2025 MG QS Excite review: Australian first drive

MG’s goal to become one of Australia’s top three best-selling new-car brands requires a full showroom of models catering to different buyers, including a seven-seat SUV.

Meet the MG QS, the company’s first model sold in Australia with three rows of seats, and a rival for seven-seaters such as the Toyota Kluger, Mazda CX-80 and Hyundai Santa Fe.

Rather than adding a pair of cramped third-row seats to the RAV4-rivalling HS, the new QS is a genuine, three-row, five-metre-long vehicle sized to compete with its rivals.

It is launching with 2.0-litre turbo-petrol power priced from less than $50,000 drive-away – undercutting key rivals from Japan and Korea – ahead of a plug-in hybrid expected at a later date.

Is it the seven-seat bargain of the year, or is it cheaper than established rivals for a reason?

Two variants of the MG QS are available initially – the front-wheel-drive Excite priced from $46,990 plus on-road costs, and better-equipped, all-wheel-drive Essence from $50,990 plus on-road costs.

MG is currently offering the QS with those RRPs as nationwide drive-away prices. It is marketed as a limited-time offer, so it may have expired by the time you are reading this.

It’s not the cheapest seven-seater on sale, but it’s not too far off. The Chery Tiggo 8 Pro Max is priced from $38,990 to $43,990 drive-away, and a Mahindra XUV700 is $39,990 to $42,990 drive-away, but both are much smaller vehicles than the MG. 

Its closest size and price rival is the LDV D90 available from $43,647 drive-away, while a Kia Sorento starts from $54,340 drive-away, a Hyundai Santa Fe from about $58,000 to $59,500 drive-away, and a Toyota Kluger Hybrid from about $65,500 to $69,500 drive-away. These drive-away prices are based on NSW delivery.

Standard features in the QS Excite include 20-inch alloy wheels, LED headlights, a 12.3-inch instrument display, 12.3-inch touchscreen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, satellite navigation, cloth trim, eight-way power-adjustable front seats, tri-zone climate control, keyless entry and start, a power tailgate, and a panoramic sunroof.

A suite of safety features is standard, including auto emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, lane-keep assist, lane-centring assist, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, and a reversing camera with rear parking sensors.

The Essence grade adds 21-inch alloys, adaptive suspension, leather trim, heated and ventilated front seats, wireless phone charger, 12-speaker Bose premium audio, front parking sensors, auto high beams, driver’s seat memory, and some other extras.

Some trivia before we proceed: the QS is sold in its home market as the Roewe RX9.

The smaller MG HS is also a Roewe model in China, but whereas MG invested in a new front bumper and doors for the HS – as well as the right-hand-drive interior – to sell it in global markets, it only changed the interior for the QS, and left the exterior (badges aside) unchanged.

The MG QS is one of the larger seven-seaters in its class, at 4983mm long, 1967mm wide, 1778mm tall and 2915mm in wheelbase – similar to a Kluger or CX-80, larger than a Santa Fe, but smaller than a Hyundai Palisade.

There are similarities inside with other MGs – two 12.3-inch screens side-by-side – but plenty of unique design elements and materials to set the more expensive QS apart.

Cloth upholstery is the only real giveaway this Excite is the base model, but it’s soft and breathes well, and has been used to trim front seats that are comfortable and decently supportive.

Eight-way power front-seat adjustment – including under-thigh control, rare for a Chinese car – is standard, as is a roomy pedal box to let tall drivers get comfortable, but heating, ventilation and memory functions are reserved for the Essence grade.

The steering wheel isn’t too large nor too small, and it’s trimmed in a nice leather-like material, though it can take some time to learn its controls, which aren’t labelled as well as they could be. There’s plenty of tilt and reach adjustment in the steering column too.

The cabin presents better than you might expect for a large car at this price, with a wood-esque effect across the dashboard and centre console (even if it looks and feels fake), reasonably soft leather-like materials on the doors and dashboard, and multi-colour ambient lighting stretching around the cabin.

Perceived build quality is good, with no annoying rattles in this test car – though it only had a few hundred kilometres on the clock when we picked it up – and the armrests are soft.

Storage space is respectable for a car of this size, with a deep centre console box, two well-sized cupholders, a modestly sized (cooled!) glovebox, and large door pockets with cutouts for bottles, though much of the space in the doors is out of sight and hard to reach.

The same goes for the space under the gear shifter – where the 12-volt socket and two USB-C ports are located – which is hard to reach into when stopped, and even more difficult on the move. There’s more storage for sunglasses overhead.

