Probably most of you guys don't know or care that MG brought a new hatchback a couple of years ago (The "3"). But for any of you that do and may have even thought for 30 seconds about even considering buying one because of price and spec (Highly doubt it) you get what you pay for.

My dad bought one back in mid 2012, went into my local MG dealer on Wednesday for the engine management light being on and the engine sounding like a bag of sh*t.

Verdict today was that it has stretched the cam chain!! The car has done 26k miles!! There excuse for it was "Poor manufacturing" No joke, that is MG's reason for a cam chain stretching!

Car is also well within warranty.

Monday they will decide what they are going to do. (Change chain and associated parts I assuming) but should in all cases replaced the engine as a whole because who knows what else is about to imminently fail... So my dad will settle for no less than a replacement engine or a considerable refund.

However this is yet another issue among issues with this car and the reason given 90% of the time is "Poor manufacturing". Eg, Car is always damp, turn on the de-misters and car steams up instantly (Seals between engine bay and de-mist ducting poorly fitted.)

Airbag light has been on now 5 seperate occasions. (Wiring loom under drivers seat faulty)

Water leak from engine (water pump at 11k miles)

3 replacement alloys (Alloys are extremely brittle and one shattered going up a roadworks "ramp" at 5-10mph... Others shattered in small potholes)

Steering geometry is horrendous and "shelfs" front tyres (Tracking is set perfect but turning scrubs the tyres out on the inner edge due to poor steering geometry)

I'm not saying do not buy one, but showing you get what you pay for as they are extremely cheap for the kit you get.

So lets see what they say Monday :)

Edited 20 November, 201510 yr by xumado

That's Chinese manufacturing for a set (very low) price :(

this upsets me more than it should, when MG/Rover kicked the bucket, I was glad that some outside investor hadn't really got their hands on a british brand and ruined it (even if they tried).

When I heard the MG brand was being resurected I groaned, simply because it should have been lay to rest, and also because they were trying to enter a very well developed market with brand new products and engineering, like a kid that was fresh out of college and wanted a shot at the world like the big boys.

What you've said just proves my thinking, yeah they can do what the big boys do, but not nearly as well as the people should expect. This is why there are no new car manufacturers anymore, unless you are producing something that is so niche, like the Tesla or even the Smart car.

I hope that your dad gets the resolution he want's and I hope that MG fix their faults rather than blindly replacing inherently faulty parts with inherently faulty parts.

Mind you the one Jason Plato ran in the BTCC seemed to work/handle well :)

Mind you the one Jason Plato ran in the BTCC seemed to work/handle well :)

Yes it did but that was the MG6, that isn't actually too bad, the 1.8/1.8 turbo petrol are quite reliable although not too economical and the 1.9 bmw diesel is brilliant.

It's this revamped K-series engine they're using in the MG3, Ill be surprised if most people don't know about the amazing K-series... XD

Its now called the N-series and its a gutless 1.5 non turbo with variable valve timing with a whopping 105bhp... After 26k miles its averaged 31 mpg with a huge mix of all driving situations.

Ah! I knew it was an "MG"

how that standard of manufacturing can be acceptable is astonishing, the car clearly wasnt put together properly. take your money and run, there is no long life plan for those cars

Had a trip down to the MG dealer myself today rather than chat with them over the phone to have a look at the car and ask a few for questions.

Firstly, I asked about the stretched chain and was there any self adjusting with the tensioner as it has VVT, turns out it has used up all 25mm on adjustment on the tensioner.. And they estimated that the chain had started stretching at around 15k miles. One of the technicians was under the opinion that they may have to recall some customer cars to perform checks on them to see whether this is across the board on the N-series engine.. If it is, full recall of them.. :S

I asked a few other things about how the valve timing functions on the particular engine and what the fault code that the car had picked up (Technical shiz I'm sure most of you guys don't care about)

But not really to my surprise, the technicians there were expecting things like this to happen. They were saying there's components on them that are just cr@p so are waiting to have to do them under warranty.

Pretty sad, that the 3 has been made this way after the 6 was actually a pretty good car. Just something else to further tarnish a pretty bad reputation..

Edited 21 November, 201510 yr by xumado

The 6 is even worse. Even the press fleet - the cars which get serviced all the time and fussed over to make them perfect - had problems. The only person I know who bought one has has no end of issues.

The 6 is even worse. Even the press fleet - the cars which get serviced all the time and fussed over to make them perfect - had problems. The only person I know who bought one has has no end of issues.

Oh really? have they got a petrol or diesel? I work with 2 people who both have one with the bmw derived diesel engine and one of them has cracked the 120k mark without a hitch

Edited 21 November, 201510 yr by xumado

They have both, the diesel isn't a BMW engine though.

We had one in on test with issues, I didn't have it so I can't remember what they were. But we were far from the only ones.

