MG MG4 EH32 Essence 64 (2023-2026)
Also referred to as: MG MG4 EH32 Essence 64 2025 and MG MG4 EH32 Essence 64 2027.6 reviews
Great smooth quite car to drive, beauriful style UK designed comfortable and a pleasure to own . Show details
I bought the car 18 months ago. A couple of months ago I noticed a bad smell but didn't know what it was. Eventually i was taking out the child safety seat and saw mouse droppings under it, I realised mice had been living in the cabin and that was… Read more
the cause of the smell. I always leave the car locked because it is the only way to turn the car off, I have never had rodents in a car before (I am 66yo). Next we were finding rat droppings. They were getting in somewhere, traps didn't work, the smell was terrible so I used wax block bait. The smell got worse. I took the car to the service department of the MG dealer. They denied that animals getting in the cabin was a fault, seemed to think it was a normal thing to expect. They did a service and found a dead rat and nest in the cabin air filter, charged us $100 to clean it out. They could not tell us how the animals were getting in the cabin. I have never had this happen before with any car I have owned, now I am worried about venomous snakes, which are common in my area. If you have rodents in your area, don't buy an MG, they can get into the cabin fairly easily.
Follow-up · Follow up - Rats are still getting in the cabin, I leave a block of rat bait in the cabin and it is taken fairly regularly. I don't know the entry point but i think it is in the big ventilation housing under the bonnet, which is beyond my skill to remove and check. MG have been no help at all, have no interest in helping me.
The first point I’d raise is that the advent of the electric vehicle has very polarising views with internal combustion engine (ICE) stalwarts. If you have arrived at this review, you are more likely to already be in the target market to consider an EV. It is a very heated area with strong views. Before we get to the MG4, my advice is to first… Read more
keep a diary of your current vehicle trips for a month. This should record when you travelled, how far you travelled, where you started and where arrived at, what was the purpose of the travel, who was with you, and what the weather was like. Regardless of whether you arrive at an EV or an ICE (or a diesel), your needs should be driven by requirements. For us, 98% of our trips were between 2 and 10 kilometres, twice a day, in heavy traffic, and availability of a powered garage overnight. What we discovered was that, if we were going to undertake a ‘long trip’ or one where we had a lot of ‘stuff’, it was probably more cost effective and sensible to rent a vehicle for those trips once a year. That may not fit everyone’s profile, and hence it is important to start with your own requirements and needs, including if an EV is a good option or not for you.
The MG4 64 Essence has been an excellent and high quality vehicle for us. That said, it is not necessary ‘high specification’, but it does do what’s it is meant to quite well.
INTERIOR: Reasonably comfortable, nice shaped steering wheel, and seats are sufficiently adjustable. Supports Android Auto which connects (via a wire) well, but does take a minute to start up. The vehicle has two displays, one behind the steering wheel is simple but effective. You can select different data to display (such as tyre pressures, economy, etc), and a favourite of mine is the Navigation screen. When Navigation is in use and a destination is plugged in, the display behind the steering wheel can give quite good instruction on when off-ramps approach and streets are approaching. One curious aspect for me is that the ‘Odometer’ reading is quite buried. This means you can have your display on, but not display your odometer, unlike most cars.
The cabin fan and heating system is simply with a pull down menu in the main centre screen, and works well, unless you are indicating to go left or right and the cameras come on (preventing the climate window displaying). There are physical buttons for climate on/off, front window demister, and rear Window demister. One slight gripe is when the front demister is switched on, it will always kick off on full speed.
The other trans in the centre screen are straight forward. The charging window, the maps window, music/radio, etc which are all straight forward.
The drivers seat is electrically adjustable, and passenger is manual. Plenty of leg room front and back. The seats have a heating setting with three settings. It works well with heat in the seat bottom and back.
Storage around the cabin is good, and drivers door holds a few books and a drink bottle for me. the centre console also holds two cups, and then there is a good storage bin in between the drivers/passenger seat.
