MG3 - Not shite it seems - now with excellent* video!

[Noel Tidybeard]

I can honestly say that's not my experience. Being really fussy the plastics on the door pockets could be better (show up scuffs quite quickly) but the cabin is really nice on mine, very happy with it.

 

considering a viva is basically a mk3 matiz they aint too bad a car- chap i know bought one and its quiet well spec'd

[dollywobbler]

I think it is the total lack of anything MG about it that irks people.

 

It would be like bringing back Spangles only this time they were peppermints.

 

(anyone born after 1980 can Google Spangles).

 

This, I don't really get. A modern Citroen owes sod all to the iconic cars that company has made. A Disco 5 is about as related to a Disco 1 as I am to King Kong. What WOULD make it an MG? We live in a world of brands that are sod all to do with anything. I still quite like the Octagon, so there.

[AMC Rebel]

I think it is the total lack of anything MG about it that irks people.

 

It would be like bringing back Spangles only this time they were peppermints.

 

(anyone born after 1980 can Google Spangles).

 

Massively off topic (as normal for me) but I worked in filling station with a Vegan bloke in the early 80s.  Aside from berating me for using the soap, the only thing from the massive stocks of junk we had that was vegan friendly was Spangles - and soon after I joined, we stopped selling 'em!

[dollywobbler]

It'll be even harder when they inevitably go bust. Again.

 

Unlikely now the Chinese are running the show. They may well shut down the UK operation one day, but they'll be in no rush to do so. They're selling more MGs than Subaru are selling Subarus here, so that's a reasonable start. Plus, it's the very Britishness of the MG3 that makes them a great success on the Asian market. I don't anticipate they'll disappear anytime soon, but perhaps this explains the rather half-arsed approach to actually selling them here.

 

In the UK, you can specify a Union Flag on the roof. Thing is, you can do that in all the other markets too, and apparently people do. It's the BMW MINI con all over again.

[Wilko220]

The massive bumpers look like the kind of shit body kits that teenage lads used to glue to the ends of old Vauxhall Corsas around here.

 

Enjoyed the review though.

[dollywobbler]

I will concede it does look a bit like it has a fat lip...

[beko1987]

I like it! Will look at them when they've got a few owners under their belt/have dropped the value off in a few years

[SiC]

I think the new MGs look pretty decent. Even the MG6 that is berated. I do fancy a drive in one.

 

I think they must be selling loads in cities, I see quite a few in and around Bristol.

[dollywobbler]

Here's a comparison for you.

 

Honda S-MX Length - 3.95m             MG3 Length - 4.02m

Honda S-MX Width   - 1.65m             MG3 Width   - 1.73m

Honda S-MX Height  - 1.74m             MG3 Height  - 1.51m

[hpi_matrix]

Only gets a 3 star NCAP rating which seems pretty piss poor. In comparison a Kia Picanto gets 4 Star, costs under £9K and has a massive warranty.

[dollywobbler]

Only gets a 3 star NCAP rating which seems pretty piss poor. In comparison a Kia Picanto gets 4 Star, costs under £9K and has a massive warranty.

 

"The MG3 lost points for not offering lane-keeping assist, speed warning or an autonomous braking system." Also, the latest Renault Megane also only got three stars. That's more of a shocker!

[hpi_matrix]

"The MG3 lost points for not offering lane-keeping assist, speed warning or an autonomous braking system." Also, the latest Renault Megane also only got three stars. That's more of a shocker!

 

Fuck me the NCAP system has gone a bit down hill since I last looked at it.

[wuvvum]

Only gets a 3 star NCAP rating which seems pretty piss poor. In comparison a Kia Picanto gets 4 Star, costs under £9K and has a massive warranty.

And is much slower and about half the size.

[egg]

I quite like it really. 

 

It is a bit of a would you rather though - new Sandero or 2 year old MG3.

[RayMK]

A good, open minded review.  

 

I've seen many MG3s around Northants and this morning saw a driving school MG3.  I like their distinctive but not ugly looks.  Dacia Logans are also getting fairly common around here - the larger crossover type Dacias have been popular for  several years.  Perhaps MG and indeed Dacia ownership is not the nightmare that many suggest.  

[garethj]

Re: it not being anything to do with old MGs, I suppose what the new Discovery has in common with the older Land Rovers is they're built in the same place and there will be some miserable, obstructive old sod working in stores who always gives out a 3/8 bolt because he doesn't trust this new fangled metric stuff and it's your fault if it doesn't go into that casting.

