UK-spec MG3 to debut on 17 May // Edited - No its not

29599 Views 100 Replies 31 Participants Last post by Windy, Jun 16, 2012

preetoo

Discussion Starter · Apr 1, 2012 (Edited)

It's all going to be happening at the Motor Trader Open Points Roadshow on 17 May at Whittlebury Hall near Silverstone.

"The Longbridge-based brand will be on hand to discuss franchising opportunities with dealers as it moves to fill its network ahead of this year’s launch of the all-new MG3 supermini which will make its UK show debut at the event."

The piece also suggests that MG Motor is redoubling its efforts to bring on board dealerships in critical areas across the country where they're currently absent such as Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds and Liverpool.

All very encouraging.

Here's the full article:

http://www.motortrader.com/industry-news/mg-joins-mt-open-points-line-up/

61 - 80 of 101 Posts

LeRich

· #61 · Apr 18, 2012

climbsyke said:
The below is NOT negative, its fact:

Its taking too long to come to market. The 1.5 is both underpowered and out of position compared to the competition in europe.

Saying the car is taking too long to come to market is opinion, not fact. You are also making assumptions regarding the 1.5 in that the engines in the China cars will be carried straight over to the Euro cars. Would it not be a fairer assumption to assume that in the 18 months or so between the car being launched in China and Europe that MG might be making significant changes to the powertrains to ensure the car is up to Euro class standards when it is launched?

The wider public have absolutely no idea the car even exists.

Do the wider public (in Britain?) need to know of the car's existence when they won't be able to buy one for months?

simcor

· #62 · Apr 19, 2012

If the reports are correct that the MG5 et all are going to have a turbo charged version of the 1.5 producing 135bhp then for the size of car the 3 is then I don't think it will be underpowered at all, 135bhp is pretty repectable for a smaller car than my ZTT which only has 135bhp and is plenty quick enough. I can imagine it being quite a little hot hatch and cheap to insure, so I think the 3 will go down a storm with youngsters wanting to buy a new cheap to insure hot hatch.

That is assuming they get it in a good low insurance group again like the MG6 is.

Out of choice for me though I would probably go with the 5 over the 3 but thats personal preference, if I was to buy either.

Simon

climbsyke

· #63 · Apr 19, 2012

I've been misunderstood before on the engine power front.
I agree that 135bhp is more than respectable in a car the size of the MG3/MG5.
135bhp from a turbo 1.5 is anything but.
That is the last I'll say on the subject. I am the only one here who thinks the 1.5 is massively underwhelming so I'll envy everyone else who can get excited by an engine that is barely more powerful than the three decades old engine it replaces.
The white MG3 with the 17" straights from the ZR/ZS looks absolutely brilliant by the way, but it does put in perspective just how big it is for a supermini.
A symptom of sharing parts of the Roewe 350 platform perhaps?

XShido

· #64 · Apr 19, 2012

What to say, British Motors, the MG official dealer here in Dominican Republic Lend me a MG3 v1.5, Manual Transmision, i deposit my car for maintenance, 10,000 km already.

This is the picture of the car in my office parking lot.

Same as mine, pretty sporty, awesome manual driving, even more exciting than AMT.
Enjoy

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SteveChilds

· #65 · Apr 20, 2012

Excellent

On my next holiday to the DR (been many, many times), I may have to pop into 'British Motors' and say Hi! Which could be fun if they don't speak much English! lol

My spanish isn't 'muy bien'

XShido

· #66 · Apr 20, 2012 (Edited by Moderator)

SteveChilds said:
Excellent On my next holiday to the DR (been many, many times), I may have to pop into 'British Motors' and say Hi! Which could be fun if they don't speak much English! lol

My spanish isn't 'muy bien'

Dont worry they do.
Ask dor Oscar or Sanquintin, they both will be able to help u, or give me a call, i could help u as well. // phone number removed

SteveChilds

· #67 · Apr 21, 2012

XShido said:
Dont worry they do.
Ask dor Oscar or Sanquintin, they both will be able to help u, or give me a call, i could help u as well. // phone number removed

Thanks for the offer

It will be a while before we are back in the DR, we had a daughter 6 months ago, so a) we're skint now and b) don't want to inflict a small child on a plane full of people for 9 hours!! We'd probably end up getting lynched.

