We use appliances and tech items made in China each and every day, but what about Chinese cars? They used to be pretty terrible, so has that equation changed recently? Paul Maric reviews the MG HS, a mid-sized SUV built in China and sold by a brand that once used to be British. Is it any good? Watch and find out!
Hardness tester results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 00:55
Interior: 02:37
Infotainment: 03:58
Other Features: 06:49
Practicality: 09:01
On the road: 12:28
Verdict: 16:39
Full review: https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-reviews/2020-mg-hs-excite-review/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=review&utm_term=&utm_content=&utm_campaign=single-car-review
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Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
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#mg #review #hs @MGLATAM
Hardness tester results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 00:55
Interior: 02:37
Infotainment: 03:58
Other Features: 06:49
Practicality: 09:01
On the road: 12:28
Verdict: 16:39
Full review: https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-reviews/2020-mg-hs-excite-review/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=review&utm_term=&utm_content=&utm_campaign=single-car-review
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1
You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.
Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!
Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!
CarExpert:
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Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus
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Paul Maric:
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Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric
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#mg #review #hs @MGLATAM
Category
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MotorTranscript
00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. A big chunk of the electronics we buy today are built in China.
00:04 But would you buy your next car from a Chinese brand? The last few Chinese cars
00:09 I've driven haven't been very good. Actually, they've been pretty terrible. But what about MG?
00:13 It's a new brand to the Australian market and they've now built this. It's called the MG HS.
00:19 It's the brand's midsize SUV. This is called the Excite and it's the mid-spec model. It's priced at just under
00:27 $100,000 and it competes with cars like the Mazda CX-5, the Toyota RAV4, the Hyundai Tucson, all those cars in that midsize
00:34 SUV segment. Today
00:36 we're going to do a detailed review to see whether these things are now up to scratch. If you do want to skip ahead to
00:41 other parts of this review, you can use the time codes up on the screen there.
00:44 Or if you're on YouTube, just scroll down and use the chapters below. And if you haven't done so already,
00:49 I'd love it if you could hit subscribe, press the bell icon so you can find out every single time we publish a new review.
00:55 Let's talk exterior. And before I get into the way this car looks and all the colors and that sort of stuff,
00:59 let's talk about this brand. So MG, I think a lot of us think of an MG Roadster, race cars, sports car heritage.
01:06 Well, the brand was bought by the Chinese and it is now the same brand but under the Chinese banner and there's no
01:13 sports cars at the moment. It's just SUVs and other
01:16 practical vehicles. So you can get this in five different colors and all but the base white is an extra $700.
01:22 What do we think about the styling? I actually don't think it looks all that offensive.
01:26 You know, we have this stereotype of a Chinese car looking a bit boxy. Some of them are ripoffs of other car designs.
01:32 But this one actually looks quite nice. It's got a nice style to it. It looks upmarket and a bit premium.
01:37 You can see the grille here.
01:38 They've gone to a lot of effort getting that 3D element to it with the chrome highlights. A big proudly worn MG badge there.
01:43 And then this blue color is offset with these chrome highlights and also this, I don't know what you'd call that color there,
01:49 like a brushed aluminium plastic stuff. In terms of other features you're getting with the HS, full LED headlights with LED
01:56 daytime running lights slotted into there. Fog lights down the bottom, come around to the side. You're getting 18-inch alloy wheels.
02:03 It's a fairly modest design,
02:05 but it suits the car nicely. And as with all of these SUVs that don't go off-road, you get cladding on the wheel arches.
02:12 There's 175 millimeters of ground clearance and the entire HS range is front-wheel drive only.
02:17 So you won't be doing any off-roading here.
02:19 Let's have a look at the rest of the car. You get indicators built into those wing mirrors, chrome highlights around the side,
02:24 these brushed aluminium roof rails. Come around to the back, LED taillights. You get reverse parking sensors.
02:32 I don't know, it's a fairly handsome design.
02:34 It doesn't look overly offensive and I think it stands out nicely on the road.
