Is the brand-new Audi A3 Sportback worth the extra money over a Volkswagen Golf hatchback? The A3 is available as a sedan (which is actually more popular) or the classic five-door hatchback. You can choose a new 1.5-litre mild hybrid four-cylinder turbo petrol, a larger 2.0-litre turbo with AWD, or the more powerful S3 hot hatch.
This is the new fourth generation audi a3 it’s been on sale in europe for a couple of years now but it’s only just reached australia there was the whole pandemic thing and the semiconductor shortage hasn’t helped either but it’s here now in three grades the 35 tfsi base model which is front-wheel drive this 40 tfsi quattro which is mid-spec and then the s3 and very
Shortly the rs3 hyper hatch and sedan will also be launching here in australia with a trick new all-wheel drive system and drift mode but in today’s video i’m going to be covering the regular audi a3 the kind of small car you buy if you’re looking for something a little bit more sophisticated grown-up mature and luxurious compared to things like the volkswagen golf
Or mazda 3 you certainly pay for it this one as it sits is about 54 000 before on-road costs and if you include desirable options on the car you’ll be staring down the barrel of about 60 grand but while it might be expensive the question i’m gonna be asking in today’s video is do you get value for money from the audi a3 because all cars are getting more expensive
Including the golf with which the a3 shares its platform and many mechanical components as well now this one i’ve brought along today is a sportback but the a3 sedan is also very popular here in australia this one’s novara blue with aluminium trim and rock grey leather inside and i think it comes up really nicely certainly it presents as very up-market and i think
The styling is handsome that’s subjective you can let me know what you think down below certainly it’s not radically remade over the last a3 but audi doesn’t really do those kind of huge restylings at every generational change now in today’s video we’re going to be covering the interior and backseat and boot of the audi a3 we’ll talk about the running costs and then
We’ll take this a340tfsi quattro out for a drive to see what the dynamics are like with its updated chassis compared to the last car before you get started hit subscribe down below and if at any point you want to build your own a3 see all the colors that comes in download a brochure or organize a test drive i’ve got some handy links in the pinned comment beneath
This video jumping inside the new audi a3 and you find that this manufacturer has swerved away from some of the decisions made by cousin volkswagen in recent years namely while this interior looks brand new it actually doesn’t do away with the physical controls that have always marked out audis as a little bit easier to use and nicely done in terms of tactility
And execution in the cabin there’s no longer a rotary mmi dial between the seats which is a shame that was always good on a bumpy country road but importantly we still have physical climate controls unlike the market golf which has been a nightmare in terms of burying stuff inside that car’s touchscreen thankfully audi have learnt from that and decided not to go
Down the same route speaking of touchscreen we have a 10.1 inch mmi screen here in the center stack and that works really well this car has what audi calls zed fast it’s like a super brain that links all the infotainment together in the car and it means that it’s super super snappy there’s really no lag in this system you can drag it around it responds to your
Finger straight away and the touch targets are at least big and easy to use and hit so while we don’t have the rotary controller any anymore it’s still pretty easy to use we also get wireless apple carplay wireless android auto and audi connect plus so it can show you fuel prices some parking garages can tell you how many spaces are free it’s got google search
Google maps integration all within the car then we have a 10.25 inch virtual cockpit which works pretty well though it isn’t quite the full fat 12.3 inch version that you get in the audi s3 that costs around ten thousand dollars more than this car spec for spec speaking of price the a3 isn’t designed to be a super cheap car it kicks off at about forty six thousand
Dollars for a base model 35 tfsi 1.5 litre turbo hatch but all cars are actually quite well specified they all get leather seats they get keyless access to all doors on the vehicle which is new for the a3 and a really nice feature they all have led headlights and they have a decent six speaker stereo although there are two upgrades possible on the stereo front as
