Little surprises?

It opens too if you hold the button down, but the lid won't flip all the way open, it's too heavy for that! Saloon boot lids are generally sprung to fly open when they are released.
 
cemerson said:
It opens too if you hold the button down, but the lid won't flip all the way open, it's too heavy for that! Saloon boot lids are generally sprung to fly open when they are released.
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Yer the the kit I saw let's the boot open fully. Don't think they do it as standard as it's quite a lift and could be open to user error haha
 
leosayer1 said:
Dissappointingly, nothing from the MMI seems to get saved, which means I get blasted with One D or Bare Naked Ladies whenever I turn the ignition on.
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I am massive fan or the Bare Naked Ladies BNL. Seen them loads of times cannot wait to have it playing in my new A3
 
FishyFinger said:
I am massive fan or the Bare Naked Ladies BNL. Seen them loads of times cannot wait to have it playing in my new A3
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I saw them at the O2 Indigo not too long ago under protest.

They were fantastic. Proper entertainers, lots of energy, great songs and funny with it.

"I love you more than I did the week before......I discovered alcohol"
 
When I received my serviceplan documentation it had a little booklet with a number of small features not mentioned in the handbook. I will share if anybody is interested.
 
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Stop/Start system activation can be regulated by brake pedal pressure/travel, if you lightly hold the foot brake (enough to stop creeping forward) then the Stop/Start will not activate, when you push a bit harder the engine will stop. So if you are in err in Stop/Start traffic and don't want the system to engage then light pressure will not activate the system. I know you can turn it off on the dash but I have kind of got used to it now and generally like it operation.

It will be interesting in years to come to see if Starter Motor failures appear as a gripe, not sure if the motors have been beefed up to copy with a 100 times (minimum) usage increase. The system that is used on some Mazdas is pretty cool as they use combustion pressure to spin the motor back up one it has been running via an accumulator.
 
Arcam said:
Stop/Start system activation can be regulated by brake pedal pressure/travel, if you lightly hold the foot brake (enough to stop creeping forward) then the Stop/Start will not activate, when you push a bit harder the engine will stop. So if you are in err in Stop/Start traffic and don't want the system to engage then light pressure will not activate the system. I know you can turn it off on the dash but I have kind of got used to it now and generally like it operation.

It will be interesting in years to come to see if Starter Motor failures appear as a gripe, not sure if the motors have been beefed up to copy with a 100 times (minimum) usage increase. The system that is used on some Mazdas is pretty cool as they use combustion pressure to spin the motor back up one it has been running via an accumulator.
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But if you don't press down fully on the brake pedal I've noticed that the revs don't drop so much as if you do and I assumed that the S-Tronic is not releasing its clutch fully. Is that correct or am I imagining it? If it doesn't then it's surely putting extra strain/wear on the clutch.
 
Arcam said:
It will be interesting in years to come to see if Starter Motor failures appear as a gripe, not sure if the motors have been beefed up to cope
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All components associated with S/S have been updated. The battery is AGM, physically the size of the starter motor is increased compared to the 8P, and the motor mounts have been re-enforced for S/S duty.

More: Click -> audi s3 start stop feature
 
glospete said:
But if you don't press down fully on the brake pedal I've noticed that the revs don't drop so much as if you do and I assumed that the S-Tronic is not releasing its clutch fully. Is that correct or am I imagining it? If it doesn't then it's surely putting extra strain/wear on the clutch.
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Yes you are correct, there is a difference in clutch clamping pressure and bite point between the 2 brake pedal positions.

But to what degree, is only known if you use VCDS to measure, and even then, one might assume the effect on wear isn't significant.

I'm old fashioned, and will knock the gear lever into N if I'm waiting at the lights for more than 30s.

You can definitely hear and feel a difference in revs between N, brake pedal posn 1 and brake pedal posn 2.
 
glospete said:
But if you don't press down fully on the brake pedal I've noticed that the revs don't drop so much as if you do and I assumed that the S-Tronic is not releasing its clutch fully. Is that correct or am I imagining it? If it doesn't then it's surely putting extra strain/wear on the clutch.
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Agreed but as veeight has already stated it will probably be insignificant, I only mention it as it is handy in stop start traffic, like on a busy motorway and you get that nose to tail stop/start crud when going to work :(
 
I've found that there are 3 brake pedal positions. All the way down engages start/stop and turns the engine off. Halfway down engages the Hold Assist only, keeping the engine running and a light pressure means that you can creep forward (s-tronic box).

I was a little hesitant about using HA at first because of the usefulness at times of the creep function. It is an excellent piece of design that allows 3 different ways of coming to a halt and retains the usefulness of all 3 systems.

That said my favourite little extra (thanks whoever posted it above as I hadn't noticed) is the boot lights that move to hold the floor in the up position.
 
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megacatt said:
a light pressure means that you can creep forward (s-tronic box).

