Living with an MG HS: everything we love and hate about this affordable SUV

This is our MG HS, and we’ve been given the keys to this SUV for three months to find out what it’s like to live with. On paper, it represents great value for money – offering similar levels of standard equipment to a Volkswagen Tiguan for a whole lot less cash.

You can find out more about this car’s spec in the first report, or check out our comparison between the MG HS and the Volkswagen Tiguan to see which is best for you.

For now though, here are five things we like about our MG HS, as well as five things we don’t.

Remember, you can buy a brand new or used car right here on Carwow. And you can sell your car, too. We’re here to help you through every step of your car-changing journey.

Five good things about the MG HS

Let’s start with the positives, because there’s a lot to like about the MG HS.

1. It feels more posh than the price suggests

Considering this car costs less than £30,000, making it over £5,000 less than the equivalent Volkswagen Tiguan, the MG HS actually feels quite nice inside. There are plenty of soft-touch materials, and the leather steering wheel feels good as well.

2. Excellent practicality

Our MG HS was being used by a member of the YouTube team, and during his time with the car he was blessed with his first baby. Thankfully, the HS is more than spacious enough to accommodate all of the child-related kit and clobber, and the rear doors open nice and wide which makes it much easier to fit a child seat.

3. It’s fuel-efficient

Our MG HS is fitted with the basic 1.5-litre petrol engine and an automatic gearbox, and MG says it should return 37mpg. Well, we actually managed to average 40mpg during our time with the car, not bad for something with no hybrid assistance.

4. Plenty of safety tech

This car comes loaded with features which make driving easier, more relaxing and safer. There’s adaptive cruise control to take the strain out of motorway driving, and you also get blind spot cameras which pop up on the screen when you indicate. It’s all reassuring when you’ve got a newborn on board.

5. It looks smart

We had a few comments from friends and family pointing out how good they thought the HS looked, especially in this red paint. Some even confused it for an Audi, which is pretty good going for a budget-friendly SUV.

Five annoying things about the MG HS

Not everything is perfect about the MG HS, here are five things which we found annoying about this car.

1. Irritating tech

The infotainment system in the HS is pretty slow to start up, fiddly to use and unresponsive to your touch, and this is especially annoying when you have to control all of the climate setting through it. You also have to exit your smartphone mirroring to change the temperature.

2. Visibility woes

This isn’t the easiest car to see out of. The A-pillars are quite wide and the massive door mirrors also create a blind spot. Then you have a narrow rear window which makes it tricky to see out of the back when parking. You do end up relying on that camera system.

3. Sloppy suspension

The HS is pretty comfortable on the motorway, but around town and on country roads the suspension is a bit wayward. You get a pretty sharp thud as you hit a bump, then it takes a couple of seconds to settle down again. A Skoda Karoq is more comfortable.

4. Hesitant gearbox

The dual-clutch gearbox fitted to this version of the MG HS is a little bit lurchy and slow to respond when you put your foot down, making it tricky to nip out at junctions or manoeuvre at low speeds. The hybrid and plug-in hybrid versions are much smoother.

5. Stopping the bongs

There’s no shortcut to turn off things like the speed limit warning or lane-keeping assist, you have to dig through menus on the infotainment screen. Dacia makes this easy with the dedicated “My Safety Perso” button, so why couldn’t MG come up with something similar?

Our time with the MG HS is almost up, so make sure to check back soon for our final verdict.

How are we testing the MG HS?

Our MG HS long termer has been with our Associate Producer for the last three months. He was using it to ferry kit and crew between shoots before his firstborn came along, and since then it’s been put to work as a family hauler. Talk about stress testing.

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Living with an MG HS: introduction

This is our new MG HS, a family-friendly SUV which is meant to offer a low-cost alternative to cars like the Volkswagen Tiguan and Kia Sportage. It certainly has a tempting price tag, but we want to know if it’s cheap and cheerful, or just cheap.

To find out, one member of the Carwow video team will be using this HS everyday for the next few months. It’ll be put to work ferrying kit to shoots, as well as dealing with everyday driving duties. Let’s take a closer look at the spec.

We’ve got a top-of-the-range Trophy model, and that means it gets a seriously impressive list of standard equipment. All versions of the HS get a 12.3-inch screen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, adaptive cruise control and a reversing camera. Our car then gets a 360-degree camera, heated front seats, a power tailgate and wireless phone charging on top of this.

You can choose between three different engines in the HS. There’s an impressive plug-in hybrid with over 70 miles of electric range, as well as a self-charging hybrid. We’ve gone for the entry-level 1.5-litre petrol version with an automatic gearbox.

This is the cheapest engine option, and it puts out a respectable 170hp. It should also be able to return around 40mpg, but we’ll see what it actually delivers over the coming months.

The only optional extra on this car is the striking Dynamic Red paintwork, which adds £695 to the price. This brings the total to £29,190, however if you want to get the best deal then head to Carwow where you can currently save an average of almost £3,000 on a new MG HS.

That makes it over £5,000 cheaper than an entry-level Volkswagen Tiguan, and about the same as a basic Nissan Qashqai. You can also lease a new HS just like ours for £260 per month at the time of writing, and you can get a used 2024 example with low miles for as little as £25,000.