MG SUV Range

If you previously owned large capacity non-turbo cars (such as a V8 or large six-cylinder) you might notice that some newer, smaller-engined cars with turbochargers don’t always have the urgency you remember when pulling into traffic or leaving a green light. That said, turbo motors are less laggy than they’ve ever been thanks to new technology and lighter turbocharger internals, but they can still feel as though they’re taking a second to really get going when you put your foot down. But they shouldn’t make you feel like you’re putting your life in danger every time you try to merge into traffic.

Which means you may have a problem with your car or, depending on your expectations, maybe not. Car dealers have a bit of a reputation of delivering the old “they all do that, sir” line when confronting dissatisfied owners, but you don’t need to leave it at that.

You can ask for a written report showing the car’s boost graph and compare that with what the factory says the car should deliver. But an even simpler way is to find somebody else with the same make and model and ask if you can drive the two back-to-back. Perhaps the dealer has a mechanically identical car on their used-car lot that you could take for a test drive. If your car is noticeably slower to launch than the other, then you may have a mechanical or even a software fault that is affecting performance.

The other thing to remember here is that (unless you bought a manual version) your car has a dual-clutch transmission and these can also sometimes feel a bit slow to get cracking when you launch them. Again, the performance of the transmission should be able to be electronically checked and verified, so don’t rule that out, either.

Okay, before you do anything else, take the keys and hide them so nobody can drive the car. If the rear wheels are randomly locking at any speed, you have a major safety issue on your hands and the car should be towed back to the dealership from which you bought it.

The cause of this could be anything from a faulty wheel bearing, a park-brake with a mind of its own or a problem in the transmission, suspension or braking system. But what ever it is, the car can not be driven anywhere in the interests of your and everybody else’s safety.

I would be talking to MG’s Australian customer service department to arrange for it to pick the car up and either sort it out under warranty or replace the vehicle. MG also needs to figure out whether this is a one-off problem, or something that might be a problem in other examples of this model. At which point, a safety recall may even be required.

This model MG is designed and set-up to run as an EV for as much of the time as possible. That’s how it saves fuel and keeps running costs and tailpipe emissions as low as possible. To do that, the petrol engine mainly works to keep the battery charged, rather than actually drive the car’s wheels (which it can, but only in limited situations).

So, what you’re probably experiencing is the engine whirring away independently of the car’s actual road speed, as it attempts to keep the battery charged while going up a hill where the energy required is greatest.