I removed your phone number off your previous post as its never a good idea to put your phone number on an internet forum!

XShido

· #68 · Apr 21, 2012

SteveChilds said:
Thanks for the offer It will be a while before we are back in the DR, we had a daughter 6 months ago, so a) we're skint now and b) don't want to inflict a small child on a plane full of people for 9 hours!! We'd probably end up getting lynched.

I removed your phone number off your previous post as its never a good idea to put your phone number on an internet forum!

ok no prob,
when ur able, the offer stands up.

climbsyke

· #69 · Apr 22, 2012

rlxs said:
Saying the car is taking too long to come to market is opinion, not fact. You are also making assumptions regarding the 1.5 in that the engines in the China cars will be carried straight over to the Euro cars. Would it not be a fairer assumption to assume that in the 18 months or so between the car being launched in China and Europe that MG might be making significant changes to the powertrains to ensure the car is up to Euro class standards when it is launched?

Do the wider public (in Britain?) need to know of the car's existence when they won't be able to buy one for months?

Judging by this post, you believe that the car isn't taking too long to market? Can you confirm that? In your eyes what is an acceptable time frame for cars to be launched in Europe after the Chinese launch?

Do they need to know of the existence of the car before launch? I think the sales of the MG6 over here is all you need to look at when asking the question if the public need to know about a car before launch.
How well would the Playstation 4 sell if nobody knew it was available?
Or Blu ray if nobody bothered to tell the public about it?

In fact, the wider public aren't even aware that MG exists!

snifferdog1

· #70 · Apr 22, 2012

XShido said:
What to say, British Motors, the MG official dealer here in Dominican Republic Lend me a MG3 v1.5, Manual Transmision, i deposit my car for maintenance, 10,000 km already.

This is the picture of the car in my office parking lot.

Same as mine, pretty sporty, awesome manual driving, even more exciting than AMT.
Enjoy

That looks good! The 3 is really growing on me!

XShido

· #71 · Apr 23, 2012

I agree with this part. Here for example just a few... knowers? of the european car market know about MG, for other people its just a new brand, sometimes people its looking at the car, and the car logo MG, and they still ask me whats the brand... i feel like punching sometimes =D

climbsyke said:
In fact, the wider public aren't even aware that MG exists!

Littlened

· #72 · Apr 23, 2012

climbsyke said:
I've been misunderstood before on the engine power front.
I agree that 135bhp is more than respectable in a car the size of the MG3/MG5.
135bhp from a turbo 1.5 is anything but.
That is the last I'll say on the subject. I am the only one here who thinks the 1.5 is massively underwhelming so I'll envy everyone else who can get excited by an engine that is barely more powerful than the three decades old engine it replaces.
The white MG3 with the 17" straights from the ZR/ZS looks absolutely brilliant by the way, but it does put in perspective just how big it is for a supermini.
A symptom of sharing parts of the Roewe 350 platform perhaps?

To be fair, I think 135 from a 1.5t is probably around the correct figure. VW are getting 180 from a 1.4, but that has both a turbo and a supercharger on it I think.

When you think. It has the power of a 1.8 NA, but the fuel economy of a 1.5. Cars like the Focus come with a 1.6 that has 105bhp, now that's underwelming.

I'd certainly expect a hot version of either engine with around 150bhp.

SteveChilds

· #73 · Apr 23, 2012

XShido said:
I agree with this part. Here for example just a few... knowers? of the european car market know about MG, for other people its just a new brand, sometimes people its looking at the car, and the car logo MG, and they still ask me whats the brand... i feel like punching sometimes =D

Well, I can sort of understand it in a country like the DR, it wasn't a household name there before.