Well moving up to the 40 tfsi you step up from 110 kilowatts to 140 kilowatts and a bigger 2-liter engine with all drive and a wet clutch dsg which is a really good combination but it’s going to cost you about 10 grand more than the 35 tfsi we’re currently sitting in the 40 cfsi which is the 140 kilowatt model now this is about 53.5 grand this car has metallic
Paint that’s 12.50 everyone’s going to want that but there’s a premium package for the 40 tfsi which includes nice to haves like power adjustable heated seats up front and a 10 speaker audi hi-fi stereo and a smattering of other features i think most people are going to want to option that so we’re talking about 60 grand for this audi a3 keep in mind an s3 is 70
Grand and has all of that stuff included as standard including a higher end bang and olufsen 3d stereo that’s 1500 on this car so you’re going to need to go and study the spec sheet quite closely you can download it from below this video actually because there’s a few options on the audi a3 but the standard kit is still really impressive in this vehicle and that’s
What matters now the seats we’re sitting in on genuine leather these are sport seats for the 40 tfsi this car has steel grey which under navara blue actually looks really really nice but black leather is also available as well now these pews are manually adjustable which is kind of crazy at this price but that’s what we have my only issue with that is that we don’t
Have under thigh angle adjust there could have been a dial to do that there’s not we don’t have any lumbar adjustment in these seats that only comes with the premium package because it’s added to the electric seats both of those features so that’s a little bit annoying however comfort’s good the driving position is comfortable lovely round steering wheel we’ve got
A nice little airbag cover here it’s a delicate looking steering wheel with nice clicky buttons and none of that none of that squeaking steering wheel we’ve been finding on more than a few mercedes-benz cars lately in fact quality feels really good in this car a bit of creaking from that dashboard there but when i was driving down the road it wasn’t making any
Sounds i’m sort of really forcing it into it storage we’ve got a space ahead of the shifter you can’t get wireless charging at the moment because of the semiconductor shortage we’ve got cup holders between the seats and arm rest adjustable armrest is standard and we’ve got decent sized door bins so they’re actually not flock lined uh however one thing i notice
Is just a small thing is that the a3 actually has a gas strut for its bonnet whereas the mark 8 golf actually has a manual strut you have to do yourself now so i think quality has been kept up quite high in this new a3 here in the a3 sportback the room on offer for six footers is decent if not super spacious much like the golf the a3 isn’t enormous actually it’s
Quite compact that makes it easy to park and really agile on the road but it means the second row isn’t as big as some now for myself at six foot headroom is fine i’ve got enough knee room behind my own driving position and toe room is actually okay i could bear it back here for a few hours the center seat’s a real perch the transmission tunnel is pretty high but
We do have air vents across the range and a 12 volt socket as well but harsh materials here on the uppers of the rear doors we’ve got a flip down armrest with two and a half cupholders and handily every a3 also has 40 20 40 folding rear seats so given this seat is fairly useless for carrying people you can actually fold it down and use it to carry longer items like
Skis which of course the 40 tfsi would be good at because it has standard haldex all-wheel drive which is going to give you additional traction in low grip situations here around the back of the audi a3 you’re probably thinking it looks a lot like the previous generation vehicle and that’s true it does audi really shies away from reinventing their designs instead
They prefer to stick with what they perceive to be classic and quite handsome and i tend to agree that works well and it doesn’t really look like a volkswagen golf or its direct rivals the mercedes-benz a-class or the bmw 1 series it’s kind of got its own thing going and i like it as i mentioned this is a 40 tfsi quattro the 140 kilowatt all drive version of the
Audi a3 it does have these twin exhaust garnishes around the back but they’re just out of garnish they’re completely fake whereas the s3’s quad tail pipes are actually real which is nice now around the back here we’ve got a manual tailgate but for 650 bucks you can turn it into a power tailgate if you like boot space is good we’ve got a standard net here we can
Disconnect that from the sides and take a look under the boot floor where you’ll find a well where a spare could sit now this car has 19 inch wheels which i would probably avoid they actually don’t diminish the ride that much but why not stick with the standard 18s and i think you do get a spare wheel there but i’m going to check on that and pop it up on screen we
