Hello all. Just getting opinions on what approach I should consider next with some unfortunate problems with my EV. It’s actually been quite strange from the moment I bought it.
I ordered a red one from a dealer in Shropshire near the end of 2019, when they were first starting to be delivered. In March 2020, I had a call saying that the red ones were taking a while to get built, but they had a blue one ready to go if I wanted to switch. I feel now I should have waited, but accepted it anyway.
The first problem was that the car didn’t talk to my new Zappi 2 charger. It would either charge the moment I plugged it in, or if I set the charger to only charge during off-peak hours, the car would go to sleep and not wake up when the charger tried talking to it. This was a known problem with the MG, and there was a software update to fix it. However, it took at least two, maybe three visits back before the technician managed to successfully install that update. There were a few updates to install, and I gather one or more would regularly fail mid-install.
In the first summer, I took a six-day road trip from Shropshire to the northern tip of mainland-Orkney, and apart from finding that the car didn’t seem to like old chargers, I was able to find enough newer ones to get there and back. I thought, cheap car. Maybe future software updates will improve the number of chargers it’s happy with, but it could also have been the old chargers themselves.
In the second summer, 2021, I took a short trip to Anglesey and back (lording it over the passing petrol drivers obviously. This was in the middle of the fuel crisis. That was a mistake! 😉). Half way down the A5 coming home, I stopped in traffic, applied the automatic brake, then the dash bonged and told me the HV battery had been disconnected. Nothing I could do could start it, and with the brakes on, it couldn’t be pushed off the road, so there’s me, stuck, holding up traffic. Due to annual servicing with the dealer, I had the included AA breakdown cover, so I had to call them out. The technician disconnected the 12v battery for 60 seconds and it came back to life. (Turn it off and back on again. 🤦♂️) Losing trust a little in the car, I've kept a spanner in the glove box after that.
Now, the most recent problem. In the first few days of November 2022 (car barely two and a half years old), I tried starting the car one night. I got a few bongs, a system fault and the hv battery disconnected again. Disconnecting the 12v battery did not sort it out this time.
The next day I called the AA out. The technician had no idea what the problem was. The most he found he could do was tap away on his tablet for sixty seconds, which reset the car enough to drive five feet before it gave up and slammed on the brakes again. Kind of amusing watching him repeat this half a dozen times just so he could get the car positioned behind his van to tow it to the dealers.
Side note: anyone else who’s never used the included breakdown cover, you also get two days Enterprise car rental included, but as the cover is automatically applied on each service, I don’t think I was ever given a list of what is actually included, so finding out I was going to be given a car was good news. I only found out after five or six days that the breakdown cover only included two days rental. Anyway, that’s a separate story.
The dealer spent a few days investigating and couldn’t work out the problem, so they had to get in touch with some MG office in the UK for advice on what to test and replace. And this has been going on since early November. I think MG have had the mechanic replace three or four different parts now, one of them ordered twice because they recommended the wrong part. Each time there’s a few days delay while MG reply to the dealer, then the dealer orders the part, fits it, finds out it didn’t help, and we go back around the process again. Each time must take a week or more.
One nice thing, the dealer has leant me a Peugeot E-208 while this has been going on, which I’ve appreciated and have been enjoying driving.
So, the last time I rang the dealers, a couple of days ago, they had contacted MG and basically said “we can’t fix this, it’s time you took it away to fix” and were waiting for the reply. I don’t think I’m getting my car back before next year, now. I am incredibly glad it’s still under warranty, I dread to think how much this has cost so far. I’m also half expecting while the MG big guns have my car, the dealer might ask for the Peugeot back. Hoping they don’t.
So I’m a little conflicted about this car. I’d hoped to take it on a drive into Europe in the next year or two, (yes, it would be a challenge) but I’m not sure I fancy the risk of needing the AA to drag it back to the UK in the middle. It’s not even three years old and has needed the AA calling twice.
On one hand, this is obviously very unusual – if it was a common fault they’d have fixed it instantly, so I don’t feel that the model, and by extension other MG models, are inherently unreliable. Just this one. But if I decided to switch for another model, probably the one I could most likely afford right now is the MG 4, if buying new. But still, would I trust another MG on long journeys…?
As another aside, I’m actually suspicious that even considering how early I ordered and received this car, that it might actually be an even earlier build. Deliveries had been taking place for about three months before this one appeared, but if it had rolled off a boat from China, and someone else had cancelled the order, and then it was offered to me, it surely wouldn’t have been sitting around long enough for someone to go to the effort of sticking stickers on the door panels. At the bottom of both rear doors, when they get a bit dirty, you can still see the outline of text from the glue residue from what I assume would have been advertising, and I’ve seen a surprising number of YouTube reviews of new cars where the early press/demo vehicles had issues in the videos. Perhaps this an early unused demo car. That might explain it’s quirks… It's no proof of anything, just a bit strange.
My main thoughts right now are: at what point might it get to a stage where they decide it’s not economical to continue fixing this? If it were to get that far, would my GAP insurance I took out when I bought it cover that scenario? Would my insurer?
Tomorrow I’m going to at least give my insurer a ring and see what they say, while I’m asking about a refund for the two months I’ve been unable to use the car.