But the problem the UK has at the moment is number of models on sale. There aren't enough models really to warrant TV advertising as its so expensive and other than a reasonably big advertising campaign online when the 6 launched, there wasn't really anything else.

Really, the 3 and the 5 could do with being launched at the same time so they could benefit from a combined advertising budget, certainly a car like the 3 needs to be promoted to more people than they did with the 6.

They could really do with a way of promoting the cars to millions of people at the same time, whilst being cost effective. Its a tricky one!

Mike

· #74 · Apr 23, 2012

Is the MG3 or 5 going to be built/ assembled at Longbridge alongside the 6? The capacity is there to do so.

LeRich

· #75 · Apr 23, 2012

climbsyke said:
Judging by this post, you believe that the car isn't taking too long to market? Can you confirm that? In your eyes what is an acceptable time frame for cars to be launched in Europe after the Chinese launch?

You have pretty much side-stepped everything I questioned and again, you are making assumptions. Whether I think the MG3 is taking too long to come to market is larger irrelevant. What I (or anyone) judges to be an acceptable timescale and whether it is being over-stepped by MG is simply opinion. Ultimately, the car will be ready when it's ready.

Do they need to know of the existence of the car before launch? I think the sales of the MG6 over here is all you need to look at when asking the question if the public need to know about a car before launch.
How well would the Playstation 4 sell if nobody knew it was available?
Or Blu ray if nobody bothered to tell the public about it?

In fact, the wider public aren't even aware that MG exists!

Who mentioned the MG6? Playstation 4?? Blu Ray??? Again you haven't answered my question directly and have used rhetoric to attempt to divert away from doing so.
So, to repeat: Do the wider public (in Britain?) need to know of the car's (to clarify, the MG3's) existence when they won't be able to buy one for months?

SteveChilds

· #76 · Apr 23, 2012

Mike said:
Is the MG3 or 5 going to be built/ assembled at Longbridge alongside the 6? The capacity is there to do so.

Nothing's been confirmed yet, but I'm pretty sure both will be assembled here, at least initially. Once volumes get sufficiently high that they can start to use the paint shop again, they will be a position to build a lot more of the cars here simply by the nature of painting a car requires it to be in a less assembled state.

I'd imagine initally, the cars would simply come over in more bits, rather than UK components sourced simply down to the fact that he components already in use have been tested, as time goes by I'd hope that UK suppliers would take over, but seeing as the largest bit of the car would be coming over from China anyway, it wouldn't be too much of an issue to include the rest of the parts as well.

That said, if the parts are specific to the UK/EU models (seats, trim etc..), then i can see these being sourced locally.

Again, all this takes time to setup and I don't see the above happening for the next 3 years or so at the earliest (at least the UK parts sourcing), the painting may happen sooner, depends when it become economically viable to start using the paint shop.

At least when we get to that level, we'll have more in the way of options and colours available to choose from as the cars would be able to be built to order.

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XShido

· #77 · Apr 24, 2012

2

Posting a few picks,
This pic has about 20mins, My MG3 on the left side and my mother MG550 on the right. both down of the apartment.

And this is my mothers mg550 on the inside, i took a ride with her this morning.

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48365

· #78 · Apr 24, 2012

Any more pics of the smokestone dash/interior ?

I didn't know other colours were available.

BLMC

· #79 · Apr 24, 2012

ROVER-25X said:
Any more pics of the smokestone dash/interior ?

I didn't know other colours were available.

It's an MG 550 mate, not MG6.

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JLR MGR

· #80 · Apr 24, 2012

The MG3 looks OK it the dark and a bit blurred! Still hasn't got rid quite of the far eastern look, the headlights and indicator units just don't sit comfortably with the rest of the front. Needs a more European look to stand out against the sea of although very bland, much loved VW stuff over here.

MG550 dash is still awful, they really need to redesign this.

61 - 80 of 101 Posts

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