Also have cubbies off to the left and right and a new cargo blind for the 4th gen a3 which is a bit lighter than before it does feel a little bit flimsy but it certainly wasn’t rattling when i was driving the car now the cleaned boot space is one thing but according to the chasing cars soccer ball test how big really is the cargo area of this car and the answer
Is that the a3’s clean boot space translates into 26 soccer balls why do we bother with this test well because leader ridge is so nebulous it can really mean anything and there are so many different standards of measurement so what we do is use one easy uniform measure to actually judge how good the packaging is on a given car some people use toilet paper we use
Soccer balls so what’s it gonna cost you to run an audi a3 well maybe a little bit less than you might expect because the prepaid servicing plans for this car are quite affordable you can purchase a five-year 75 000 kilometer plan for 2250 which is pretty good for the segment the a3 sits in fuel consumption is also quite manageable we manage six and a half litres
Per hundred kilometers on our testing loop today though that did buy us higher speed country road driving if you stick around in town expect about eight liters per hundred k’s out of this car however you can reduce that by going for the 35 tfsi model which is a 1.5 litre mild hybrid keep in mind as well the a3 requires 95 premium petrol across the range in terms of
Insurance in the last 12 months the median budget direct customer spent 1 189 to comprehensively insure a new audi a3 everybody’s situation varies and your premium will vary based on things insurers take into account like where you live your driving history and how you garage the car and finally the warranty audi has finally upgraded in australia to a five year
Unlimited kilometer warranty across the range and that applies to every new a3 so what’s the audi a3 40 tfsi like to drive well the audi a3 is a familiar car because like so many audis and volkswagen group products it rides on the mqb chassis but not just any old mqb because this vehicle has mqb evo which is an updated version of the transverse platform used
Very very widely across these brands the hardpoints are shared with the previous iteration of mqb but torsional rigidity is up immediately by an unspecified amount but it wasn’t exactly like this platform is too floppy to begin with it tends to create vehicles which are cohesive and good to drive certainly among the best in their segment usually it’s an agile
Relatively lightweight platform and so the a3 is already starting from a good base it’s not like this car had to be reinvented it was still really good at the final stages of the third gen car even though it was introduced in 2012 a decade ago it was still feeling pretty fresh but now the fourth gen a3 on mqb evo just makes a few refinements in key areas we’ve
Already spoken about the interior which is brought nicely up to date for 2022 but the driving dynamics also improved just a little bit more however the power trains that you can choose are also very very familiar arguably the biggest changes actually to the base model which we’ll have on the channel soon that’s called 35 tfsi what that actually means is a new
1.5 liter tsi evo powertrain from audi it makes 110 kilowatts of power and 250 newton meters of torque but it’s now also connected to a 48 volt mile hybrid system with a belt alternator starter that adds a further 9 kilowatts and 50 newton meters to the powertrain so it should feel quite strong while also delivering 5 liters per 100 kilometers fuel consumption
Audi claims which is the lowest you get in this small car segment before you go to something like a corolla hybrid the 42 for size a really nice balance though it’s a two-liter turbocharged petrol four-cylinder the volkswagen ea triple-eight engine in fact tuned to 140 kilowatts of power and 320 newton meters of torque it’s not a mild hybrid but it gets a seven
Speed wet clutch dual clutch automatic transmission and a hold x all drive system badged as quattro but it’s always sending some drive to the rear and that’s basically how it feels in reality you never feel sort of push oversteer from this car but it just feels four square it feels like it’s delivering drive through all four wheels pretty much all of the time
When you’re on the throttle um but yet it doesn’t sap too much fuel audi claims 6.7 so about 30 higher consumption than 35 tfsi once you break it down and we were pretty much able to manage that number today without trying hard at all the powertrain itself is like any other ea triple eight it’s simply so punchy and so strong and grunty but really refined this