Is there anything else I should be doing or considering?
Thanks.
I ordered a red one from a dealer in Shropshire near the end of 2019, when they were first starting to be delivered. In March 2020, I had a call saying that the red ones were taking a while to get built, but they had a blue one ready to go if I wanted to switch. I feel now I should have waited, but accepted it anyway.
The first problem was that the car didn’t talk to my new Zappi 2 charger. It would either charge the moment I plugged it in, or if I set the charger to only charge during off-peak hours, the car would go to sleep and not wake up when the charger tried talking to it. This was a known problem with the MG, and there was a software update to fix it. However, it took at least two, maybe three visits back before the technician managed to successfully install that update. There were a few updates to install, and I gather one or more would regularly fail mid-install.
In the first summer, I took a six-day road trip from Shropshire to the northern tip of mainland-Orkney, and apart from finding that the car didn’t seem to like old chargers, I was able to find enough newer ones to get there and back. I thought, cheap car. Maybe future software updates will improve the number of chargers it’s happy with, but it could also have been the old chargers themselves.
In the second summer, 2021, I took a short trip to Anglesey and back (lording it over the passing petrol drivers obviously. This was in the middle of the fuel crisis. That was a mistake! 😉). Half way down the A5 coming home, I stopped in traffic, applied the automatic brake, then the dash bonged and told me the HV battery had been disconnected. Nothing I could do could start it, and with the brakes on, it couldn’t be pushed off the road, so there’s me, stuck, holding up traffic. Due to annual servicing with the dealer, I had the included AA breakdown cover, so I had to call them out. The technician disconnected the 12v battery for 60 seconds and it came back to life. (Turn it off and back on again. 🤦♂️) Losing trust a little in the car, I've kept a spanner in the glove box after that.
Now, the most recent problem. In the first few days of November 2022 (car barely two and a half years old), I tried starting the car one night. I got a few bongs, a system fault and the hv battery disconnected again. Disconnecting the 12v battery did not sort it out this time.
The next day I called the AA out. The technician had no idea what the problem was. The most he found he could do was tap away on his tablet for sixty seconds, which reset the car enough to drive five feet before it gave up and slammed on the brakes again. Kind of amusing watching him repeat this half a dozen times just so he could get the car positioned behind his van to tow it to the dealers.
Side note: anyone else who’s never used the included breakdown cover, you also get two days Enterprise car rental included, but as the cover is automatically applied on each service, I don’t think I was ever given a list of what is actually included, so finding out I was going to be given a car was good news. I only found out after five or six days that the breakdown cover only included two days rental. Anyway, that’s a separate story.
The dealer spent a few days investigating and couldn’t work out the problem, so they had to get in touch with some MG office in the UK for advice on what to test and replace. And this has been going on since early November. I think MG have had the mechanic replace three or four different parts now, one of them ordered twice because they recommended the wrong part. Each time there’s a few days delay while MG reply to the dealer, then the dealer orders the part, fits it, finds out it didn’t help, and we go back around the process again. Each time must take a week or more.
One nice thing, the dealer has leant me a Peugeot E-208 while this has been going on, which I’ve appreciated and have been enjoying driving.
So, the last time I rang the dealers, a couple of days ago, they had contacted MG and basically said “we can’t fix this, it’s time you took it away to fix” and were waiting for the reply. I don’t think I’m getting my car back before next year, now. I am incredibly glad it’s still under warranty, I dread to think how much this has cost so far. I’m also half expecting while the MG big guns have my car, the dealer might ask for the Peugeot back. Hoping they don’t.
So I’m a little conflicted about this car. I’d hoped to take it on a drive into Europe in the next year or two, (yes, it would be a challenge) but I’m not sure I fancy the risk of needing the AA to drag it back to the UK in the middle. It’s not even three years old and has needed the AA calling twice.
On one hand, this is obviously very unusual – if it was a common fault they’d have fixed it instantly, so I don’t feel that the model, and by extension other MG models, are inherently unreliable. Just this one. But if I decided to switch for another model, probably the one I could most likely afford right now is the MG 4, if buying new. But still, would I trust another MG on long journeys…?
As another aside, I’m actually suspicious that even considering how early I ordered and received this car, that it might actually be an even earlier build. Deliveries had been taking place for about three months before this one appeared, but if it had rolled off a boat from China, and someone else had cancelled the order, and then it was offered to me, it surely wouldn’t have been sitting around long enough for someone to go to the effort of sticking stickers on the door panels. At the bottom of both rear doors, when they get a bit dirty, you can still see the outline of text from the glue residue from what I assume would have been advertising, and I’ve seen a surprising number of YouTube reviews of new cars where the early press/demo vehicles had issues in the videos. Perhaps this an early unused demo car. That might explain it’s quirks… It's no proof of anything, just a bit strange.
My main thoughts right now are: at what point might it get to a stage where they decide it’s not economical to continue fixing this? If it were to get that far, would my GAP insurance I took out when I bought it cover that scenario? Would my insurer?
Tomorrow I’m going to at least give my insurer a ring and see what they say, while I’m asking about a refund for the two months I’ve been unable to use the car.
Is there anything else I should be doing or considering?
Thanks.