 

Not necessarily a good thing, like.

 

Cracking review, DW, unfortunately I have nothing to put it in context. The only newish small car I've driven is the Citroën C1 which seemed to have a plastic gearstick attached to plastic gears. But that might be normal.

[vulgalour]

There's an MG dealer very near us, or rather a car sales place that sells brand new ones.  The 3 has one advantage in that it has started to look more distinctive in traffic, spotted about half a dozen of them trundling around today.  The 6 is much less visible and the new soft roader version is just... odd... it looks like someone took a 3 and shrank it's 'face' while leaving the silhouette the same size.

 

This is one of the more objective reviews I've seen.  Sounds like it's doing the Chinese thing of straddling established UK/EU sectors since it's a bigger and larger engined than you'd expect for its class but also perhaps cheaper and with options like two-tone paint usually reserved for the more expensive trendy stuff like 500s.  In some ways, that hints more at its heritage than anything else, it's being its own thing and carving its own place in the market in the face of convention.

 

What's more interesting still is that people are buying them, in spite of negative reviews, so there must be something good there.  I wouldn't be surprised if in the next five years or so they become popular for modifying, they have that sort of off-kilter styling that encourages aesthetic modifications.  It will be interesting to see where MG end up, that they've survived this long has been a surprise to me, especially considering how terrible their Cityrover predecessors are.

[New POD]

 

 

In the UK, you can specify a Union Flag on the roof. Thing is, you can do that in all the other markets too, and apparently people do. It's the BMW MINI con all over again.

 

I always see the irony in a C'unt'yman or Pac'Man having a union flag when it's assembled in Austria.

[gordonbennet]

I enjoyed the review, but can't stand the looks of the bloody thing.

I like the look of the 6 but it appears to be a big pile of poo.

 

Bring back the pre facelfit 75 with gentlemans club interiors.

[dollywobbler]

I enjoyed the review, but can't stand the looks of the bloody thing.

I like the look of the 6 but it appears to be a big pile of poo.

 

Bring back the pre facelfit 75 with gentlemans club interiors.

 

I'm the opposite. I've always found the 6 utterly gopping. It just doesn't work from any angle. The 3 has good and bad angles from the front, but I mostly like its arse.

 

Oh, forgot to mention. It's actually got quarterlights in the front doors, which means you can open the window at speed and you don't get air blasting directly into your ears. Yay for quarterlights!

[Timewaster]

This, I don't really get. A modern Citroen owes sod all to the iconic cars that company has made. A Disco 5 is about as related to a Disco 1 as I am to King Kong. What WOULD make it an MG? We live in a world of brands that are sod all to do with anything. I still quite like the Octagon, so there.

Well a Disco 1 is an off roader available with 7 seats, not quite a Range Rover

While a Disco 5 is an off roader available with 7 seats, not quite a Range Rover

 

Anyway...

 

If you asked my mum to describe an MG she would say red probably, 2 seats, soft top etc.

 

The more I think about it, you make a good point which could be and probably was also aimed at the MG Metro, Maestro, Montego, Magnette, 1300 etc. etc.

 

Maybe red seat belts would help?

 

For the record, I enjoyed the write up and I fully expected it it be CityRover crap. I'm quite pleased it wasn't.

[richardmorris]

Spurred on by the absolute slating MG Motors seems to endlessly receive, especially on here, I thought there was only one way I could really have a valid opinion. Get my hands on one. So I did.

 

That there is £10,200 of MG3 3Form Sport, with the two-tone paint chipping it over the £10k barrier. I thought that was quite a lot of money, so I was very surprised to learn that you need another four grand to get a base model Fiesta! WTF?!

 

Inside, it feels far more like a quality vehicle than you might expect, though some plastics are indeed a bit cheap.

 

To be honest, it doesn't really feel much worse than a Hyundai i10 I drove recently. Only the particularly nasty door handles let it down. It's got air con (not climate control) with tiny buttons, a stereo thing with Bluetooth, Aux input etc and I like the rubber mat under the central sliding cubby lid thing. Very Austin-Rover.

 

Time for a drive. I started by driving it all the way to Wigan in a horrendous storm. With hints of snow.

