2023 MG Hector Facelift Interior Review
Interiors are where quite a few things have changed or rather have been upgraded. For starters, you have this massive touchscreen in a portrait orientation that’s as wide as the centre console. Some design tweaks have been made to the AC vents and the materials of the dashboard. Overall it does look like an upgrade from the outgoing Hector:
The steering wheel has been carried forward. The functions of the buttons have been shuffled:
Buttons to operate the adaptive cruise controls have been accommodated on the left spoke. Controls for the infotainment system, telephony, and voice command are placed on the right spoke:
Got to try out the lane keep assist and adaptive cruise control features on the eastern express highway in Mumbai. It’s not an open road, but the average speed is about 50-60 kph with a good amount of traffic. The MG pilot was accurate enough to detect different types of traffic including lorries and two-wheelers. The lane-keep assist also worked well on the marked roads, but due to the heavy traffic on Mumbai roads, the feature kept disengaging. Should work better on highways with less traffic:
The 7-inch digital instrument cluster isn’t one of the best in terms of looks, but it does display a lot of information. The theme of the display changes from blue to red when you switch to S transmission mode. Sad to see a digital tachometer reading instead of a needle. You can scroll through various options like TPMS, driver assistance, multimedia, and the MG pilot:
A look at the horizontal AC vents. The plastic quality isn’t that big of a step up and is satisfactory. Switches for the MID illumination, headlamp leveller, ORVMs, and boot release have been carried forward:
A look at the new start / stop button. Nice to see that the font on the button matches the font on the MID screen:
Doors have a black and beige theme which looks good. The speaker at the bottom gets a nice silver trim around it:
A look at the silver wood-like finish around the power window controls:
The seats now get beige upholstery. They’re ventilated which is a very useful feature in a country like ours:
The driver seat gets 6-way electric adjustment while the passenger seat gets 4-way electric adjustment:
A lot of the physical controls have been integrated into the touchscreen which frees up some space on the centre console. The silver wood-like finish looks nice in contrast with the black dashboard:
The 14-inch touchscreen is a big step up from the previous unit, not only in terms of size, but in terms of usability as well. It’s more responsive and the interface is also very simple and user-friendly. The display is crisp and the colours have a good balance too. Even under direct sunlight, the screen is very much visible. One teeny bit of annoyance during a hot day in Mumbai was that the back panel of the touchscreen kept on making cracking noises from time to time when AC was on full blast. Better quality plastics would’ve prevented this:
You can access AC controls through the touchscreen. The Hector now gets a PM 2.5 air purifier. The layout for the settings menu is very user-friendly. You have the main menu on the left and upon clicking an option, the sub-menu opens up on the right. You have wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay connectivity with the 2023 model. You get a nice full-screen display which will be appreciated by many:
You can also access various driver assistance features through the touchscreen and turn off the ones that you don’t want while driving. MG has also updated the i-SMART hub by partnering with new apps and integrating them into the infotainment system. MapMyIndia, being one of the apps, has also updated its user interface and now has a system called location sharing discover app. Essentially, this allows you to be the lead car when traveling with multiple cars in a group. You can ask your friends to download the app and their locations will be shown on Hector’s navigation system. Pretty cool if you like group travel. Another update is that the voice guidance for MapMyIndia is now available in 5 languages – English, Hindi, Tamil, Punjabi, and Marathi. There are also 75+ connected car features in the new Hector (the outgoing car had 60 features):
The 360-degree camera setup has better clarity than before and you can even have a 3D view of the car:
The wireless charging pad comes with two conventional USB ports. The wireless charging on our test car felt a little slow and the kept on disconnecting for some reason. Notice the rough finish on the sides. Not expected in a car at this price point:
The new shifter is big and looks nice and classy. It has a wide base with a silver border. The transmission modes are well spaced out and you can engage manual mode by sliding it to the right in D mode:
Eco mode can be engaged by pressing this button at the top. We found the mode to be too conservatively tuned:
Nice buttons for the seat ventilation, A/C max, and traction control:
Below, you have two cupholders with a sliding cover. Next to it, there’s an electronic parking brake that further frees up space in the centre console. Below the EPB, you have the auto-hold button and the parking sensor button. The dummy buttons below are an eye-sore:
The driver armrest can slide forward and there’s a small storage area underneath:
Massive panoramic sunroof is a big attraction in the Indian market. The sunroof can be controlled via the physical buttons on the roof and through the settings menu on the touchscreen:
All the occupants get headrests + 3 point seatbelts. Both - the seat base and seatback - have contours to hold you in place:
The rear AC vents have also been redesigned. You still get a USB port and a mobile holder at the bottom: