The Day My Swifty Died … And I Had To Go Electric With The MG4 EV Urban

The Day My Swifty Died … And I Had To Go Electric With The MG4 EV Urban Support CleanTechnica's work through a Substack subscription, on Patreon, or on Stripe. Help us produce all of the high-quality, original content we publish week after week despite the challenges of content-scraping AI, antisocial media, inflation, and other hurdles. It was the phone call most fathers dread. “Dad, I’ve blown up the car!” I asked her what had happened to her 20 year old Suzuki Swift (Swifty). “So, the Swift has been making a rattly can noise on and off the whole time I’ve had it. Hubby described it as ‘pinging’, and put it down to dirty injectors or something else lowering the amount of firing. So, on that Thursday, I heard that noise, and needed fuel, but had a bunch of running around to do, so put the increase in the sound of ‘rattling can of stones’ down to getting low to the bottom of the petrol tank and sucking up dirt etc. “My last trip was to get my son from TAFE, and I knew he would be happy to help me fill the car, and as he’s on his learner’s, also drive home. I told him about the noise, but wasn’t too concerned, as I thought I knew what was going on. About a quarter of the way home, the car started not accelerating much when he pressed the accelerator and he asked me what might be going on. I had no idea, so said to just keep going, we were only 15 minutes from home. “By this stage, we were on the highway and the car was struggling to reach 100 km/hr. I suggested we just try to limp the car home, as the temp was also increasing to an alarming place on the gauge. We’d just pulled into the ‘slow’ lane on an uphill section of the highway when the car started slowing down and pressing the accelerator wasn’t achieving anything…. We finally came to a stop on a precarious section on the side of the road about 30 meters from a safe place to pull over. We had smoke coming in through all the vents and I honestly thought the car was about to catch fire. “We hopped out during a break in the traffic and opened the bonnet. Nothing looked out of place, but there was black smoke coming out from behind the engine, so I left it open to try and let it all cool down. When we tried to turn the engine over at this point, it wouldn’t budge (later after it had cooled down, it would turnover, but had zero compression and wouldn’t start). “A lovely guy in a Suzuki Jimny came and helped my son, Oscar, push us up to the safe spot further up the hill, and waited for my hubby to come and try and sort things out. While he’s not a mechanic, he has rebuilt engines and done considerable work on our classic cars (a 1965 HD GM Holden and a 1966 GM HR Holden). Once he came, he checked the car/engine, decided it was a catastrophic failure, and rang our roadside assistance through our insurance company (Shannon’s, as they are the best for classic cars) and organized a tow truck to tow the Swift home. “His best guess is that the engine was out of water; it got too hot, so the ring seals were rattling; and we ended up blowing the head gasket and warping the head. Our options were to fix/replace the engine; buy another shitbox; buy a reasonably priced second-hand ICE or EV. [Some of our readers may be quietly thinking — we don’t have any of these issues with electric cars. It was more damage than her mechanic husband and apprentice son could fix. So, it was on the back of a tow truck and off to the heavenly wreckers. The search began.] One amusing side note: “When Swifty died, I’d just filled her up with petrol. Seventy seven dollars AUS! After emptying the tank, we realized the only thing we had that could use that petrol was our lawnmower, so we’ll be in mower fuel for a while. We bought extra jerry cans and used the petrol pump to empty it. [I suggested she put the petrol on ebay. Their other car is a diesel. Incidentally, it is a Chinese made Tunza with a Cummins engine and BMW running gear based on an older-model Hilux.] “What I wanted was a second-hand EV, but the market was scarce, I needed to buy a ‘Swift equivalent sized’ new one, as they were around the price I wanted to spend, so I went sitting in cars to see what would ‘fit our family’. We’re all tall and broad shouldered. BYD Atto 1: I didn’t fit, shoulder smooched by B pillar. BYD Dolphin: I mostly fit, again B pillar made hubby not fit on the driver’s side. My hubby’s and my shoulders didn’t fit side by side. “BYD Atto 2. I fit; hubby mostly fit; again B pillar, and hubby and I fit side by side. But in the back seat there was very little leg room. So, it was up to the next price bracket. Although the Chery sales people were amazingly helpful, knowledgeable and a pleasure to deal with, the seats hurt my kidneys. Otherwise, I would have been happy to buy a car from them. We tried the MG ZS EV, but again, the seats were uncomfortable and the B pillar in the way. “The sales experience wasn’t so good either: the first second-hand MG ZS EV we