02:37 So we're inside the MG HS and I'll tell you what,
02:40 I'm kind of a little bit surprised because I wasn't expecting it to be this nice.
02:45 I think a lot of medium SUVs in this segment still stick with the mantra of
02:49 only have a nice interior if you spend lots of money, whereas this actually looks nice everywhere.
02:54 So up the top here, you've got some soft materials, soft materials here.
02:58 You've got this faux brushed aluminium stuff, a rubber garage door.
03:03 It just looks high-end and premium, especially with this big infotainment screen that I'll run you through in a second.
03:08 So big tick there and also big fan of these air vents too.
03:13 Nicely knurled as well. So yeah, big tick there in terms of appearance.
03:17 Let's see how soft touch the soft touch dashboard is. It measures from 0 to 100.
03:23 If you're interested to see how this car compares to other cars, just go down to the description.
03:28 I've got a link there to a table where you can see what other results look like.
03:31 So as you can see, there really aren't too many hard surfaces around here. It feels quite premium for what it is.
03:36 Now, what about build quality?
03:38 Look, it's okay, but if you start sort of poking around, that's really not that impressive.
03:43 Now, one of you guys asked what relevance that has to build quality.
03:46 Well, look, it's more just the perception of it, right?
03:49 So if this flexes and isn't secure, the perception is that it isn't very well built.
03:55 So that's the test that we do to kind of figure out whether it is built well.
03:58 Okay, let's talk infotainment. It's a 10.1 inch screen. So that is impressive.
04:03 It sits nice and high here and visibility is excellent while you're driving.
04:07 Today, I'm going to take you through all the functions of this infotainment system and what you can expect from it.
04:12 So let's get started over here with the radio menu. You have AM and FM bands.
04:17 There's no DAB+ digital radio in there, unfortunately.
04:20 But in addition to that, you can stream music from your phone.
04:23 There's also the integration of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. It is via a cable, so it's not a wireless system.
04:29 So that means you can stream music from Spotify or other online streaming platforms if you want.
04:34 And then there's shortcut buttons down the bottom here to get you back to the home screen or to the car menu.
04:39 Navigation is built into the screen. It's a reasonably good navigation system. It's not the fastest in the world.
04:45 So I'm just waiting for it to load now. We'll try popping in Melbourne Airport, which is my go-to destination for points of interest.
04:51 When it finally loads, yes, we'll accept your terms of service. So we'll move this around.
04:56 Yeah, okay. So it appears to be a third-party system of some sort, but it does the job.
05:01 Let's try putting in a destination and we'll choose a place and we'll just type in Melbourne Airport.
05:09 Yeah, okay.
05:11 M-E-L-B-R-N-E-A-I-R-P-O-R-T.
05:18 Alright, let's see what comes up there.
05:20 Still searching, still searching. Okay, there we go. It's come up with a whole stack of results there near the airport.
05:26 It's not the quickest thing in the world. You can see it lagging a little bit as I try and flick through those menus.
05:31 But you can just rely on your smartphone mirroring if you do need a better navigation system.
05:36 You then have a menu for your climate controls, which is located there.
05:40 And then down the bottom here you have shortcuts to the phone, which is your Bluetooth system.
05:45 You only use voice recognition when you have a smartphone paired, so it doesn't actually do anything outside of that, which is a little bit disappointing.
05:53 It's a bit like Hyundais and Kias.
05:54 The voice recognition button doesn't actually do anything until you go into Apple CarPlay or Android Auto.
06:00 Now in the car menu, this is kind of interesting.
06:03 So here is where you'll find all of the safety systems. But if you jump down to comfort and convenience, if the car has ambient lighting,
06:09 this is also where you can set the color.
06:11 So you can flick through all the different colors that are available and the ambient lighting around the car will change depending on what you've just chosen.
06:18 You can then also have it adapt to your driving mode as well.
06:21 So a lot of personalization there. And this is the type of stuff you don't find on a lot of mainstream medium-sized SUVs.
