2024 MG MG3 Pricing and Specs

According to the manufacturer, your MG can not be run on E10 petrol. But the MG ZST can live with E5 fuel (petrol with up to five per cent ethanol content) if you can find it. Unfortunately, most ethanol blended fuels in Australia are up to 10 per cent (E10) so you should give them a miss.

Window tinting rules vary from state to state, but in Queensland (where UV light levels are higher than, say Tasmania) you can get away with slightly darker tint and still be legal. But, a window tint that is 20 per cent VLT (Visible Light Transference, or; the percentage of light the tint allows through) is only legal on privately-registered cars in QLD on the rear and rear-side windows. The front side windows cannot be tinted to less than 35 per cent VLT and the windscreen can not be tinted at all (beyond a factory tint) apart from the top 10 per cent of the glass area. So, no, a 20 per cent VLT tint all round would not be legal.

The default purchase for somebody looking for a mid-sized hybrid SUV is the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid. But if that’s too big, there’s the Toyota Yaris Cross Hybrid, C-HR Hybrid and even the Corolla Cross Hybrid which sounds like the marketplace is getting crowded but is really just a reflection of the appetite right now for cars like these. And that’s the catch; the waiting times for a brand-new example of some of these cars is out to many months and even years. So your plan to shop second-hand makes plenty of sense, but don’t expect any bargains in a market currently being dominated by lots of demand and less supply.

Beyond the Toyota brand (which has been doing hybrids longer than just about anybody else) there’s also the Mazda CX-30, Subaru XV Hybrid, Haval Jolion Hybrid, Kia Niro, Subaru Forester Hybrid, Nissan Qashqai e-Power, MG HS, Honda HR-V e and more. For something a bit bigger, try the Kia Sorento or Hyundai Santa Fe hybrids. There are others out there, too, that are probably bigger or more expensive than you need, but it's very much a growing scene in the Australian marketplace.

The popular MG3 is the model you’re referring to and you’re right; it hasn’t been locally crash-tested. But it does lack some important safety gear. Enough, we reckon, to knock it off your short-list. The MG lacks, for instance, important driver aids such as autonomous emergency braking, blind-spot monitoring and lane-keeping assistance, nor can these features be had by spending more on a fancier version.

Which leaves us with your other two choices, the Hyundai i30 and Kia Rio. Even then, you’ll need to option up beyond the base-model to get (some of) those safety features, but these are not expensive cars to begin with, so the jump might not be as bad as you think.

The other car to consider would be the SP Pure version of the Mazda 2. At $23,690, it’s not over-priced but it does have low-speed (up to 30km/h) autonomous emergency braking, blind-spot monitoring and lane-departure warning as well as rear cross-traffic alert.

And a manual transmission? The MG 3 no longer offers one, both the Hyundai i30 and the Kia Rio are available with a six-speed manual option. The Mazda 2 Pure SP is automatic only, but you can get a six-speed manual on the base-model Mazda 2.

I agree that youngsters taught to drive a manual car tend to be better drivers, but that’s not a universally held view these days. And the fact is that most young drivers will never be presented with a clutch pedal in the future, raising the question of why learn in the first place? The reality is that learning to drive a manual car gives you extra mechanical awareness and extra ability to multi-task behind the wheel.