looked at I asked the salesman for a state-of-battery health report. He said he had no idea what we were talking about. He did show us the MG4 Urban, and said backseat so big it echoed. He was not wrong!!! And hubby and I both fit in front seat easily. He showed us an older MG 4, but it proved to be too small again. He then showed us the bigger-battery MG4 Urban ex-demo, but got very cagey about the price, battery health, kilometers driven, etc. “Takeaway: old used car salesman tactics don’t work on EV buyers. We don’t want to buy “new tech to us” car from someone who “doesn’t know” how to sell one. However, we did decide that the MG 4 Urban looked like what we wanted. What we needed was a test drive. Preferably not from the Dodgy Brothers. [Treat yourself to some Aussie humour from the ’80s. Here is clip of the Dodgy brother’s car sales.] “So we found a better dealership.” “Jeremy at Hillcrest MG knew ‘everything’ and explained it all in very practical/functional way. He taught us about so much before we even sat in the car, then went through a bunch of things before we drove off. I asked him to do the first part of the test drive so I could concentrate on the screen and the ‘feel’ of the car while he explained everything, before getting behind the wheel myself. I’m so glad I did, because it was such a different driving experience there was no way I could pay attention to the screen while driving or stopping/starting. Amazing driving experience — I was in love and I was buying that ex demo car. “Side note: We wanted a used vehicle, as I don’t want to contribute further to the consumerism and throwaway economic model that seems so damaging to our country and the world these days. The workaround was getting ex demo. We have bought two brand new cars previously, one ex demo, and multiple used cars both through dealerships and private sales, and also one through a broker.” [Karryn went on to buy the MG 4 Urban ex demo for $29,990. Sadly, she only received $500 for Swifty. Her purchase is one of the 514 MG 4 Urbans sold in Australia in August — #12 on the Aussie hit parade. I contacted the salesperson, who told me that over 50% of their sales are now electric, and he sees an upward trajectory. He informs me that MG is bringing an electric ute the MG U9 to the Australian market. It can already be ordered and will be showcased at the Everything Electric Show in Sydney at the end of the month.] “The car works as well around ‘town’ as it does on the highway This is going to sound weird, but there’s also less sensory input. Besides the car having amazing sound deadening, for both road noise and other external noises, because the steering wheel isn’t directly connected to the wheels, I’m not getting constant feedback from the tyres/road, so it’s easier to hold onto. There are only two gears … forwards and backwards … so it is much easier to use and more responsive than even an auto transmission. I don’t have to wait for it to find a gear, or shift down to get power to overtake, take off from slow/stop, etc. Parking with the top-down camera is a breeze, big win there. Oscar (17 year old): “The Urban is a car made to drive. It’s so much fun because it’s so responsive and easy to drive, an even better ‘go-kart feel’ than the Swift, and that’s even in normal mode (mum won’t let me try sport mode). [That’s] unless we’re on the highway — then it’s boring because the car does just about everything for you.” “The internal temperature of the car also makes a big difference, so being able to cool the car down using the MG app before I get in definitely helps too. Talking about the app, being able to share the ‘keys’ with anyone is a huge help, as we have three drivers in the family and only two physical keys. Gone are the days we could just ‘have one cut’ apparently — a spare key costs around $700 for a new one! So, two of us have the physical keys, and Oscar will have the key on his phone (once he’s not a learner anymore/gets his provisional license). “I have only charged at home so far, usually from 8:00am–3:00pm. This gave me 20% (70% up to 90%) purely through solar and/or house battery (when it was shady). I have charging times set at those times in the app, as that’s when our panels put out enough power to supply the house plus whatever we put on top. Oh, and it’s just plugged into a normal wall socket.” And the last word belongs to Karryn, as her future becomes brighter and more electric: “OMG, the more I drive my car, the more I love it — seriously, so happy with our purchase.” Sign up for CleanTechnica's Weekly Substack for Zach and Scott's in-depth analyses and high level summaries, sign up for our daily newsletter, and follow us on Google News! Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here. Sign up for our daily newsletter for 10–15 new cleantech stories a day. Or sign up for our weekly one on top stories of the week if daily is too frequent. CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here. CleanTechnica's Comment Policy