 

And you know what? It's a bonny wee car. The 1.5-litre engine is a bit of an oddity in this class/price, but it pulls pretty well. The gearing is very tall, so 60mph is reached in second gear (in a touch over 10 seconds). 70mph = 3000rpm, and most of the time, the engine is pretty much inaudible. 

 

It is quite a large small car, far larger than this 1999 Toyota Starlet.

 

Now here's some history for you. This is the second MG3. The first was simply a Rover Streetwise with MG badges. By coincidence, I managed to find a Streetwise to park next to.

 

The new MG3 is an entirely fresh design though. The only hint of its illustrious past is that rubber mat on the dash, and the rear wiper, which performs three sweeps before going intermittent. My dad's Montego estate did that, as did my Disco 1. HERITAGE.

 

It steers really nicely, rides far better than many competitors and is pretty comfortable for a 650-miles-in-three-days sort of a trip. Perhaps not quite as comfortable as a W124 Mercedes-Benz, but almost as peaceful. I'll concede there's a little bit too much tyre noise really.

 

The door pockets are a good size. There's a bottle of water beneath this orange juice carton.

 

Disappointingly, it only seems to achieve 42-43mpg in mixed driving. Mind you, the insurance group is apparently pretty low, and the base model is just £8300. I have no idea what an i10 would achieve in similar driving, but Fuelly puts it only a few mpg ahead of the MG3, which is disappointing given Hyundai claim 65mpg, to MG's 51.

 

It emphatically is not a cheap, shitty car though. This is nowt like the City Rover situation. The End.

 

 

Not a looker though is it!

[saucedoctor]

White ones look like a Hoth-equipped Imperial Stormtrooper from the front. Look OK from the back, though, and not terribly ugly overall. I drove one not long after launch, and I dunno what it was about that engine, but there was just something ​not quite there. Maybe the current ones are better. Dunno. They've shifted a reasonable number of them (the 3) round these parts. Hardly ever see a 6. There's one been lying at Wilsons Auctions for about 3 years, easy. Not for sale, mind, just dumped in the car park.

[Sir Snipes]

I see MG3s all the time, especially since people have been talking about MG on here recently. I don't mind them. I don't mind the GS either. I find them about as inoffensive as a modern car can be. I'll try and take a picture of the A4 MG advert on the notice board in the local shopping precient though. It really is hilariously amateurish.

 

I agree with 'Wobbles, and that aussie youtube dude Junkman linked to in another thread, about brand definition nowadays. When you're small Japanese city car is actually built in India with off-the-shelf components that are probably the same as used by everyone else what difference does it actually make any more?

[Jim Bergerac]

"The MG3 lost points for not offering lane-keeping assist, speed warning or an autonomous braking system." Also, the latest Renault Megane also only got three stars. That's more of a shocker!

 

It was the old Megane (2009ish on model) that happened to. The current one is five stars. The only reason that I remember that is that it lost points for the seatbelt warning thing not being in every language. If it wasn't for that issue it would have rated four stars. Which shows how daft the whole thing is, especially when the exact same car had got five stars only five years before.

[Noel Tidybeard]

I will concede it does look a bit like it has a fat lip...

 

maybe its one of those designs that is colour sensitive?

 

look how many cars actually look shit in white!

[sierraman]

Maybe a good car to buy on pcp? Any good deals ?

Not really, it will depreciate so heavily that and equity you have in it will go, then it'll be fat chance of handing it back without some serious hand wallet interface.

 

I find the whole 'capturing the British spirit' thing about the union jacks all over the shop a bit insulting to be honest. I see it employs a handful of people in the U.K, but then so does the manufacturer of my Delonghi Actifry - I don't see that emblazoned with British flags?

 

A guy I used to work with was a major Rover nut. If they'd have brought out a range of MG Rover branded bath chairs he'd have bought one. I suspect he now has one of these.

[Rod/b]

The head licker of the MG club had a 6 and a 3. This is a man who went on a self funded trip to China to visit the factory and build bridges with the new owners.

 

He's now out of both and says he wouldn't consider another Chinese MG. His stories of piss poor customer sevice, rust coming through round the screen at an early stage, the cam chain issue etc... Tells you all you need to know really.

[garethj]

His stories of piss poor customer sevice, rust coming through round the screen at an early stage, the cam chain issue etc... Tells you all you need to know really.

 

And who says they don't take their heritage seriously?

[sierraman]

At least they've kept in the tradition of being badly made.