One annoyance is the positioning of the button for the centre console storage box, which happens to sit where I would naturally rest my elbow – so I found myself constantly pressing it by accident during our time with the car. Your mileage will differ based on your body profile.

Amenities include ambient lighting, keyless entry and start, and a panoramic sunroof with electric sunblind, and two zones of climate control up front, but no heated seats or wireless phone charger in this model grade.

Space in the second row of seats is excellent. The bench splits 60:40 – the larger portion on the kerb side, annoyingly – and even with it slid all the way forward, I can fit my 186cm frame behind my driving position without feeling too squished.

It’s positively cavernous with the seats slid back, and there’s plenty of head room, plus acceptable (if a smidge tight, with the front seats set low) toe room on offer. Kids will have an even better time, especially if they recline the seatbacks.

The floor is flat and second-row occupants get their own climate-control zone – with separate temperature controls – plus map pockets, a fold-down centre armrest with cupholders, air vents in the roof lining, bottle holder in the doors, and two USB-C ports.

It’s a broad cabin, but the middle seat is quite flat and not very comfortable, especially for taller people. The doors open wide, and there are outboard ISOFIX anchors and three top-tether points for attaching child seats in the second row, but the latter are placed low on the seatbacks, and are a pain to access without doing so from the third row.

Perhaps we shouldn’t complain, because there aren’t any top tethers or ISOFIX anchors in the third row – a big miss for a family car of this size.

It is fortunate the third row is quite roomy, so much so that with the second row slid forward, I can fit my 186cm frame into the rearmost seats with ample knee room to not feel squished and my hair brushing the roof. Younger teens will have fewer issues.

Air vents, cupholders and a single USB-A port are present in the third row, plus airbag coverage. Ingress and egress to the third row are pretty good too.

Boot space is par for the seven-seater class, with room for a few school bags or small suitcases with all three rows up, and a much more generous space with the 50:50 split-folding third row stowed.

There is a light, 12-volt socket, and various tie-downs in the load area, plus a small amount of under-floor storage when the cargo cover is removed – and a space-saver spare wheel.

Standard in every MG QS is a 12.3-inch infotainment touchscreen, offering wireless and wired versions of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, embedded satellite navigation, Bluetooth, and AM, FM and digital DAB radio.

Shared with other MG models, the software running on the touchscreen looks good, but it’s not the quickest to respond, and its menu structure grows frustrating the longer you spend with it, as controlling key functions requires multiple taps into the screen.

Air conditioning is one of the systems operated through the display. MG has added dedicated fan speed buttons, as well as shortcuts for auto climate, air on/off, and the defrosters, but not air temperature.

There is a physical shortcut to the climate-control menu, but even then, changing the air temperature – or activating recirculating air – is still a multi-tap operation.

Its biggest transgression in our view is how the air vents work. The outer ones have a knob you move with your fingers like a normal car, but the slim central vent can only be controlled through the screen.

Tesla adopts a similar system in its cars, but it is always one tap away. In the QS, you need to press the climate button, press the air vent icon on screen, then drag a laggy slider to set the air where you want it to go, before switching back to the app you were last in.

To ease the pain, there are automatic settings – such as ‘blow at people’, ‘blow away from people’ and ‘swing’, which do what you would expect – but it is a band-aid fix to a problem that didn’t need to exist.

There is also no volume knob or buttons for the passenger – they need to swipe down from the top of the screen, and drag a slider, or ask the driver to do it from the steering wheel – yet MG decided to add a prominent drive mode dial.

It’s pretty obvious which one owners would use more often… and we can’t see many buyers needing to test the difference between Normal and Sport modes on the daily commute.

Wireless Apple CarPlay worked faultlessly in our time with the car – though it needs to be manually re-engaged each time the car is started, again a process that is a few taps away – and MG offers the QS with a year’s free access to the iSmart connected services app, with remote locking, vehicle tracking and other functions, which cost money after that trial.

Ahead of the driver is a 12.3-inch instrument cluster, which offers a choice of views – a central speedometer, full-screen map, or a visualisation of the advanced safety systems – as well as key data such as fuel use and trip computer metrics.

The eight-speaker sound system delivers acceptable audio quality for a car at this price, but nothing more.

The MG QS is yet to be crash-tested by ANCAP – and it is not sold in Europe, so it won’t be assessed by its sister organisation Euro NCAP.

Other new models in the MG range – including the petrol HS and electric S5 EV – have earned five stars under the latest protocols.

The MG QS offers a broad suite of safety features, nearly all of which – front parking sensors and auto high-beam headlights being the exceptions – are standard across the range.

The real-world performance of these systems is, generally speaking, good, but some are more intrusive than others.

