MG3 review

Driving position 

We were really quite excited to get back into a small hatchback after so long. Usually one of the beauties of driving such a mini car is that you can sit nice and low.  

Unfortunately, you can’t sit that low in the MG3 Hybrid + – and it’s lacking in lumbar support. But for a starting price of £18,495 brand-new, we can’t complain too much. 

Once you’re sat as low (or high) as you like, you can adjust the steering wheel up and down to get nice and comfy. It’s a slightly strange shape but the thin rim makes it easy to hold, and our Trophy spec car had a heated wheel, which is a nice touch in a car of this price.  

It’s a little strange the steering wheel doesn’t adjust towards or away from you, as it does in most modern cars, but moving the seat is a good enough workaround. It’s still a bit like being in a mid-90s hatchback though. 

Tech and features 

Once you’re seated and ready to go, one of the first things you’ll notice is the seven-inch digital driver’s display in front of you. It’s home to a logical design with all the information spread out.  

This includes things like your speed, fuel range, selected gear, how many kWs you’re using, and whether the car’s in EV (electric vehicle) or HEV (hybrid electric vehicle) mode – it switches between them automatically as you drive. 

Sitting proudly in the centre of the dashboard is a wide 10.25-inch infotainment display that runs MG’s intuitive software and can be connected to via your smartphone using Apple CarPlay or Android Auto.  

This is a wired-only connection and there’s no wireless phone charger either (but one USB-A and a USB-C port). Again, a little disappointing, but you can let the MG3 off for being a budget car. 

Another reason its budget nature is a good thing is that it retains physical buttons to control a wide range of features from the air-con to the window de-mister. That’s a big tick in our book.  

Engines and power 

Whether you go for the SE or Trophy trim, you get the same 1.5-litre four-cylinder engine mated to a 100kW electric motor. Now, this may not sound like much, but it produces a healthy 194hp and is capable of reaching 62mph in a relatively brisk eight seconds. 

To put that into perspective, its rivals the Renault Clio and Toyota Yaris only have 140hp and 130hp respectively. 

The MG3 puts its power through a three-speed automatic gearbox to the front wheels. And, since the engine is mostly there to charge up the batteries that power the electric motor (which does most of the heavy lifting), that’s all it needs. 

And when you do need to put your foot down, the engine springs into life – albeit with quite a drone – and gives you a bit more punch. 

There are three different drive modes on offer: Normal, Eco and Sport. You also get three strengths of regenerative braking, with the strongest being close to one-pedal driving but still needs some manual input to come to a stop.

During our time with the car, we left it in Normal mode for most of the time and this balanced the throttle response with a quiet and refined drive.  

But if you fancy flicking it into Sport, the engine will wake up and make a bit more noise, although it’s still pretty quiet.  

Having said that, the MG3 is nippy for this type of car and can be a great laugh down the tight and twisty back roads we have in this country. 

Handling and ride comfort 

Driving the MG3 Hybrid+ made us remember just how great superminis are for the UK.  

Whether it’s threading down a tight B-road or parallel parking on your local high street, life with this car is so much easier than in a big SUV that many of us drive around.  

In fact, we’re going to say it... the MG3’s handling reminds us of the zippy and confidence-inspiring nature one would experience in the first-generation Ford KA.  

You can place it anywhere you want on the road and it copes round bends really well. And the Kumho Solus HS63 tyres wrapped around our test car’s – dinky by today’s standards – 16-inch wheels did just the trick.  

The tyre sidewall-to-wheel ratio is rather impressive too, so the ride felt settled over bumps in the road.  

Boot space 

Boot space in the MG3 won't be winning any awards at 293 litres, which is down on the Clio hybrid’s 300 litres but up on the Yaris’ 286 litres. 

There’s also quite a high loading lip to the boot itself, so loading heavier items in may be tricky. 

During our test, we were able to fit three large supermarket bags for life full of shopping in the boot with no issues, so a couple small suitcases shouldn't be a problem. 

If you need to store large items, the rear seats do fold down. But unlike most modern cars, it’s a rear bench that folds down in one, so you nobody can sit in the back with the flatpack furniture. It does expand the available boot space to 983 litres in total though. 

Under the boot floor, you'll find the car’s battery and tyre inflation kit, but there is a small storage area that we reckon could fit a large loaf of bread and a few family packs of Percy Pigs. 

Rear seats 

As you’d expect from a car just 4,113mm long (shorter than a Ford Fiesta), rear-seat space isn’t the best. In fact, if you’re north of six-foot, you are going to struggle on longer journeys. 

But for shorter journeys, most people would be fine in back there, as long as there isn’t any fighting over the single USB-A port back there.  

Storage solutions 

It might be small, and the boot might not be the biggest, but storage options in the cabin are decent.  

There are deep door bins in the front that are great for large bottles, and in the centre there’s a really large storage area for wallets, keys, phones and mints. 

The back also gets a lot of nice storage space too. All in all, for a car this small, MG has managed to maximise the available cubby holes. 

Safety 

Being so new, the MG3 is yet to be independently tested by Euro NCAP, but it’s packed with lots of safety features to work in its favour. These include autonomous emergency braking, lane-keep assist and a speed limit warning system. 

All of these live within the MG Pilot settings and are thankfully very easy to turn off if you prefer a more analogue drive.  

We say ‘thankfully’ because some of the car’s ‘bings’ and ‘bongs’ can be unnecessarily aggressive – especially the driver attention system, which is the most over-sensitive system we’ve ever used. Turn your head to check traffic at a junction and it goes off. 

The previous MG3 scored just three out of five stars, but we reckon with these new features, and on the account most other modern MGs score five stars, this should fare better. 

Fuel economy 

Thanks to its nifty onboard self-charging hybrid system, the MG3 is a highly efficient little car and is perfect for both those sticking to town miles or people doing lots of motorway driving. 

MG claims it’ll return up to 62.8mpg and in our testing (on a mixture of country roads, motorways and towns in Normal mode), we saw an average of 55mpg – a solid score for a car of its size. 

This equated to around 450 miles on a tank of petrol (Eco will get more), which is always welcomed in this day and age of increasing fuel prices.  

In fact, you barely notice the fuel gauge going down thanks to the electric motor doing most of the work. 

Reliability 

MG offers industry-leading seven-year warranties on all its cars. So, even if you pick up a used one, yours could still be under warranty. 

Overall reliability is pretty good, and has only got better since the Chinese company, SAIC Motors took over the brand in 2007. 

With regular maintenance and servicing, we see no need why you’d experience any major issues with the MG3, as is true with most modern cars. 

Insurance groups 

Since there are two different MG3 trims, there are two different insurance groups it falls into: 23 in SE trim and 24 for the Trophy. 

This is relatively low considering the features and the power of this car, but the exact cost will vary a lot depending on your personal circumstances.