On the infotainment screen problem ... after 2478 miles and 11 weeks of ownership the screen went blank while driving today and the radio cut off. It rebooted after about a minute. Will be keeping an eye on this!

Only had the brake crunching a couple of times and each time it seems it was due to the rate of closure with the vehicle in front, and depends on speed. I have never been in a traffic jam yet so cant comment if it occurs for me in that situation.

On a side note, a couple of weeks ago I was driving about 20 mph round a sweeping one way street with parked cars on my immediate right. A young girl dashed out from between two parked cars and hesitated. The MG came smoothly and quickly to a stop with the ABS brake sound before I could move my foot from the accelerator to the brake! So the pedestrian/cyclist emergency braking worked for me (and for the girl luckily!). It appears to react depending on the rate of movement of the pedestrian towards the front area of the car as well as the speed of the car.

The ABS sound occurs before braking occurs. Braking is not always applied depending on the car/pedestrian/cyclist collision risk.

 

Brilliant.

 

Just for info. Wife got in today from work and said her screen went blank on way home and radio stopped. Got home rebooted and worked fine again, first time it's happened, just shows dosnt matter how long you've had the car it's no guarantee it's ok as I thought ours was.

 

I'll bring up this thread again as I'm having fun and game trying to update the maps, i've downloaded a finger print and a new map update from naviextras, however i'm getting the head unit reboting itself at verying points in the update process for the maps, so I'm wondering if the cause of the issue in all cases is when data is being transfered between the headunit and USB?

 

The “Black Screen Of Death” appears at random times regardless of a USB being inserted.
It alternates between getting the black screen with the radio still playing or black screen with no music.
Then on one occasion it completely fell on its arse and rebooted the whole head unit.
Rebooting the car will restore the info unit to normal.
It has happened in one format or another about 4 time’s now in around 8 months in my car.
Once it happened while using the sat Nav to guide us home.
The instructions could still be heard, but the screen went completely black.
Not good when you are relying on the sat nav to direct you !.

 

Yeah, after 4 failed attempts I knocked it on the head (as I use CarPlay and my wife AA, I don't expect to need the integrated maps) I'll keep an eye out for it happening when out and about.

 

Strangely my brand new (Dec 2020) MG HS PHEV Exclusive has very similar faults .

In fact have just picked up the car from MG Bushey to rectify the following problems who claimed to have fixed it and it is now worse than ever.

I have identified two levels of system crash:

1. A blank screen with data panel remaining along the top of the display and when navigation is selected on reboot it requires to be "reloaded" and the disclaimer "accepted".

2. System crash where the MG logo eventually reappears and the display is totally blank without the data panel at the top and then on reboot the selection of maps enquires the EULA to be accepted during the reload of navigation then the disclaimer to be accepted before navigation can be used. during this second level reboot the audio is completely dead for all functions including indicators.

Occasionally on start up the navigation system thinks I am on the left bank of River Seine in Paris near to Les Beaux Arts then corrects itself. It repeatedly does this but at random and always with the same misplaced location in Paris.

What truly astounds me is that MG dealer and service centre near Watford told me they had "driven the car to..... and taken it for a run" how nothing can be found at fault astounds me.

There is also the issue of the heater does not sense when the car has reached the selected temperature and keeps blowing out hot air - MG service centre said "I should just turn down the temperature" - that is not how climate control is supposed to work.....

I have to say this is a safety issue and a danger as a full level reboot whilst driving is distracting and at most dangerous because indicators may fail conversations drop screen blanks when manoeuvring in reverse .

I have a suspicion given that I have this in an HS and also the ZS is widely reported as having similar faults as well as, it seems, the MG6 that the software has bugs in it that either are untraced or cannot be fixed and MG are happy rolling out cars with faulty software.

The dealer that sold the car in Birmingham technical department said "it is the phone and some phones are not compatible with he MG system .... I should disconnect the phone". Really? Really? REALLY?

I have refrained farm naming the dealers that have been unable to fix the car - but may not be so kind next report. Incidentally was told software had been updated and connections checked the faults persist nonetheless.

Suggestions please?

 

Strangely my brand new (Dec 2020) MG HS PHEV Exclusive has very similar faults .

In fact have just picked up the car from MG Bushey to rectify the following problems who claimed to have fixed it and it is now worse than ever.

I have identified two levels of system crash:

1. A blank screen with data panel remaining along the top of the display and when navigation is selected on reboot it requires to be "reloaded" and the disclaimer "accepted".

