Why this MG HS is outselling VW, Ford and Toyota!
This is the new Mazda CX-5. No, Matt, it’s the new MGHS. Yeah, I knew that. I booked the bloody car in, but I’m trying to make a gag cuz it looks a little bit like a Mazda CX-5, and it’s a competitor to the CX-5, only one that is more affordable. Now, MG have actually made this slightly bigger, a little bit more at market, but they haven’t increased the price too much compared to how the manufacturers have increased their prices. More on that a little bit later on in this video. car. Wow, it’s wet today. MG got famous building lightweight sports cars in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. By the ‘9s, it was part of the Rover Group and was also building hatchbacks, saloons, and estates. But it went bust in 2005 and is now owned by Chinese company SIC Motor. Since then, MG has progressed from building forgettable cars like the MG6 to more interesting ones like the MG4X Power and the Rapid Cyber Convertible. But its most popular new model is the HSSUV. It’s actually the fifth bestselling new car in the UK right now. The success of cars like this should allow MG to keep building interesting sports cars into the future. But this plan only works if the HS can bring in lots of sales, not for just one year, but year after year. So, is it good enough to go the distance? And why have so many people bought one already? Let me talk you around the exterior design of this car. Visually, it’s not bad. Big proud MG badge there on the top of the bonnet. Like this bonnet has various creases in it to try and give it some presence. Got a huge grill and this kind of shaping here, this quite sporty lower front bumper reminds a bit of a Volkswagen Golf R. This though fake vents. Well done MG. Not moving down the side. So, doesn’t matter which spec you go for, the cars look the same externally. Allo wheels are 19 in in diameter. You have two-tone around the wheel arches to give the car a rugged look. This decorative stripe down the side. You got chrome around the windows and on the roof bars to give you that SUV feel. And as all SUVs should have, you’ve got doors which cover the sill so you don’t get your legs dirty when you climb in and out when it’s wet and miserable like today. Moving down the back, you’ve got a little spoiler there. Full length light bar at the rear. And um wait, wait, wait, wait. Hell no. Why? Why? Fake exhaust. Oh no. They’ve been copying Audi from about 4 years ago. I think the real exhaust is just in there. Have a look. I’m too embarrassed to look myself. This sort of exterior trim just makes the car look cheap. Be much better if they didn’t have any visible exhaust at all, like the Scoda Kodiak. I hope this lazier design philosophy doesn’t rub off on the MG’s interior. Well, no. No, it doesn’t. It actually feels quite nice. So, you got this leatherrett here on this part of the dash. Top of the dash is squidgy. This is squidgy. It’s leatherrett again with fake stitching. This is all squidgy. I like the contouring in the doors. Steering wheel feels good and the switches all feel quite expensive in the way that they’re damped. There are some cheap plastic. So low down here on air and down here on the door bins. That’s quite cheap feeling. But really, other cars this price no different to tell you the truth. In terms of the infotainment system, visually I quite like the look of it and the graphics are okay. It’s not the slickest system nor the most responsive and some of it can be a bit confusing to use. Digital drivers display is nice and clear. You can cycle through a little bit of extra information in that part there, but you can also change the view slightly, but you have to go through the actual main infotainment system to do that. So, you can’t do it on the fly like you can in many other cars. In terms of storage, so some storage under there. There’s your wireless charging pad. However, it is not cooled like it is in some other cars. You’ve got two cup holders there which are exposed. And the annoying thing about those are that then they block your USB ports. Speaking of which, these are old school USBs. And there’s your 12vt socket. Oh, it’s like a cigarette lighter. The shiny accents around the cabin also help brighten things up a bit. And while this black plastic trim does look quite nice, if you look closely, you can see that that has taken a bit of a beating already. And this car is relatively new. Now, in here is your glove box. Fair old size. And you actually Hello. I went like that and pressed the button and I tried to shut it. Does that shut properly? That doesn’t look Look at That’s not great, is it? Oh dear. It needs to be like that. Oh dear. MG. Oh dear. Down here you’ve got another little storage cubby. And it’s actually quite easy to accidentally remove