Car doesn’t have any kind of sports exhaust there’s no pumped in sound you just hear the pleasant noise of this two-liter motor without it being forced upon you like it’s some kind of sports car now in the s3 which sits above this vehicle 10 to 15 grand more it makes 228 kilowatts of power and 400 newton meters from the same engine with operated componentry and
Largely the same transmission as well and that really does feel like a sports car with a sports exhaust with crackles and pops you don’t get that on the 42 fsi instead you just get a really grown up little luxury car it feels really secure on its feet not just because of the oil drive system but also because of the mechanical grip through the chassis so the weight
Of the vehicle is about 1440 kilos it’s not too heavy particularly given that we’re also carrying an all-drive system and a multi-link rear suspension independent rear suspension which is standard across the range the pirelli cincharado p0 tires don’t have unlimited adhesion the good years that you get on an s3 are noticeably better but the car just doesn’t push
Understeer too much so you’re not actually relying on the tyres hugely unless you start to dial it up to sort of 9 10 which i don’t think too many people driving the standard a3 are going to do maybe in the s3 and the rs3 body roll is nicely contained on the 40 tfsi you get a sport suspension but it’s a passive setup with single stage dampers but the ride quality
Is excellent we’re on 18 inch wheels here they soak up imperfections in town and on country roads really broken up roads at the moment in new south wales due to so much flooding this vehicle really dispatches all of it very very nicely there’s a little bit more vertical motion than i might perhaps like but that’s also because i was driving an s3 yesterday so i do
Need to check that level of understanding there having not been a mercedes a200 or a250 recently either either way it’s controlled it’s comfortable and it’s compliant the steering rack is quick there’s a little bit of road feel not a huge amount the wheel itself isn’t too big tire grip at the front end’s okay but you can track a really precise line in this vehicle
That’s super faithful in a mid corner situation even if there’s bumps in imperfections mid corner the a3 just sticks to its line it’s really secure on the road more than most in its class the driving dynamics are really satisfying and you can set a really good pace on a country road it’s a quick car point to point refinement is something of an issue on the pirelli
Tyres though road noise is quite significant on course chip certainly could be as simple as changing out tyres for a quieter tread pattern the good years on the s3 i drove yesterday on similar surfaces were quieter i think that says a lot despite the fact that cars on 19 inch wheels speaking of the s3 for myself i can see the value in spending another 10 grand on
That car it’s up very significantly in terms of power another 88 kilowatts of power another 80 newton meters of torque and an upgraded all drive system in that vehicle that’s capable of sending 100 of talk to the rear wheels though it isn’t the trick twin clutch rear axle of the new rs3 which will be very special but also much more expensive than this car as a
Balanced vehicle to drive day to day the a340tier versailles is really lovely although i also look forward to testing the 35 tfsi which rides a little bit higher and sits on comfort suspension rather than sport suspension in this vehicle as for the safety systems surprisingly adaptive cruise control and hard lane centering are not standard you do get blind spot
Monitoring and lane departure avoidance so it will bounce off the side of the lane but firm lane centering adaptive crews those are actually optional features in the premium package and i think at this price they should really be standard at this point so those are my first impressions of the new 2022 audi a3 in particular the 40 tfsi sportback behind me i think
This is an impressive car because audi basically has a goal with this vehicle of just being sophisticated mature easy to use and good looking and it kind of ticks all those boxes as well as being good to drive it’s punchy it’s agile and its ride quality is excellent if it isn’t the best in class for ride quality that will shock me but obviously we need to do a
Direct back to back comparison to determine that for sure so i’m a fan it is pricey but it actually feels worth its price because there’s very few things about this vehicle that makes you scratch your head and go why have they done that it all just comes together really well i reckon can you know your view though let me know down below in the comments while you’re
There make sure to hit subscribe and the notification bell don’t forget the handy links down below to organize a test drive or to build your own a3 and as always thanks for watching chasing cars
Transcribed from video
Worth it over a Golf? (Audi A3 Sportback 2022 review) By Chasing Cars