06:27 Then what you can also do is via the USB port insert pictures and have video play on the screen.
06:33 And finally, we have the setup menu, which is all of the car's settings.
06:36 So in here, you'll be able to adjust all the annoying beeps that the car constantly makes.
06:40 You'll be able to change the frequency that the radio works on the time, your Bluetooth pairing and then also update your
06:46 navigation straight on the screen there. Now, let's talk about other features. So dual zone climate control, but it's a little bit fiddly.
06:54 So earlier I showed you that the HVAC controls are on this screen.
06:57 So you access them by pushing this button here.
06:59 But there's no ability to go up and down in terms of temperature from your switches or via a knob.
07:04 You have to manually do it here with your finger and it's quite hard to do while you're driving.
07:08 So you've got to take your eyes off the road, navigate to here, get what you need and then finally activate it. On top of that,
07:14 have a listen to this. When it is in auto mode,
07:17 the blower is so loud that you have to manually turn it down. Otherwise, it does your head in.
07:22 So, I don't know, there could be some refinements made here to the HVAC controls. You get automatic headlights, automatic high beams,
07:28 automatic windscreen wipers, you get an automatic
07:31 dimming rear vision mirror. You also have folding side mirrors and then in terms of safety technology,
07:37 you have autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian detection.
07:40 You have a lane departure warning, a lane keeping assistant, a blind spot monitor, rear cross traffic alert.
07:46 They really have thrown the feature book at this car in terms of safety tech. Ahead of the driver here,
07:51 you have an LCD screen and that can be controlled using the steering wheel. You get a digital speedometer, trip computer and a couple of
07:58 other bits and pieces, including the radar cruise control settings.
08:01 But there isn't a head-up display. I would have liked to see something like that. Now, I'm going to touch on this because
08:05 something else that is driving me crazy at the moment is just beeping. So let me demonstrate here. I'm going to switch all of this off and
08:13 open this door. So if you try and walk away from the car with the lights on, I'm going to get off the seat here.
08:21 It just
08:23 continuously beeps at you. If the key is left in the car,
08:26 it will beep at you, then honk the horn. While you're driving,
08:29 it beeps at you when you leave the lane and when it wants to give you a warning of some sort.
08:33 There are just endless beeps and while there is a setting in the setup menu here for system beeps,
08:38 it either makes them louder or loud. Loud or louder, you can't get off or just soft.
08:43 Okay, so what does the key look like? There it is there.
08:47 You get an MG logo, blue body-colored inserts, a little bit of chrome on the side and then on the back, lock, boot, unlock.
08:55 That's a proximity sensing key as well.
08:57 So you just leave that in your pocket, grab the door handle and then hit the start button when you get inside.
09:00 Okay, enough about that. Let's talk about practicality and we'll start with storage.
09:04 So your phone can actually live in a really nice nook there or you can slide it into the cup holders.
09:10 Can't really do much with it down the front and there's no wireless phone charging. Now, what about bottles?
09:17 Easily fit into there and then inside the door, you have plenty of room for bottle storage and then also room for odds and ends.
09:23 Now this center console slides forward to give you a bit of extra comfort and is reasonably deep inside.
09:29 Down the front here, you've also got two USB ports, a 12-volt outlet and let's have a look at this.
09:34 You have a decent sized glove box there,
09:37 somewhere to hide your sunglasses and then finally down near your feet, you also have a hidey hole for keys and coins.
09:45 Now let's talk comfort. So the seats are actually pretty nice. They're like this leather-esque material.
09:50 Now they don't really hug you in massively, you know, I'm not huge, but I don't have a lot of bolster support.
09:56 But you do have the ability to adjust your lumbar.
09:59 So initially I thought this was quite firm, but I pushed that sort of all the way out and it does feel nice and comfortable.
10:05 Just not as much side support as I would have liked. Steering wheel sits really nicely in the hand.
10:09 It's quite a sporty steering wheel. You've got paddle shifters there, a super sport button
10:13 that I'll run you through when we go for a drive and all of the critical controls are easy to reach.