The driver attention monitor – a camera mounted to the steering column aimed at the driver – is much improved over earlier MGs.

Whereas in the HS it is overbearing, and incessant in beeping at the driver for brief glances away from the road, it’s much less overzealous in the QS, only chiming when the driver is genuinely not paying attention to what’s ahead of them.

It still turns itself back on every time the car is restarted, and the menu to do so is a few taps away, should you not like it.

Lane-keep assist is not as intrusive as MGs of old, though it can still tug at the steering wheel more than some may like.

The biggest issue with this system is not the frequency of the lane-departure chime, but the chime itself, which is a far more dramatic shrill than it needs to be.

The same goes for the overspeed warning, which goes off when the car has exceeded the speed limit it has detected for more than a second or two. The problem is, as with other systems of this type, it is prone to misreading signs – often detecting 60km/h zones as 25km/h, or other speed limits that don’t exist – and beeping at the driver for speeding when they are not.

Much like the driver attention monitor, the speed alert and lane-keep assist chime need to be turned off every time the car is restarted. You can swipe down on the screen to disable ‘ELK’ (Emergency Lane Keeping), but that only disables half of the lane-keep assist system.

Adaptive cruise control could also do with more refinement – as it tends to pulse the throttle on and off to hold a constant speed, rather than modulating it smoothly – and the autonomous emergency braking system is prone to disabling if the car is driven towards the sun when it is low in the sky.

One feature that works with little fuss is the lane-centring system, which does a good job of holding the centre of the lane. There are also direct tyre pressure monitors and airbags that cover occupants in all three rows.

It may sound like we hate the safety systems in the QS – we don’t. But they could all do with varying levels of improvement.

The MG QS is covered by a 10-year, 250,000km warranty for private-use vehicles, or seven years/160,000km under a 'commercial use' such as food delivery or ride-sharing.

For vehicles registered before July 1, 2025, this coverage applies irrespective of where you take it for servicing, as long as the work is being conducted to logbook specifications.

However, for examples registered from July 1, buyers need to service the vehicle at MG dealers to unlock the full 10 years of coverage. Step out of the dealer network just once in the first decade, and the warranty drops to seven years/unlimited kilometres.

It is similar to 10-year guarantees from Nissan and Mitsubishi, which require dealer servicing to unlock, and drop to five years/unlimited kilometres and five years/100,000km respectively if customers go elsewhere.

Servicing intervals are set at 12 months or 15,000km, whichever comes first. That’s in line with the industry average – but service prices, on the other hand, are not.

Scheduled maintenance for the front-wheel-drive version amounts to $2013 over three years/45,000km, $3442 over five years/75,000km, and an incredible $6336 over seven years/105,000km.

Much of that bill is caught up in an incredibly expensive sixth service, which is quoted at $2526 for the FWD QS, and $2920 for the AWD version.

Opt for the all-wheel-drive version, and it’s even more expensive – $2189, $3618, and an eye-popping $6962 respectively.

Over three, five and seven years, a Toyota Kluger Hybrid is quoted at $840, $1400, and $2567.86 respectively. Kluger buyers are not paying much more over nine years ($3821) than all-wheel-drive MG customers are over five.

Meanwhile, a Hyundai Santa Fe petrol (albeit at 12-month/10,000km intervals) costs $1499, $2425 and $3626 over three, five and seven years respectively.

A year of comprehensive insurance coverage with a leading provider is quoted at $2171, based on a comparative quote for a 35-year-old male living in Chatswood, NSW. Insurance estimates may vary based on your location, driving history, and personal circumstances.

MG claims lab-tested fuel consumption of 8.4 litres per 100 kilometres for the front-wheel-drive QS in mixed conditions, across 7.1L/100km in extra-urban and highway driving, and 10.7L/100km in urban running.

Over a week of driving – mostly in the city, but with some highway running and performance testing thrown in – we saw an indicated 11.4L/100km on the trip computer.

That’s higher than the best diesels and hybrids in the category, but it is not unreasonable for a larger, turbo-petrol SUV without electric assistance.

We saw fuel use of about 8.0 to 9.0L/100km in optimal conditions – on rural roads and freeways – while consumption in stop-start traffic pushed beyond 12L/100km.

The QS requires 95- or 98-octane premium unleaded fuel for its 65-litre tank, which – if you can match MG’s combined fuel-use claim – could last 770km between fills.

The QS is one of the better petrol models in the MG range to drive, in terms of performance, refinement, comfort and handling.

The 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine does not have an incredible amount of power (153kW) for a two-tonne vehicle, but it has plenty of torque (360Nm), so it feels sufficiently punchy on the move, especially from 50km/h to 80km/h.