/QUOTE]
Something that I can do on the 8P may also work on the 8V. Turn the car on (engine off) and press the brake until the brake lights come on - point 1. Now with your palm resting on top of the shifter (S-tronic) keep pushing on the brake until you feel a slight vibration in the shifter - point 2. Next turn on the engine, push the brake until point 2 and hold the brake while you shift into drive. The car should creep forward while you hold the brake pedal at point 2. Point 2 is a good reference point to test the DSG.
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It was me. So... you're welcome! :) But (sorry for nitpicking) that's not an extra, I think it's standard in all A3.

megacatt said:
That said my favourite little extra (thanks whoever posted it above as I hadn't noticed) is the boot lights that move to hold the floor in the up position.
Click to expand...
 
I was playing a music video on youtube from my tablet and had the audio playing through the car and the mmi screen down.
When i received a call my youtube video paused.The mmi screen popped up on its own,let me answer and then when the call was down it retracted and unpaused my video :) I was chuffed.

Also tried to figure out how to test the alarm of the car out.Today I was inside and the car was locked.I moved the sunroof sheet allitle and off goes the alarm.:)

One more thing i noticed,is how the volume for traffic announcements goes all the way up when listening to the radio.I know its a setting but a setting i wouldnt have looked into if it didnt happen automatically.Nice stuff!
 
My favourite touch is when using Sat Nav with the MMI scrolling pad.

When selecting destination address, Instead of scrolling the wheel to select the letters, you can use the face of the MMI control as a touch screen and write the location with your finger one letter at a time - amazing touch given I am left handed and much quicker than selecting with the wheel.

Speaking of which, is there any way to turn the clicking sound on the MMI control off?
 
Also, does anyone know if you can use the touch type option to select contacts in phone or tracks in music?
 
Yes to phone contacts! Not tried the Music option.

S3 with Tech & Connect and iPhone 5S
 
You can do it for music but you have to go to a special 'find music' option. Why they didn't just enable the touch pad in any list view and integrate it deeper into the UI that way, I have no idea. It's a bit inconsistent the way it works across different areas of the MMI, but it is very useful.
 
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mine doesn't click (not audibly anyway) but I may have turned it off within one of the MMI submenus
 
If you don't have hold assist, you can as alternative use electronic parking brake on inclines, it also seems to work well. When used, the epb does not disengage until car has enough forward momentum to stop rolling back.

I've read manual but can"t seem to find any info about tyre pressure monitor display. Can anyone assist with advice, thks. My car is an A3 Sportback 1.4 TFSI S-tronic with a few options including 17" wheels which are a bit different and lower in profile than my previous A3 15" which were higher profile.
 
Audiboyz said:
If you don't have hold assist, you can as alternative use electronic parking brake on inclines, it also seems to work well. When used, the epb does not disengage until car has enough forward momentum to stop rolling back.

I've read manual but can"t seem to find any info about tyre pressure monitor display. Can anyone assist with advice, thks. My car is an A3 Sportback 1.4 TFSI S-tronic with a few options including 17" wheels which are a bit different and lower in profile than my previous A3 15" which were higher profile.
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That's because Audi uses the simpler indirect TPMS system (iTPMS) which doesn't actually monitor tyre pressures. There are no physical pressure sensors attached to the wheels. Indirect TPMS uses the ABS system to compare the rotational speed of the wheels. If one wheel is rotating at a different speed to the others (which it would if it was deflating because of a puncture - the diameter of the wheel is smaller) then a warning is given. But obviously it can't display the pressure as it is not monitoring them!

There are a number of other problems with iTPMS and one major one is that the system will not warn you if all the tyres deflate at the same time which they do with seasonal temperature variations.

dTPMS -direct TPMS - is the only way to have the display of actual tyre pressures.
 
Little thing that surprised me is that with your phone connected but entertainment off (i.e. screen down), if the phone rings the screen will pop up and then retract again when the call is over. I had assumed that with entertainment off there would also be no phone connectivity.
 
It was a BIG surprise to me, that the A3 does not have :

a little sun visor above the rear view mirror, like the 8P has.

This made driving towards the setting sun very unpleasant.
 
Last edited:
If we are talking about negative surprises then I am surprised that with all the tech and connectivity in the car you can't see where the car is at any given time!
 
illingworth22 said:
If we are talking about negative surprises then I am surprised that with all the tech and connectivity in the car you can't see where the car is at any given time!
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I thought that but then they are stepping on the toes of dedicated trackers and they sell trackers in the accessory brochure.
 
It's probably been said already, but when you open the boot not only can you have 2 different floor levels, but when you hold the boot floor up by the two prongs on each side of the boot so it's held there so you can get whatever it is you need without it falling onto you, there is an LED incorporated (the only LED in my car I might add) into one of the prongs so you can see into the bottom of the boot even at night. Probably not that exciting but for me i was pretty surprised when I first discovered it!
 
Not so much a hidden feature but a pleasant surprise is seeing how mean your front end looks reflected in the rear end of cars when in traffic (daytime running lights) also when i come out in the morning and it's still dark i love the way the front lights fire up with the spots as well, looks well tasty! blimey aren't those Xenons bright!
 
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Yeh, I love looking at the reflection of the LED DRLs in the back of the car in front!
 
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cemerson said:
Yeh, I love looking at the reflection of the LED DRLs in the back of the car in front!
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Still like doing this even after 5 1/2 years with our A4 S-line. Wife says I'm a bit sad ... :laugh::laugh::laugh:
 
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