10:17 You don't have to stretch too far for them.
10:18 Okay, let's talk backseat.
10:20 But before we do, we have just discovered where some of these beeps are coming from. Have a listen to this.
10:24 Every time you open a door,
10:27 it beeps. Ego, do you want to try that front door, see if it does it?
10:30 I don't understand that stuff. Anyway, okay, what's it like back here? It's actually pretty good.
10:41 I've got a really decent amount of knee room. I have loads of toe room, lots of headroom as well.
10:47 The seat's fairly comfortable. I can recline it too using the lever at the top of the seat.
10:52 So from that point of view, it's quite nice back here. There is a center armrest.
10:55 Have a look at this. This looks very swish and high-end. It's kind of cold to the touch as well.
11:00 So it's like a brushed aluminium type thing.
11:02 This opens up to present you with some cup holders,
11:07 nice little teeth in there as well. And then you can also put your bottle in the door with storage room either side.
11:11 And then there's a little tray here for storage with like a leather bound on it as well, which is pretty cool.
11:17 You get ISOFIX points on the two outboard seats. And if you dive down here, you've got air vents, which is great.
11:22 But also USB ports for charging devices, mat pockets as well.
11:26 So it's actually a really pleasant place to be seated.
11:29 And I think if you're a kid back here, you've got plenty of room to stretch out. So let's talk cargo space.
11:34 You've got a power tailgate to get you in. 463 litres of cargo space.
11:39 But it's not really the best boot because the cargo floor is quite high.
11:43 Beneath this cargo floor, you have extra storage and beneath that you have a space saver spare tyre.
11:49 Plus this contraption to hold the cargo floor up.
11:53 But let's see what it's like with our luggage and I'll get rid of this cargo blind first.
11:57 Pull that out there.
12:00 So it can't fit under the floor, but you can kind of just store it here. It does move around a bit.
12:05 So you'll have to leave this at home if you're not going to be using it.
12:08 Let's see what it's like with our bags in here. Alrighty.
12:11 So they seem to fit okay. Let's drop these seats as well. With the second row folded you get
12:19 just under 1300 litres of cargo space. So it is a fairly big boot. It's just a shame this boot floor is so high.
12:28 So we have hit the road in the MG HS. What is powering this little car?
12:33 So it's a 1.5 litre four-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine. It makes 119 kilowatts of power,
12:40 250 newton meters of torque. It's not a groundbreaking amount, but the car doesn't weigh a great deal.
12:45 So it's enough to keep it all moving and then it's made into a seven-speed dual clutch gearbox.
12:50 Now the fascinating thing here with this seven-speed automatic transmission is that it's
12:55 not like your typical dual clutch that's clunky and a bit hard to use at low speed.
12:58 It's actually a pretty impressive gearbox, which surprised me. Often the gearboxes
13:02 they put into these small cars are just nasty and they're simply for the reason of fuel economy.
13:06 So the official fuel economy figure is 7.3 litres per 100 kilometres, but
13:12 in practice, it is much higher than that. We're sitting at just under 10 litres per 100 k's, which is
13:18 a fair chunk of fuel to be using for such a small car.
13:22 The other problem as well is that you need to fill this with minimum 95 ron premium unleaded.
13:27 Now, what does it feel like behind the wheel? We're going up a hill here.
13:30 I'll gradually lean onto the throttle. The gearbox is pretty smooth. Once it starts diving back through the gears, it
13:35 gives you the torque that you need. Like it's actually surprisingly good for a car this size. It doesn't feel groundbreaking,
13:43 but when you get stuck into it, there's enough momentum to get the car moving.
13:47 It doesn't feel completely underpowered, which is what you get with some of the naturally aspirated cars in this segment.
13:52 Okay, let's talk drive modes. So you can choose from Eco, Normal, Sport and Custom.
13:57 Custom is of course the one that allows you to set the variables. Eco just dulls everything. Normal is for your normal driving,
14:03 but I'm keen to see what this Super Sport button does.
