I’ve been driving a 2024 MG HS for a little while now, and while it’s a solid car for the money — comfortable, spacious, and loaded with features — it also comes with its fair share of quirks. Some of them are small annoyances, others feel like software gremlins that somehow slipped through testing. None are deal breakers on their own, but together, they definitely test your patience.

So instead of grumbling to myself every time something odd happens, I decided to write them all down. If you’re thinking about getting one (or already own one and need to vent), here’s a full rundown of the 25 most annoying things about my 2024 MG HS.

Infotainment

1. One in twenty times I start the car with the radio as the last media selected, the radio starts untuned and plays loud white noise. Especially bad when you had it turned up loud.
2. The Android Auto button is often unresponsive, it takes 5-10 presses on the Android Auto button before it actually opens.
3. It takes a good 20-25 seconds for the infotainment system to start after you start the car.
4. When you start the car and put it in reverse before the infotainment system is fully loaded, it stretches and distorts the reverse camera video much wider than it should be, which makes it harder to tell where you’re going and what you might be backing into.
5. The reverse camera can take 5-8 seconds after engaging reverse, leaving you waiting for the display.
6. The clock jumps forward one hour randomly. Next time you start the ignition, it’s back to normal. The following time it’s jumped forward again.
7. When adjusting the volume from the steering wheel, sometimes the volume control gets stuck on adjusting the Mic volume, leaving you unable to adjust the music volume. It can take a full restart of the car to clear it.

“Smart” features

1. Speed limit detection constantly incorrectly detects side streets, “ahead” signs and schools zones and chimes at you.
2. Driver attention monitor constantly chimes at me for not watching the road, even with my full attention on the road.
3. Even on the shortest setting, the adaptive cruise control slows down well before the next car in front of you.
4. The cruise control user interface is unclear if cruise is enabled, especially when your foot is even slightly on the accelerator. IT switches between grey and blue and disabled/enabled, but will go grey again when your foot is touching the accelerator pedal.
5. Even if you disable all the distracting chiming and alerts, the chimes come back the next time you start the car. I understand this is probably a feature across a lot of cars.

Keys, windows and doors

1. Pressing the door lock button on the outside of the car can take up to 10 seconds to register, I’ve usually walked a few steps then double back cause I think I’ve missed the button, only for it to lock a moment later.
2. If you leave your keys in the car, it triple-taps the horn. Extremely loud when you’re parked in the garage.
3. Trying to get your window open just a crack is very difficult, it keeps trying to guess where you want your window and getting it wrong.
4. The window lock also locks the driver controls. So your kids playing with the switch in the back can still override you.

Driving

1. Phantom braking for forward collision detection system, on a clear road with clear weather. And it brakes HARD.
2. Adaptive cruise control constantly disables in even the slightest fog, rain or direct sunlight.
3. The lane-keeping and autosteer wavers side to side constantly, I find it easier to just switch it off.
4. The lane keeping struggles with black painted over lines with reflectivity. Though to be fair, so do I.
5. I constantly get “Take control of vehicle” messages and chimes, even though I am clearly in control of the vehicle.
6. Tyre pressure monitoring is buggy, something 210kPa is fine when warm, other times it’s too low, sometimes I have one tyre marked alerting when it’s in between the the pressure of two other tyres marked as fine.
7. If the door is slightly ajar, it keeps the car in park. Don’t try to drive it with the door ajar.

Climate control

1. Other than the front demister and on/off switch, the climate controls are fully touch screen operated.
2. You can’t adjust the temperature while the blowers are switched off, you have to switch the blowers on before adjusting the temp.

At the end of the day, the MG HS still offers a lot of value — you get a midsize SUV with loads of tech and comfort for a fraction of what some competitors charge. But living with it day to day means accepting a handful of frustrations that range from mildly irritating to how did this pass QA?

If MG sorted out even half of these bugs and refinements, the HS would go from “good for the price” to “genuinely great.” Until then, consider this list both a warning and a bit of therapy for those of us who’ve learned that sometimes the most “intelligent” cars can still be a little bit dumb.

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