Another couple of gripes are that the cabin can be quite dark and there is no interior light in the back seat. The auto headlines are a welcome function, but the auto high beam can be a bit annoying and a function I switch off. A last interior grip would be, there is no auto wipers. First world problems, but it is something I would have expected in this vehicle.
The boot is a reasonable size, however, space is utilised by teh electric motor. Plenty of space for regular use though.
DRIVING: If you have never driven an EV, this one like many is very rapid. The acceleration and responsiveness is unlike any other vehicle. They are quiet inside. The MG4 is well built, so despite it being so quiet, there are not too many rattles. It is fast, very manoeuvrable with a sharp turning circle, and easy to park with an excellent 360 degree camera. It can be driven with one pedal mode, so it becomes pretty close to a go kart or dodgem. Downsides, like many EVs is that being so quiet it can be very easy to speed. The radar cruise control is good and easy to operate which helps reinforce this concern in. The MG4 has the regular features such as warning indicators in the mirror to show a vehicle approaching in the adjacent lane, beeps when reversing from pedestrians and vehicles coming past, and beeps when drifting in the lane. A gripe with the MG4 would be getting use to teh lane assist that can nudge the steering if it detects you drifting, and very rarely if it thinks a front collision is imminent it will brake severely.
MAINTENANCE: EVs have very few moving parts, and the MG4 has been excellent from this point of view. That said, it is clear the future of servicing vehicles is about software rather than hardware. There are no over the air updates to software, so the dealer will need to update software. Our MG4 had a microswitch issue with unlocking the drivers door, but the dealer resolved this pretty quickly. With very few parts, it is relatively cheap to maintain and provides long intervals between services.
RANGE: Always raised as a concern with EVs. the MG4 has been perfectly fine for us. As mentioned at the start, we do a lot of short hops and in heavy traffic. The MG4 is perfect for this. Range varies, depending on speed, outside temperature, and other factors such as if your tyres are correctly inflated. Range has never been an issue, and just requires a bit more planning ahead. We charge at home over night and it is very easy - we have never actually needed to charge away from home.
EXTERIOR: Excellent vibrant colours. As an EV, aerodynamics are important, and this also helps with providing a quiet (less wind noise) ride, and clean look. Downsides would be there are quite a few LED lights, which may in future create a maintenance challenge. The actual panelling is quite thin, and so the durability of this to withstand shopping cart dents and the like will be interesting.
SUMMARY: As I mentioned at the start the MG4 is an excellent vehicle. It is not the highest spec vehicle (e.g. no electric tail lift, no sunroof, no leather, etc), but in my view represents excellent value for money. It fills an important spot in the market, which is those who commute in their vehicles with many short drives. That said, it is more than capable to undertake long journeys, when coupled with a bit of planning. Would I buy again, absolutely.
No service/ good car but you are on your own – Service from MG is non existent. The dealers can sell but they know very little about the product that they sell. MG Australia has a website and an helpline. I have made 5 attempts for help and been told that someone will contact me within 48 hours. Not one call, not one email. The car I love. However it has so many software issues it is spoiling… Read more
the joy of owning it. I am trying to get an owners manual for the brand new car that I own. I can't get the app to work which has all this information. The dealership doesn't have any idea on how to get it to work. Unbelievable. I have always owned Mazda's and have been very spoilt and have high expectations of what service looks like. MG is the other end of the spectrum. I am now very worried about buying an MG.
I clicked 1 for the features I don't have an odometer or a trip meter, all the great features are on the app, as well as the owners manual, oh the app doesn't work. Windscreen wiper was faulty first time using it. Three weeks nothing, no windscreen wiper replacement. I love the car its great, but MG take the pleasure out of owning it.
MG4 EV is a software lemon – A potential Death Trap. All 4 wheel lock ups in wet weather for a dangerous and thrilling ride. Software phantom breaking is included. Atrocious software where you spend more time disabling driver aids to prevent injury to yourself and others. Poor after sales service from local dealerships and MG Australia (SAIC). Perhaps this is what you get… Read more
from a state owned enterprise negotiating its way into the Australian market. No free software upgrades or over the air upgrades (unlike other reputable EV manufactures). Comes complete with a questionable ANCAP 5 Star Rating (perhaps the is insufficient testing of the software features).