14:07 So one push of that changes all the dials to red, it immediately starts dropping back through the gears.
14:12 We'll give it a bit of a punch.
14:14 Okay.
14:17 Look, I mean it's more eager to hold gears,
14:19 which is what it's doing now. And then as you sort of get into the throttle, it's sort of,
14:23 yeah, it's just a little sportier. It gives it a raspier edge. It's no sports car or Super Sport,
14:29 but it is sportier than normal. Now, we don't have an official 0-100km/h time, but this is what it looks like.
14:38 [engine revving]
14:40 And what about handling? Well, look, it's not going to set the world on fire.
14:54 It's got a little bit of body roll, but for the most part, it is fine for a small SUV like this.
14:59 It doesn't quite meet the benchmark in the segment, which is stuff like the CX-5.
15:03 The CX-5 sits nice and flat through corners. This still feels a little bit rolly,
15:08 but it's going to be adequate for 99% of people who just expect A to B transport. Now, let's talk about the ride.
15:14 This is the bit that's probably surprised me the most. I mentioned
15:17 earlier in the introduction that, you know, the last Chinese cars I've driven weren't that impressive.
15:22 What MG has done is gone and hired a lot of engineers from reputable car companies and said, "Look, make our car
15:28 drive like all the other popular SUVs in this segment." And that's what they've done here.
15:33 It's not overly floaty. It's not overly firm. It's just nice and compliant.
15:36 And, I don't know, you just can't tell it's any different from any other car, especially from a brand that
15:42 hasn't built SUVs up until virtually right now. Now, what about visibility? So, out the front, it's great. Out the sides,
15:49 it's good. The wing mirrors are nice and big. Rear visibility is pretty good.
15:52 The envelope of that window is big enough to be able to see out of, and then there's no real major blind spots to take
15:58 note of. What about engine noise? So, the small 1.5-litre engine is going to make a little bit of a racket if you do get stuck
16:04 into it, but
16:06 it's not the end of the world. You do hear the noise coming into the cabin, and given it is a smaller engine,
16:10 it has to work a little harder, but it's not droney or not overly intrusive. And the same goes with the road noise.
16:16 I was expecting a little bit more road noise into the cabin on coarse-chip surfaces like this,
16:20 but it's actually quite pleasant in here at the moment.
16:22 The only negative worth calling out here in terms of the drive experience is the brake pedal feel.
16:27 It's okay, but the pedal itself can be quite hard. So as you're going through on the brake pedal, it's not quite consistent.
16:34 It's not linear. You get to a point where it firms up a bit and you have to put a bit more effort into it.
16:38 So, MG HS. Let's put this brand to one side for a second. If you had a Toyota badge there or a Mazda badge there,
16:45 I think people would be flocking and buying these in drives because it is really well equipped and it's really well priced as well.
16:50 But in terms of the negatives,
16:53 the beeps, they are doing my head in. Every single time something goes wrong,
16:56 it'll beep for about a minute to tell you there's something very minor wrong.
16:59 So there's a couple of little refinement things they need to get right,
17:03 and I think the engine is in the long term going to be a little underpowered. A 1.5 litre,
17:07 once you start putting your friends and luggage in, this is going to feel a little bit underdone.
17:12 But outside of that, it really is hard to complain. It is a good value for money proposition.
17:16 Keep in mind though, if you do travel regionally,
17:19 MG's network of dealers isn't as strong as a Mazda or a Toyota or a Ford, for example.
17:24 So you are going to have to travel further to get things fixed if anything goes wrong.
17:28 But if you're driving in and around the city, it is perfectly fine. Keen to get your comments and feedback below.
17:32 Have you bought an MG? What's it actually like to live with? What are they like day to day?
17:37 Let me know in the comments section below. If you have enjoyed this video, hit the like button,
17:40 follow it up with a subscribe and press the bell icon as well,
17:43 so you can find out every single time we publish something new. But until next time, take it easy.