MG Car Club of South Australia
BUYING A MODERN MG
From..Chris & Wes Bray
O
ur Mitsubishi 380 was getting tired
and unreliable, but what else can
you expect from a car which had trav-
elled almost 300,000 km in approxi-
mately 12 years. The decision was
made “It is time to buy a new car”. Our
finance advisor knew that we were likely
to come to this decision and made sure
that we had access to a suitable amount
of money.
We decided to investigate a modern
MG. At this stage there is no dealer in
Adelaide so we consulted the MG Aus-
tralia web site and found that there was
a dealer in Ringwood, an Eastern sub-
urb of Melbourne. Conveniently this is
just down the road from Belgrave, our
Melbourne home (Chris’s brother). A
quick phone call provided the informa-
tion that there was a wide range of col-
ours available in the yard and, reluc-
tantly, they would accept the 380 as a
trade in.
At about 11:00 am on a Friday morning
we parked the 380 on the road outside
the yard and started exploring. It did not
take long before we were joined by a
salesperson. His eyes lit up as he sur-
veyed MG regalia on his potential cus-
tomers. We were told very quickly that
we could test drive any model for
as long as we liked provided that
we showed a suitable licence.
The first car we drove was a silver
MG 6. Initially we thought that this
was our dream car. Leather seats,
split temperature controls and CD
player were the chief attractions.
Unfortunately, neither of us could
get comfortable in the seats. The
car was easy to drive on crowded
roads and park in a shopping cen-
tre car park.
Back to the dealers for a change
of car, this time a MG ZS. The colour
attracted us but there was no CD player
and it looked like an SUV. The latter
was a negative as Chris has experi-
enced difficulties getting in and out of
SUVs in the past. The seating was com-
fortable and there was no trouble park-
ing in a car park at a nearby oval.
Back to the dealers to get directions to
the nearest café for lunch and to pick up
brochures to allow us to plan our pur-
chase. Eventually we decided on the ZS
provided that suitable answers were pro-
vided on the topics of temporary regis-
tration, servicing requirements of MG
Australia and delivery timelines. The
questions we had were quickly an-
swered and then all we had to do was
decide between the demonstration car
or a brand-new car. We chose the lat-
ter.
The following Monday we picked up the
new car (9 km on the speedo) and drove
it onto a major highway filled with peak
hour traffic. The next day, Tuesday, we
drove back to Adelaide. The 3-cylinder,
1 litre turbo charged engine handled
both types of travelling conditions with
ease. With assistance from the sales
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