It’s most muscular once it has warmed up, as it has a buzzy note in the first few minutes of driving. We timed the QS from 0–100km/h in 8.8 seconds, about average for a vehicle of this power and size.

The 2.0-litre engine is matched with a nine-speed automatic transmission, which is the conventional torque-converter kind – similar to an older Mazda seven-seater – rather than the dual-clutch gearboxes used in the MG HS.

It’s smooth while parking – there’s no rollback on hills, and you can lean on the transmission to precisely position the car in tight spots – and on the move, in normal driving, it stays out of the driver’s way.

However – to our surprise – there is a frustrating amount of lag off the mark. There are a few seconds of sluggishness after pressing the accelerator pedal, as the car begins to creep away slowly, before surging forward, accompanied by a spike in engine RPM – akin to pressing the nitrous boost button in a car-racing video game.

No matter how smooth you are on the accelerator, it’s always noticeable, and it is made worse by the engine stop-start technology, which is slower than rival systems to boot the engine up once you press the right pedal.

It’s not immediately obvious if this is purely the gearbox’s fault or due to the engine’s turbo lag – most likely a mix of both – and why MG has tuned the car this way, but it’s unnecessarily frustrating. Activating Sport mode doesn’t help, for what it’s worth.

Given this behaviour is common among dual-clutch transmissions, not conventional torque-converter autos, we found ourselves rechecking the spec sheet after our first drive in stop-start traffic.

The gearbox is not perfect in other areas: Sport mode selects one gear lower than in Normal, but after lifting off the throttle, it doesn’t hold it for very long, so it is constantly upshifting and downshifting on a winding road. There’s no way to take manual control of gear selection.

The rest of the MG QS drive experience is surprisingly pleasant.

The suspension delivers a better blend of comfort and control than other MGs – it’s supple over big bumps, but not too soft that it lacks composure at high speeds and feels like a boat cresting a wave, and while it has a firmer edge over potholes and sharp bumps, it’s not harsh.

There’s an easygoing nature to the steering, which is reasonably direct in its response, linear in how it builds weight the more you turn, and quick in preventing too many hand-over-hand movements – but not the last word in any area.

It’s not designed to be a sports car, but the QS holds its own on a winding road, without too much body control, and good composure over tricky mid-corner bumps.

That is helped by the tyres, a set of high-quality Michelins (for the tech-heads, 245/50 R20 Michelin e-Primacy rubber, to be precise) that deliver plenty of grip in corners.

On dry tarmac roads, there isn’t much need for all-wheel drive. Short of flooring the accelerator out of a T-junction, there isn’t much wheelspin, though under hard acceleration with some steering lock applied, you can feel the steering get heavy as the tyres are called upon to put the power down and steer.

The brake pedal is soft, and not the most responsive, but it’s easy to get used to. Quality tyres mean emergency braking performance is outstanding for a car of this size and price, pulling up from 100km/h in 37 metres – on par with many luxury cars we’ve tested.

One observation: there isn’t much engine braking from the 2.0-litre unit and the high gear the transmission selects, so – combined with a speedometer that only has a tolerance of about 1km/h or less, not 2–3km/h as in most cars – you need to watch your speed more than usual on long downhill stretches.

Occupants are well isolated from the outside world, with an acceptable and far from overpowering amount of tyre roar and wind rustle.

The sheer amount of metal the MG QS delivers for the money will place it on the consideration lists of many family buyers on a budget.

But MG’s first seven-seater is much more than just a big car for a reasonable price.

It’s well equipped, well appointed, spacious for passengers and cargo, quiet and comfortable to drive, and backed by a 10-year warranty for peace of mind.

There is room for improvement. The behaviour of the engine and transmission at low speeds can be frustrating, some of the beeps and bongs from the safety aids can get on your nerves, and the touchscreen is not as user-friendly as it should be.

The lack of a hybrid is also felt at the pump, though compared to other non-hybrid petrol vehicles of the same size, the MG’s fuel consumption is not unreasonable.

But, on balance, it’s a well-rounded, well-priced seven-seater that hits the right notes for budget-minded buyers and is worthy of consideration.

Alex Misoyannis has been writing about cars since 2017, when he started his own website, Redline. He contributed for Drive in 2018, before joining CarAdvice in 2019, becoming a regular contributing journalist within the news team in 2020. Cars have played a central role throughout Alex’s life, from flicking through car magazines at a young age, to growing up around performance vehicles in a car-loving family. Highly Commended - Young Writer of the Year 2024 (Under 30) Rising Star Journalist, 2024 Winner Scoop of The Year - 2024 Winner

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