I thought it was ok to drive and looked alright but it felt so dated inside. The MG3 felt far more modern, again not bad to drive, but behind the pack in almost every way.

It's a shame, the money's there to do it properly but the corners are cut so hard that what's left is circular. It's almost like the UK market presence is a token gesture, so you can tell Chinese consumers that this iconic British brand is sold in the UK. There's a long road ahead to get the cars up to the standards expected by European buyers though.

Scanned through Twitter. That MG6 spent two of its first nine months off the road.

They have both, the diesel isn't a BMW engine though.

We had one in on test with issues, I didn't have it so I can't remember what they were. But we were far from the only ones.

I thought it was ok to drive and looked alright but it felt so dated inside. The MG3 felt far more modern, again not bad to drive, but behind the pack in almost every way.

It's a shame, the money's there to do it properly but the corners are cut so hard that what's left is circular. It's almost like the UK market presence is a token gesture, so you can tell Chinese consumers that this iconic British brand is sold in the UK. There's a long road ahead to get the cars up to the standards expected by European buyers though.

Scanned through Twitter. That MG6 spent two of its first nine months off the road.

MG are adamant that its the same old 1.9 bmw diesel they used in the the zs/zt just updated?

And I've driven my dads MG3 and in my opinion it drives horrible around town, or anywhere that hasn't got new smooth roads but you can throw it around a little.

If you want a laugh they've brought out the the MG8 (I think) in china and it is litterally a carbon copy of the rover 75 XD

Edited 21 November, 201510 yr by xumado

I delivered a couple of 6's not long after they first released them. My impression was "not THAT bad, felt a bit like a Mk1 Mondeo. Although, I don't think I'd want to spend that much on a Mk1 Mondeo.

I've never driven a 3, but from what I've heard, half decent car, crap engine. Shame really, because the K-series it was derived from could, so easily, have been one of the all time greats if it wasn't for the cheap parts they made it from.

MG are adamant that its the same old 1.9 bmw diesel they used in the the zs/zt just updated?

And I've driven my dads MG3 and in my opinion it drives horrible around town, or anywhere that hasn't got new smooth roads but you can throw it around a little.

If you want a laugh they've brought out the the MG8 (I think) in china and it is litterally a carbon copy of the rover 75 XD

MG said on the launch that it's their own engine (that doesn't necessarily mean much, press kits stretch the truth at the best of times). But the ZS and ZT used a 2.0-litre BMW engine, and the last Rovers to use a 1.9 used the Peugeot-Citroen one. BMW doesn't have a 1.9-litre diesel engine, and I'd hope it isn't a rehash of the old PSA stuff as that's older than the average MG Owner's Club member.

The 75 lived on as the Roewe 750 in China, it's amazing how long they've stuck with it. But it wasn't badly engineered to start with.

But China does get some lingerers. You could buy a car based on the Mk1 SEAT Toledo until last year, and the Toledo is based on a Mk2 Golf.

"the money's there to do it properly but the corners are cut so hard" welcome to England

...

...

But China does get some lingerers. You could buy a car based on the Mk1 SEAT Toledo until last year, and the Toledo is based on a Mk2 Golf.

That'll be this beauty..

Aha! Tbh the MG3 test isnt much better.. Jk theyve gone in leaps and bounds from then

Id say you'd stand a better chance in a polo

Edited 22 November, 201510 yr by xumado

Come on lets face it when Rover were still going they produced poorly built crap ( I wish they had produced decent cars maybe we would still have a car industry) lets face it its the same with the new MG's as well why buy a new one of those you would be better off buying a second hand car from most of the major manufacturers than a new MG you could save yourself more money just with less depreciation, better reliability etc. You could probably just burn your money it would be cheaper in the long run (well almost).

We do have a car industry in the UK. Jaguar and Land Rover are domestic brands doing very well globally, same with MINI. And we produce cars for Honda, Nissan, Toyota and GM. Obviously that big-volume production lines the pockets of foreign companies, but it also creates jobs. And that's before you count all the R&D work which takes place in the UK.

yes correct but regrettably they are all owned by foreign owners (perhaps thats why they produce decent cars now, ie reliable and and well built unlike MG and Rover used to be) correct they are still made here thankfully at least.

This is still on going,

They can't do any work to it whatsoever eg, investigate further engine damage until the end of next week because they don't have and can't yet get the tool to lock the engine and remove the chain.. XD

If it's a known problem, you'd of thought they would have all the tooling required to do the job ??? If it's coming from China it won't be till middle of January till it arrives, if my experience of getting bits from there is anything to go on !!

Right ladies this has been concluded, the entire head, valetrain, cam chain, tensioner, water pump has been replaced. It has encoured a 3 year 60k mile warranty ...lets see how it goes

Edited 6 December, 201510 yr by xumado

After 10k on the road? Is it made by BL?

Get it on Gumtree asap and buy something decent :)