News : MG launches Approved Used Programme

MG Motor UK is launching its Approved Used Car Programme with a comprehensive range of benefits for customers, including a 130 point check on every car. Currently, MG is only extending the scheme to the MG6 (and not the TF), which are being offered by MG Dealers at prices starting from £9995.

Customers will also benefit from a complimentary seven-day drive away insurance and every car sold under the MG Approved Used Car Programme will have an HPI check and a certificate to verify the car’s mileage. Every car will have a full main dealer service history and a stamped service book will be handed to the customer on delivery of the car.

Clearly, with the glut of ex-Avis rental cars about to hit the market, MG is keen to manage residuals and also ensure that as many cars as possible remain within the Dealer Network. The Approved Scheme means that the company, which still struggles to sell meaningful amounts of new cars, will be able to compete more effectively in the nearly-new market – and, hopefully, generate more showroom foot-fall.

Richard Bourton, MG Motor UK’s Business and Used Car Sales Manager, said: ‘Initially most of the cars in the programme will be less than a year old and with a reasonable mileage. They will be great buys for people wanting to get into an MG6 and the cars will still have the balance of the original warranty, AA European Breakdown Assistance and the higher-spec models will have lifelong subscription to Traffic Master.’

Keith Adams

39 Comments

  1. Sounds sensible to me,instead of dafties putting them on ebay.People bemoan residuals on a mere £16k car,buy one of these then.

  2. Probably makes more sense to buy a nearly new one from this MG Approved scheme rather than new outright. I wonder if AVIS are replacing their first batch of MG6 Hire cars with more?

  3. This is a step in the right direction. I still think that residuals will drop off the edge of a cliff without more effort to sell new ones.

  4. Knowing someone who works for a car hire firm, I don’t believe they are very reliable. Apparently the majority of them have had multiple issues regarding the clutch, overheating, electrical faults, and warning lights randomly lighting up etc. This is why the company wants shot of them. Not good news for the buyer if this is the case. Anyone else heard about the reliability of these?

  5. I have a friend who hired an MG6 (he insisted on getting a diesel) and they assured him it WAS a Diesel! Should have talked to me beforehand! Anyway he very nearly put diesel fuel in, but realised it was a petrol engine at the last moment… Lucky escape for the car & him.

  6. @10 Mark… You are correct of course, I reminded my friend that a diesel sounds completely different to a petrol engine. Doesn’t say much for the AVIS staff member though – some re-training required?

  7. It’s hard for us to comprehend that kind of mistake because we’re interested in cars, I suppose

    @Keith – YET! 🙂

  8. ‘ I wanted a diesel and they gave me an MG6’

    I thought that was a joke relating to how hard Avis make it for you to get what you want!

  9. So far as I know, Avis has suffered 2 clutch failures. Both were put down to ‘Pilot Error’.Idiotic drivers hell-bent on destroying the car. I’ve seen it done myself by a member of this forum……..

  10. Never seen one of these until the other day. Then 6 at once – on a transporter. All unregistered.

    CP

  11. @15. It’s a hire car, innit. The sole existence of which is to give otherwise responsible, caring drives the excuse to put a car through absolute hell with no consequences.

    I’m guilty of it too, I am sure a Kia Picanto isn’t supposed to do motorway speeds with four people in it…

    …around roundabouts.

  12. @9 I guess that it’s only the diesels that get labelled with which fuel to use by the hire car companies. But then the restricted filler neck on a gasoline fuelled car should stop someone getting a diesel nozzle to fit.

    @12 I’ve had people mistake XF diesels for petrols

  13. @22 My brother has an Jag XF Diesel and it sounds refined especially on tickover. Obviously we are car enthusiasts on this site and hence more savvy when it comes to what engine is fitted under the bonnet. Some observers would just look for a D or TDCi badge etc.

  14. I wonder if it might actually be worth a dealer who takes some of this stock bearing the cost of re-registering the vehicles on local plates, just in order to get rid of the VX11… numbers?

  15. @24 – What benefit would this cost have to a dealer?
    Most manufacturers have huge amounts of cars on ‘factory plates’
    Take Peugeot for example, and you will notice how many are registered KM-KY as a prefix (Coventry).

