarely seem to advertise their products on TV or in newspapers. MGs are (for the moment anyway) no longer 'sporty' cars.
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The equivalent dacia is £500 dearer and has only a 3 year warranty, 5 years is a good bit extra. and is an updated older design.
MG 7 years.
But each to their own choice.
When my brother in law was importing Chinese cars into the middle east till 2011 he imported some starnge things, but they were rugged, basic and did the job for the locals who could not afford Japanese or western cars.
He said then that the Chinese will get their quality right and will aim for western makers and markets.
So far he has only been proved right
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I think that Mark's point was that the cheapest Dacia was £2k cheaper, though I suspect, as you say, it's likely because it's a stripped down version with a shorter warranty.
Still, both are certainly keenly priced compared to the competition. The big name manufacturers need to be worried, given a) this is exactly what the Japanese did from the 1970s and b) remember when most electronics were made in Western countries, then in Japan, now mostly in China.
Saying that, I wouldn't be at all surprsied if Indonesia started pushing into both these fields of business, given they now have a cost advantage over the Chinese.
In the meantime, enjoy your MG and the extra cash in your pocket. I've certainly enjoyed running my Mazda3 when I managed to get it new for nearly 30% off when the going was good back in the mid 2000s. That huge saving paid for three holidays and more!
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In the meantime, enjoy your MG and the extra cash in your pocket. I've certainly enjoyed running my Mazda3 when I managed to get it new for nearly 30% off when the going was good back in the mid 2000s. That huge saving paid for three holidays and more!
Since buying the ZS.. Hols r us...
you are right.
2 trips to Belgium earlier this year, later this month to Antwerp.. class reunion for swmbo... Toronto and NY end july Aug.. 2 weeks.. Brussels in sept to see the mannikin and the atomium (reward taking my sister for dog sitting blodwen while we are away. (eurostar £58 return)
When The Chinese make the quality push as they have done with Geely/Volvo and invest, I think we will all get a surprise.
Edited by oldroverboy. on 07/06/2019 at 18:32
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When The Chinese make the quality push as they have done with Geely/Volvo and invest, I think we will all get a surprise.
I don't often buy Autexpress, but i was reading one the other day in which the facelifted MG3 was tested against a Skoda Fabia (1.0 TSI 95bhp). While the Fabia did win the comparison, the main issue for the MG was its 1.5 n/a engine. On paper it had more power than the Skoda, but it was markedly slower and much less efficient, something like 15mpg down over the roadtest. Also not a very nice engine to use, with hesitancy and flat spots.
Thing was, they reckoned the quality of the MG's interior wasn't that bad, and it was pretty much the equal of the Fabia. And while the current Fabia, in terms of its platform, is a generation behind the Polo and Ibiza, it was still surprising that they placed the MG's infotainment system ahead.
But it seems something of an oversight that they chose to keep going with the 1.5 after the facelift, when a 1.0 turbo is available to them (as fitted to the auto versions of ORB's ZS). Going by what i read, this would have made the little MG much closer overall, even if the Fabia may still have just snatched victory through its better ride/handling and being more refined.
I must adimit, i do quite like the MG3 though...........!
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But it seems something of an oversight that they chose to keep going with the 1.5 after the facelift, when a 1.0 turbo is available to them (as fitted to the auto versions of ORB's ZS). Going by what i read, this would have made the little MG much closer overall, even if the Fabia may still have just snatched victory through its better ride/handling and being more refined.
I must admit, i do quite like the MG3 though...........!
I am surprised too, There is a 1.3 turbo in the pipeline, but not quite yet. A lot of cars have been affected by the most recent emissions regulations. Personally I'd go for a ZS with the 164HP 1.5 turbo... Think what it would do in an MG3... That'd be a nice warmish hatch.
Looking forward to driving the 220 hp 2 litre turbo in the HS, coming next january...
The interior looks really good.
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Is it quite fair to compare the MG with a Dacia? Is Dacia a manufacturer? Are they not more of an assembler with access to Renaults parts bin?
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Is it quite fair to compare the MG with a Dacia? Is Dacia a manufacturer? Are they not more of an assembler with access to Renaults parts bin?
Saic have access to GM parts bins too
Engine 1.o 3cyl 1.5 compact engine evolution of 1.4, drivetrain, gearbox as per equivalent GM cars wheels, (Mokka)
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“Saic have access to GM parts bins too
Engine 1.o 3cyl 1.5 compact engine evolution of 1.4, drivetrain, gearbox as per equivalent GM cars wheels, (Mokka)”
Proven technology and largely very robust especially in normally aspirated form. There’s little to fear here. The best way to enter a new market is to use a well tested and robust design. Hyundai and Proton did it with Mitsubishi engines and Kia with Mazda. All three built up a reputation for reliability and value then built on this, though sadly Proton fell by the way.
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