On a positive note it does come with:- No nuisance calls from MG Australia (They will not call you back if you make a complaint!). No range anxiety in wet weather because you will be too scared to drive it.
A standout small EV at a great price – We purchased this recently and we're so glad we did. Just a great little car and although a hatch it's more like a small SUV with plenty of room both for passengers and in the boot. I'm not surprised it received the Car of the Year award as it is well deserved. Really easy to drive, and of course, if you have solar at home, it costs almost nothing… Read more
to charge if you use your excess solar. We were a bit reluctant initially to go for an EV given some of the negative press (I'm guessing by people who don't own an EV!) about range and the public charging infrastructure but need not have worried. This model has an impressive range of 505 km from a 64kWH battery and after 3 months of mostly city driving, it has certainly stayed close to this range, even with a bit of country driving with the aircon on thrown in. However, if you are a more aggressive driver used to doing high speed driving with the aircon on you will sacrifice range for performance. The build quality is excellent although for a sub $50,000 EV you certainly don't get leather seats but it is nonetheless very comfortable with plenty of leg room in both the front and rear. We removed the centre head rest in the rear to provide greater visibility as it is a bit difficult to see out the rear view mirror if left in place. No spare unfortunately just a repair kit and no AM radio either, although it does have Android auto and Apple car play. A wide central console with cup holders means there is plenty of storage for cups, phones and all the other bits and pieces that invariably accumulate in a car. No automatic boot opening either and the boot lid is rather heavy but it's a small price to pay for what is otherwise a really outstanding electric hatch. It has all the usual features one would expect in a car with a 5 star ANCAP rating and quite a few extras as well - too many to discuss in detail in this review. As far as driving is concerned, it accelerates really well and has a very small turning circle, so it is easy to get in and out of tight spaces. A 360 degree camera (which does take a little getting used to) makes backing a breeze and also makes parking so much easier. The 2 display screens (1in the centre and 1 behind the steering wheel in front of the driver) have a myriad of functions to customise the driving experience, (I don't think I've discovered all the functions yet!) but in reality, once you have set it to your liking, you don't need to spend a lot of time fiddling with the screens. It really is mostly set and forget. Regenerative braking means that the car battery will recharge during braking or whilst travelling downhill and one pedal driving is also a very useful feature. I really like that if take your foot off the accelerator, the car automatically slows down - very useful when approaching traffic lights. Its adaptive cruise control is great, very easy to set and raise or lower and it maintains its speed very well. Charging is a breeze and can be done at set times. We downloaded the MG4 EV app which makes it very easy to start and stop charging and turn it off once the battery has reached a certain charging level. This model also has voice control, so you can answer the phone, set the aircon and control the music via voice, rather than fiddling with buttons or the screens when driving. Whilst we really like this car it does have a few foibles. The bluetooth can be a bit fiddly at times and occasionally seems to forget the attached devices and the satellite map feature can be really annoying as it announces every suburb you travel through (so we've turned the map feature off). MG really needs to give users the option of silencing the map voice over! The lane keeping assist function is also quite aggressive as is the front collision assist so if we're travelling along the highway or a winding road we turn lane keeping assist to alert and front collision assist to low (unfortunately both these are always on when starting the car, so must be turned off if not wanted - apparently this is an ANCAP requirement). We could also do without the black roof - way too hot for a place like Australia and although it looks very smart, it would have been nice to have the option to choose a white roof. The manual that comes with the car is rather ordinary as well - it doesn't begin to describe all the features of the car. Fortunately there are plenty of YouTube videos to help discover all the niceties, particularly those YouTubes done by Jerry Pan (a New Zealander) who has covered all the functions of the MG4 EV in great detail. We certainly looked at his videos regularly. I could go on and on about all its great features, but to summarise, it's a really great car if you're looking for a small EV SUV/hatch which is really fun to drive, sporty looking and great value for money. We're very happy we bought it.
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