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MG's Anti-theft immobilization glitch: The issue continues

30th May 2022, 11:38 by Ananth Iyer

The Technician suggested to me not to use the iSmart app for immobilization, citing some ongoing stability issues. I feel MG should disable the features if they can't be fully relied on.

BHPian cbrspn recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Update:

Hey people, my apologies for the delay in the update here, I had to suddenly make a work trip the same day and didn't get a chance to post here.

Coming back to the car, so it turns out, it really is a software issue. We had tried to find the plugs for the two horns, but could not access the right side horn due to limited space on that side.

The next day, when the RSA came, we opened up the car and first took out the fuse of the loud horn. Then we reconnected the battery. This was enough to reset the car, while the RSA guys were trying to release the transmission from "Parking mode", I thought to check the iSmart app again.

Lo and behold, the iSmart app could now connect to the car, and I was able to release the Immobilization Lock. Automatically, my car was able to detect the smart key and the alarm turned off. We started the car, as usual, let it ideal a bit then drove around the complex. After locking the car again, we tried running iSmart app and it worked as expected. As we weren't able to replicate the issue again, I closed the RSA ticket and the poor guys went back with an empty tow truck

My theory here was that the car's systems went to sleep with all radio signals like smart key detection etc shut down due to Immobilization.

Here's a video of the error happening on the mobile app.

A few days later, I had to go out of town for a few days and again thought that it was best to have the lock in place when parking in an untrusted spot. This time, I made sure to remotely open/close the car and check for its status every day so the connected car system doesn't go offline again. It worked for 2 days, but on the third day, again the car was unreachable on the iSmart app. After coming back, I placed a call to the MG RSA team again, who connected me to the Sr. Technician in the nearby service center. He suggested me to call in the RSA team, who can help open the car and reset the system. The RSA again was able to reach me in 20 minutes and we quickly reset the car.

The Technician suggested to me not to use the iSmart app for immobilization, citing some ongoing stability issues. I feel MG should disable the features if they can't be fully relied on. Full disclosure: They do explicitly mark the feature as beta and "use with caution".

To reset the car, we used the manual release on the driver's side and open up the car's bonnet. Disconnecting the negative battery terminal for about 10 minutes and connecting again was enough to reset the systems.

One caveat of this reset is that your settings and driving stats in the MID are also gone. but the overall mileage survives.

I must applaud the promptness of the MG RSA team (Allianz RSA), they immediately send in a text message with the location of the RSA tech, and he was quick to come and resolve issues. Here's a screenshot of the Anti-theft screen.