2. System crash where the MG logo eventually reappears and the display is totally blank without the data panel at the top and then on reboot the selection of maps enquires the EULA to be accepted during the reload of navigation then the disclaimer to be accepted before navigation can be used. during this second level reboot the audio is completely dead for all functions including indicators.

Occasionally on start up the navigation system thinks I am on the left bank of River Seine in Paris near to Les Beaux Arts then corrects itself. It repeatedly does this but at random and always with the same misplaced location in Paris.

What truly astounds me is that MG dealer and service centre near Watford told me they had "driven the car to..... and taken it for a run" how nothing can be found at fault astounds me.

There is also the issue of the heater does not sense when the car has reached the selected temperature and keeps blowing out hot air - MG service centre said "I should just turn down the temperature" - that is not how climate control is supposed to work.....

I have to say this is a safety issue and a danger as a full level reboot whilst driving is distracting and at most dangerous because indicators may fail conversations drop screen blanks when manoeuvring in reverse .

I have a suspicion given that I have this in an HS and also the ZS is widely reported as having similar faults as well as, it seems, the MG6 that the software has bugs in it that either are untraced or cannot be fixed and MG are happy rolling out cars with faulty software.

The dealer that sold the car in Birmingham technical department said "it is the phone and some phones are not compatible with he MG system .... I should disconnect the phone". Really? Really? REALLY?

I have refrained farm naming the dealers that have been unable to fix the car - but may not be so kind next report. Incidentally was told software had been updated and connections checked the faults persist nonetheless.

Suggestions please?

Hi - Regarding the info unit blanking out.
I think I was one of the first people to post on this subject.
You are totally correct, it does appear to be a common issue.
Only last night I was reading on another forum, that other ZS EV owners are witnessing the same black out issue.
The frequency of these "Black Out's" do seem to vary a bit though.
Some people report one or two failures, others with many more.
Other people maybe getting them, but not reporting on them ?.
At the risk of repeating myself ( sorry ) this is the history of now my car has acted.
Collected the car on 6th Jan 20 and then out of the blue, a few weeks later I noticed that the info screen had just gone completely black.
The music was still playing, but the screen just blanked out.
After about 2 minutes, the coloured screen just reappeared and that was that.
I am unsure how many times this has happened over the last 12 months, but I would say about ........... 8 ( ish ) times ?.
It is really an odd one alright, the screen always blanks out first.
Sometimes it takes out the sound from the radio channel as well, but then returns. On about two occasions, it has completely failed and then it will reboot to the MG logo on the screen.
Last summer we where travelling back from visit to family and where using the built in Sat Nav for our return trip.
All was well until about 50 miles from home, when the head unit did the "Black Screen Of Death" thing.
Therefore, we had no visual map to follow, but the voice of the Sat Nav was still guiding us !.
When we arrived home, I powered down the car and waited a few minutes.
Then booted up again and the head unit restored itself back to normal.
I did mention this behaviour to my local dealer the other day, he said it sounds like a 12 volt battery problem.
I can't buy in to that theory to be honest, if it was a 12 volt problem you would see other evidence of the car displaying issues I think.
The load pulled by the head unit is low, when you compare it to the demand required to satisfy the other 12v components in the car.
Head lights / Wipers / heater blower motor / HRW etc.
Regarding the heater controls :-
Is it a basic manual controlled heater system ( like the ZS EV ) or is it a climate controlled system now on the new HS PHEV.
Probably the later of the two.
I only ask, because my previous VW PHEV had a full Climate Control and it did have a rather odd party trick.
Even if you had the Climate Control turned completely OFF - It would still continue to push hot air through the side vents into the cabin.
Other owners discovered the same issue.
This could be rectified by briefly firing up the HVAC - Then with the temperature control knob, crank the heat setting right down to LOW.
The HVAC could then be switched off again.
The system had a strange way of remembering the last setting of the temperature control and responded in the same manner, even if it was turned off.
It would allow heat to free flow through the heater that being fed with hot water from the cooling system of the ICE.
So in affect, you could be travelling along on a summers day and hot air was being pumped into the cabin via the fresh air vent, with the heater turned completely OFF.
As you thought !.
I have no idea if the HS has a remotely similar set up of course, but worth a quick check anyway.

 

Mine did it yesterday - rebooted itself and the radio came back on. Was just as "Thought for the day" was starting in R4 so no great loss.

Don't really remember it doing it before (maybe last spring). Expect it's software related rather than hardware/12V.

 

Maybe we should consider getting”Rent-O-Kill” to kill off all the “Bug’s” in our car’s”.
I agree, I think they are software rather than hardware related issues.
The info screen crashing is not something that changes my feelings towards the rest of the car, just an annoyance really.
The software “Bug’s” that affects the HV battery / range of the car IS a major issue though, because it affects the reliability and expected usage of the car.
We are not on our own here folks, VW are having a really hard time sorting out the software problems on the new ID3 at the moment.
Strangely though, their software engineers where able to produce software that could fool the emission test at the time of the MOT that went unnoticed for a good while, but can’t sort the problems on the ID3 ?.
We are driving mobile computers now, not cars really.
We all have experience of what the effects are when having a virus / software problems on home computers can be !.
These software issues have manifested themselves into our mode of transportation now unfortunately.
Software has a massive control over all aspects of our day to day lives now.
Brilliant while it is working correctly, but a pain in the bum when it is not !.
Such is life folks.

 

I have had my ZS EV a year now and the first Service next week. In the early days, I have frequent Black screen followed by full system reboot sometimes Nav would resume more often not. Several software checks and minor updates and things seemed better through the summer other than the HVAC flat which killed it as soon as fan speed turned up above 2 if AC running. Turned out to be a faulty Fan controller - so a hardware fault that time.
I have had several HV Battery disconnects relating in Rapid Charge early disconnections difficult to know which causes which but until the error is cleared it can't be driven.
Nav locked up after disconnection from Polar Rapid charger and rebooting the car made no difference and a frozen map is all that would come upon the Head Unit. Journey completed with my phone on Google Maps proper behind the steering wheel.
Several times I've had a Black Screen of death with only the status bar showing after reversing off the drive and then engaging "D". It seems as if the reversing camera is shut down but so the screen goes blank but Head Unit doesn't switch back to the home screen or Nav or even CarPlay etc. Dealer diagnostics suggest that there may be a hardware fault in one of the Head Unit models as MG Motors has had some issues and it is known about. The dealer will be swapping out the module next time it happens, but then it might be another software manifestation of a bug and I'm going for the Comfort 2 upgrade with the Service next week so it might just get cleared up with that.
I've also had dismal success with getting my Huawei phone to connect. I can receive calls and I can manually dial out calls from the Head Unit but it will not download phonebook contacts or past call history although calls received while in the car do register as call history but only until the end of the journey. Android Auto connects once in every several hundered trips so I have learned to appreciate that tbh the inbuilt Nav is pretty good really other than the very v e r y laggy screen responses. I believe Nav screen touch response is greatly improved with Comfort 2 - I so hope so!

 

I'm going for the Comfort 2 upgrade with the Service next week so it might just get cleared up with that.

The "Comfort 2" update makes car a much better animal to live with.
Charging for this upgraded is a very contentious issue and has been done to death.
You will automatically get the new BMS update as well then Barry ?.
Unless they have now stripped away the OLD BMS update from it and now returned it to the Pre Oct 23rd 2020 status.
My guess is they will bolt the new BMS update ( released 15th Jan 2021 ) onto the original "Comfort 2" update.
I am assuming of course, that you did not have the previous "Buggy" BMS updates installed ?.
Your post does not suggest this.

 

MG is not the only EV plagued by Head Unit lock-ups of course. I watched a review of the mighty VW ID£ EV during the week from Harry's Garage and the Nav screen completely locked up and froze the Head Unit and he couldn't get back to Nav check it out

 

Tesla and VW need to do a deal.
Tesla needs to show VW how to do the software, and VW need to show Tesla how to improve their build quality.
An ID3 with Tesla software will be pretty much a No1 best seller for a new EV hatchback.
Not going to happen of course, because sharing best practice never works in the car industry.
Two words quickly spring's to mind here:-
"CARDS" and "CHEST" .

 

In the first couple of months of buying an MG ZS EV Excite I had the head unit spontaneously go blank and reboot a couple of times. I also had some lines across the screen requiring a manual reboot using the infotainment button. I swapped out cables to a very high quality USM cable to connect the iPhone. No problems since in the last 12 months.

Shortly after changing the USB cable I bought two de-humidifier bags from Halfords, and have now another two, one under each front seat. I always run the air conditioner especially in humid and cold conditions. Perhaps a damp cabin may affect the infotainment unit?

 

Hi guys I got same issue as you described on mg zs i reported many times to dealer but they didn’t done anything i think report to DVSA because they do investigations and force them to sort issues

 

That is disappointing. I have found the dealers in the Southampton area to be good and helpful. It sounds as though you need a software refresh. This is often done at a main service as a matter of course. You could try disconnecting the 12 V battery. Undo the lead from the black side of the 12 v battery and leave it off for 10 minutes. this will reboot the software when reconnected..