because it’s also the cover for the fuse box. Now, can I get that in? Get back in there. Got it back in. Door bins. They’re big. Very big, but they’re not lined with felt, so things do rattle about in there and it can get a bit annoying when you’re driving. What’s not annoying when you’re driving are these seats. The moment I got in this car, I just thought these seats fit me perfectly. There’s plenty of adjustment in them as well. And they’re electric. Oo. Now, I should point out this is the topsp spec car, but you get these electric seats on the entry- level model as well. What you don’t get on that though, it has cloth seats. Leather is better. And you can have this leather interior in tan for an extra £500 if you want. Oh, last thing to check and vanity mirror is a little bit small for me, but rearview mirror is quite nice the way it’s frameless. So, I’ll let it off. Lots of brands save money by using cheaper materials in the back seats, which is bad in a family car because they’re specifically designed to carry passengers. However, MG has done a few things to buck the trend. Well, I’m really impressed. It’s extremely roomy. Look, lots of headroom. Absolutely loads of knee room. And check this out. Right, foot space. Yeah, I can really stretch out in this car. And these seatbacks are quite reclined. It’s very comfy. I could go a long way in the back of this car. Right, jump in the back of me just very quickly. What do we think? Looks all right. Yeah, it’s good. If you need to carry three people in the back at once, it’s fairly decent because there’s enough shoulder room and the flat floor really helps. It means that there’s enough room for everybody’s feet as well. So, not bad. Now, if I fold this down, you got an armrest with some exposed cup holders, which is a bit of a shame. What’s also a shame is look, there is no through loading. This bench seat splits 3060. Or is that 40 60? No, it’s 40. I can’t do maths. 40 60. That’s right. Anyway, other things you need to know. You got some pockets on the seatbacks. Door bins are big. Oh, look. Somebody’s left a cannon there. Who can that be? You’ve got two USBs there. But once again, they’re old school USBs, which is a shame. But I’ve got to point this out, right? Even back here, the quality is decent. Look in the back of a Volkswagen Tiguan, that’s hard, cheap plastic. Here though, it’s soft and yielding like in the front. Well done. And well done for this MG rear windows that doth go all the way down. Nice. No, let’s leave it. We have an electrically operated tailgate, which is good. And you got 507 L of boot space. But how many carry-on size luggage cases can you fit in there? Let’s find out. It’s not too bad, is it? Now, what’s handy is look, you don’t really have a load lip to lift stuff over. So, you can slide things in nice and easily. There’s a couple of nets there and there. Look, we keeping our cleaning equipment. Fold down the rear seats. You have to reach in like this. And then they fold down quite easily. Look. And the seat belts don’t snag either. And you got a continuous load floor. So, look, I can just slide things right to the front like that. Good stuff. The plug-in hybrid model has exactly the same boot space as the standard petrol car, which isn’t always the case. For instance, the Kia Sportage plug-in has about 50 L less room in the boot than the normal petrol model because its onboard charger takes up space under the boot floor. But despite that, the Kia still has 540 L of luggage space, which is still 33 more than you get in any MGHS. And that brings you on to five annoying things about this car. If you’re using Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, which most normal people will be doing, but you want to change the climate control, you have to hit this button down there to go to home. Brings you out of your Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. Then you have to hit that for the climate. And now you can operate things like the fan. And then I want to go back. So home again. Apple CarPlay. Apple Car. Come on. Oh, and you got to do all that while you’re driving. Oh, by the way, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, there’s no wireless, so you have to have wires in 2025. Brand new car. There’s nowhere to store the load cover. Oh, come on. Out underneath the false floor because the false floor is a bit false in raising your hopes. Look, you got false hopes because all you got is these little kind of cutaways there. And obviously that’s not that’s not really going to that’s not going to do really. If you have the automatic version of this car, you get a manual mode for the gearbox. Now, there’s no pedals on the steering wheel, which is a shame. Instead, you have to use the gear selector, so you move it across. But to change