Rent MG ZS 2023 in Dubai

More renters ask us where to charge this one than ask anything else about it, and the answer is that you never do. The MG ZS 2023 we hand over in Dubai is petrol, with a 48-litre tank and a filler cap, because the battery ZS is a different car and we do not run it. Worth settling before you book, along with the fact that we rent this one from age 18 when most desks in the city make you wait until you turn 21. What the page below is really about is size. You rent a ZS for the raised seat and the boot behind it, not for pace.

Placing it in a car park without the shuffle

At 4314 mm long and 1809 mm wide the ZS is barely longer than a big hatchback, and that is the whole point of it. The bays in the older Marina towers and the second basement of most malls are cut tight, and plenty of small SUVs need a three-point shuffle to drop into them. This one goes in first time. The glass is upright, the bonnet is short and easy to judge, and the mirrors give you a clean view down the flanks, so reversing into a slot between two badly parked Land Cruisers is a non-event rather than a two-minute ordeal.

The 164 mm of ground clearance sorts out the other daily annoyance. Community speed humps around the villa districts and the sharp lip at the top of a mall ramp will scrape a low sedan, and the ZS clears both at a sensible crawl. That is as far as the SUV part goes. It drives the front wheels only, so soft sand and unsealed desert tracks are somebody else's car, not this one.

Luggage is the reason most people size up from a hatch, and the ZS answers it properly. There are 448 litres behind the rear seats, which takes two large hard cases standing upright with a soft bag pushed in alongside. That covers a family of four landing at DXB with a week of clothes. Fold the bench and you get roughly 1100 litres, enough for a flat-pack run or a month of groceries in one go. Four adults with four full check-in cases is the point where it runs out, and you should book a sedan or something bigger instead.

What it does above 100

Here is the honest part. The 1.5-litre makes 113 hp through a four-speed automatic, and four ratios is one or two fewer than almost everything else on the road now. Around town you never notice, because the gearbox shifts smoothly and the engine has enough low-down pull for traffic lights and roundabouts. On Sheikh Zayed Road it changes character. Slot into the fast lane at 120 and the ZS holds it comfortably, but ask for a sudden overtake and the box has to drop a long way down before anything happens, so the response arrives a beat after you asked for it.

The way around that is simply to plan your moves rather than improvise them. Leave yourself room, commit early, and the car does the job all week without complaint. If your week is genuinely built around fast E11 distance, Abu Dhabi and back a few times, something with a turbo and more gears will feel less strained for not much more money.

Fuel is the compensation. MG claims 14.1 km per litre, and real Dubai driving with the AC working flat out lands closer to 10 or 11 in the city. Even at that, the 48-litre tank stretches most of a normal week of errands and one airport run before you need a station. Our rate includes 300 km a day, which is more than most renters use, and it is AED 0.5 for each kilometre past that.

Cooling a cabin that has sat in July sun

No small SUV escapes physics. Leave the ZS on an uncovered floor at midday in August and the cabin will be genuinely painful for the first minute, the steering wheel included. What matters is what happens next, and the ZS is quicker than most because the cabin volume is small. Front vents are strong, and with the fan up and the windows cracked for the first thirty seconds to push the hot air out, it is comfortable inside three or four minutes and properly cold within ten.

The second row is worth checking at handover. Rear vents are not standard across every version of this car, and if you are running kids in child seats through a summer afternoon, the difference between air pushed back from the front and a dedicated vent is real. Ask us when we deliver and we will tell you what the specific car has.

Two rules that sit with you rather than us. Salik charges to your account as you pass the gantries, and any RTA fine during the rental period passes to you. Children under four need a proper child seat, which we can fit before delivery.

Who this one suits

Rent the MG ZS 2023 if your Dubai week is city driving, school runs, mall car parks and a couple of airport pickups, and you want a raised driving position and a genuinely useful boot at an economy rate. It is one of the easiest cars in the class to park and the luggage space is better than the rate suggests.

Look elsewhere if you spend most of your days on the highway wanting instant overtakes, or if you are moving four adults with full luggage. The four-speed gearbox and the modest power are the compromises you accept for the price, and for a city week they cost you almost nothing.