  16. I could be interested in a used 6 to replace my 75 in a year or so. I see a few about (I live inthe midlands) and they look ok

  17. @21 err, mate, I’ve seen the results of a Kia Picanto blowing it’s diff out of the gearbox casing… not pretty. Aparently it wasn’t the first one….

  18. @29 perhaps it pains people that a chinese firm can make something that is reliable,i work for the UK’s biggest hire firm and i have yet to see a clutch burned out that wasnt driver abuse-thats discounting CSC failure or trumpets on parntner/beringo/nemo’s.

  19. I must be odd, the few occasions I have had need of a hire car I have taken as much or more care of them than the one I own. Its something called good manners.

    I had a work collegue whose favourite game with a hire car was taking it scrambling and then taking it back the next day looking like it had done the welsh stages of the RAC rally in the middle of December. It was a point of pride with him how much damage he could do to a given car without losing his deposit. This was a guy who got banned for driving for trying to take a 20mph bend at 70mph, making a complete Plato of it, and flying off the road between a handy oak tree on the one side, and an oncoming Essex Police Traffic Subaru on the other (with milimeters to spare). Not a situation you want to find yourself in. It was worse with his (and subsequently my)boss who thought it inordinately funny that he’d almost killed two kids. All in all not a company I would trust as far as I could throw them…

    More to the point, how can you have a ‘used car’ program when you’ve sold less MG6’s than Nissan have managed to sell ?Leafs?.

  20. @32, Gemma,

    I used to moonlight for a car hire company delivering cars to customers. The boss would turn up very early in the morning and deliver and collect some cars before manning the desk, and she expected us to deliver the cars at the same pace that she did, but in rush-hour traffic. Needless to say, they were driven rather more ‘briskly’ than ‘good manners’ would suggest, since a bollocking would be in the offing for slow deliveries.

    I wouldn’t worry much about treating a hire car as if it was your own if the hire company itself doesn’t.

    As PJ O’Rourke said, ‘Some say rear drive cars handle best, some say front, but nothing handles quite like a hire car!’.

  21. I recently hired a Hyundai I30 in Ashford in Kent and dropped it off in Tyneside. Despite all the flitting around during the day and the M25 traffic, the trip computer still said I’d averaged 71mph.

  22. @26.

    Manufacturers often sell substantial quantities of low mileage used cars, using names such as “Renault Management Cars” (to give just one example).

    This usually gives the impression that it has been used by company Management, but actually means that the manufacturer’s name stays on the V5 document, while it’s simply leased to a rental company. I wonder how many people would feel completely comfortable about their car having been used as a hire car during its running in period?

    With virtually ever used MG6 available over the next 6 months being an ex Avis car (and being readily identified by the “VX11” prefix), it might not be a bad idea to remove such a blindingly obvious tag before the dealer posts the car’s pictures on the web.

    Interestingly, a friend of mine who used to work at a dealership where a lot of their used stock was ex rental, said that when the lists of cars were made available it was always best to avoid the low mileage ones. Why? Because they were the ones that had spent a large proportion of their time in the bodyshop having accident damage fixed!

  23. presumably MG will get a clear picture of how the cars are “standing up” if they check them over throughly, learning excercise probably. alex

  24. Just saw my third ever MG6 today (in North Shields / Tyneside). It was grey with reg no.VX12 DYW. It was wearing mg co.uk decals and on the plates – probably a demonstrator?

    Looked okay and larger than I thought they were.

  25. Seen my fifth one YX11 GMG finished in black,lady driver.Extremely pleased a similar coloured ’58 plate mazda 6 was behind it for comparison purposes and im liking the MG more and more,the rear haunches in particular with a tension and nice radiion the rear arches.

  26. Good timing. My wife is test driving an MG6 TSE tommorow and the dealer (Charles Warner Lincoln) is letting her borrow it for the afternoon to appraise it properly. If she likes it enough she has a budget of 12k to get a used one through the network. Makes quite a good buy at that kind of price if she can get the extended warrenty offered and a low mileage of about 8000. New like most mid rangers it is too expensive and depreciation too high!

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