up a gear, you have to press it forward. And to go down a gear, you pull back. Now, Porsche used to do like this back in the day, but everyone complained for so long. And even they admitted they got it wrong and switched to do it back for up, forward for down, not forward for up, and back for down. That’s annoying. You get adaptive cruise control as standard on all models, so it’ll steer to keep you in lane. And if you got an automatic version, it will keep you a safe distance from the car in front. Unfortunately, with the manuals, it doesn’t have that last feature. I don’t know why because my Toyota GI is a manual in it. It has adaptive on the distance control as well. Oh well, let’s move on. MG was ranked 32 out of 32 manufacturers. So, last in the 2024 driver power owner satisfaction survey. It’s not good, is it? Still, that brings me to five good things about this car because yeah, have a look under here. You do get the peace of mind of a 7-year warranty. So, you know, if it does break, they should fix it free. The claimed economy figure on this car is 37 MPG. Obviously, it’s not going to get close to that, is it? It’s going to be under. Oh, no. Look, bizarrely, over the 5,290 mi this car has done, it’s averaging 40.4 MPG. Never in my life have I seen that before. A car doing more than the manufacturer claims. The plug-in hybrid version of the HS has a really big battery and decent electric only range. So you can do 76 mi on electric power alone. Also, you can do vehicle to load. So you can plug in household appliances into the car’s electric charging port and run them off it. Madness. The camera is a really high definition. Have a look at this. And you get 360° view. Plus, one of my favorite things is, let me whack it into drive. Go. Drive. Turn that off. Go. When you indicate, yay. Blind spot camera just like in a Tesla or a Kia EV6. That is really, really handy. However, unlike those cars, there’s no fully electric version of the MGHS. Instead, all models get a 1.5 L petrol engine on its own or with a hybrid system. The conventional hybrid has 224 horsepower and 340 new m of torque. And the plug-in model has 299 horsepower and 350 new m of torque. But this particular car is the standard non-hybrid petrol, which has just 169 horsepower and 275 new m of torque. And that doesn’t really sound like enough in a car as big as this. So, I’m going to launch the car. And while I’m doing it, I’m going to time it from naugh to 60. Supposed to take 9.6 seconds. Let’s see what it really does, though. It is a bit wet today. Brake boost. Oh, wheel spin. Go on, MG. So, you hear that? It’s quite an angry sound, but it’s quicker than MG said by quite some margin. Not 16, 8.6 seconds, not 9.6 6 seconds, which is quite impressive considering its relatively small engine has to move a 1.6 ton SUV down the road. Hybrid models are heavier still. The plug-in weighs almost 1.9 tons, but that car has more power and it can use regenerative braking to help it slow down. The standard petrol can’t do that. So, will that affect how well it performs in a brake test from 60 mph? Let’s find out. Looking for around 40 m cuz it’s wet. 3 2 1 braking now. 37 m in the wet is very impressive. I’ve been a motoring journalist for about 20 years and I’ve pretty much driven every new vehicle in that time. And based on that extensive experience, I think the best way for me to sum up what this MGHS feels like to drive is that it’s a car for people that aren’t that into cars. Now, that might seem a bit damning, but it’s not right because, you know, this car is easily maneuverable in town. It’s fine for the school run. Goes down the road well enough as well. The suspension is satisfactory. Sometimes a bit fidgety, but overall comfy enough. Yes, it doesn’t have the sophisticated feel as say a Volkswagen Tiguan, especially if you spec the Volkswagen Tiguan with adaptive dampers. However, this MG is significantly cheaper than that Volkswagen. The HS is available through Carw right now for just £23,572. Whereas the price for an entry- level Tiguan, including the carwow saving, is £34,010. That’s a difference of more than 10 grand. It’s the same story with the plug-in hybrids. The MGHS PHEV cost just over £28,000 when you buy through Car Wow. But the cheapest Tiguan plug-in hybrid, it costs almost £39,000 through CarWow. But the MG’s cheaper price is a giveaway for one big problem you notice when you drive it. The MG is reasonably relaxing when you’re on the motorway. It’s quiet enough. Bit of wind noise, that’s all. Though, to be fair, I think a Kia Sportage is quieter still. When you’re driving down a country road, this thing handles well enough. It does lean a little bit in the bends, but it never feels like it’s going to fall over. And really, this car can go around corners quicker than anyone who’s going to buy this type of car is ever going to want a corner. Me though, I personally would like something that’s a little bit sharper, even in a family SUV. And people like me are into cars want things like the steering, the brakes, and the throttle pedals to just feel responsive cuz that’s how you engage with the car. And you can just tell that MG’s engineers haven’t spent as much time honing those kind of controls than say Ford’s engineers did with the Ford Cougar because you just feel more connected to that car. As a result, here in the HS, while the controls are sort of acceptable, they’re certainly not delectable. But I guess MG knows that things like steering feel really aren’t a priority for people who aren’t into cars. Because if you’re merely buying for pragmatic reasons, this MGHS just fits the bill well enough. There are a few niggles though which will even annoy non-car fans. For instance, the front and rear pillars do create blind spots which is a bit annoying when you’re driving around town. Also, this 1.5 L turbo petrol in the petrol model doesn’t actually feel like it’s got a turbo fitted to it because it lacks the mid-range punch you get from other turbo engines. That means that really if you want to go quickly, you have to rev the nuts off it. A bit like an old MG sports car to be fair. Also, when you do rev the nuts off it, it can sound quite noisy. Now, if you want to go even faster, you can get the plug-in hybrid version of this car. Yes, it is quicker still, and it solves the noise problem because it’s quieter because you got assistance from the electric motor, and it’s got more power. And while the gear shift in the manual version of the petrol only model is a bit rubbery, this automatic is actually pretty slick. It uses dual clutches for very fast shifts, just like the gearboxes in Porsche sports cars. However, that’s not enough for someone like me to actually want this car. And neither is the fact that when I did a brake test in it, it stopped from 60 mph in the wet in 37 m, which is very impressive. But the real question is, would I recommend this car to someone who just wants good value for money, simple a family transport? And the answer to that question is absolutely yes. So then what’s my final verdict on the new MGHS? Should you avoid it, consider it, shortlist it, or just go right ahead and buy it? Well, if you want a practical family car that’s great value for money and you’re not that into cars, you should shortlist the MG.
Change your car with Carwow: https://bit.ly/Change-Your-Car-1607
Meet the new MG HS!
This mid-size SUV is currently the 5th best-selling car in the UK! The question is, why is it so popular? And does it offer enough to turn you away from competitors like the Volkswagen Tiguan, Kia Sportage and Mazda CX-5? Mat’s got his hands on one to find out.
Starting with the design, it’s a fairly good-looking car! At the front, there are creases in the bonnet to give it presence on the road, coupled with a huge grille and a sporty lower bumper. There are a couple of vents to give it more definition, but upon closer inspection, they are 100% fake! Along the side, there are chrome surrounds for the windows and on the roof bars, while at the back, there’s a small spoiler and a full-length light bar. Unfortunately, the fakery continues, with a pair of 100% fake exhaust pipes!
On the inside, the MG HS is a pretty nice place to be. There’s leatherette across the dash and the top of the doors, and there are good-sized infotainment and digital dial screens. There may be some scratchy plastics down low, but that’s what you would come to expect for a car in this price bracket. The buttons on the steering wheel feel expensive, and there is a good amount of storage throughout. Knee room in the back is also plentiful.
All editions of the MG HS come with a 1.5-litre petrol engine. The standalone car without hybrid support produces 169hp and 275Nm, while the self-charging hybrid produces 224hp and 340Nm. The top-of-the-range edition is the plug-in hybrid, which produces 299hp and 350Nm. The latter also allows for up to 76 miles of driving on electric power alone!
The entry-level MG HS can be purchased for £23,572 with the Carwow discount applied. It’s also not much more for the top-of-the-range PHEV, which costs £28,250, again with the Carwow discount applied. Given that this is around £10,000 cheaper than its key competitor, the Volkswagen Tiguan, is the MG HS the right car for you? Stick with Mat and see for yourself!
Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:48 History
01:35 Design
02:53 Interior
05:13 Back Seats
06:38 Boot
07:42 Annoying Features
09:26 Good Features
10:30 Engines & Hybrid
10:58 0-60mph & Brake Test
11:58 Driving Feel
12:34 Price
13:09 Driving
15:23 Verdict
