a3_phil's Daytona Grey A3 184 TDI Sportback

After what felt like decades of waiting, my new car was finally ready for collection this morning at Vindis Peterborough.

I was first collection of the day and was met promptly at 9am by my product host who's been my contact throughout the process which was great as we knew each other quite well from three months of contact.

The car was kept under wraps, and he kept me waiting by suggesting we sort the sale of my old car first so I was getting pretty twitchy by the time we were ready for the big unveiling. Having never bought a brand new car before I thought it was a wonderful experience and gets the relationship with the dealer off to a fantastic start.

We then spent a good two hours going through all the features of the car, both mechanical and electronic. Every little cubby-hole was demonstrated and all of the features and options were explained in great depth all of which meant I was really confident with the car by the time it came to drive it home.

Day 1 Thoughts:

B&O:

A good sound system was really important to me but I was a little apprehensive about going B&O after experiencing terrible crackling on the demonstrator. The good news is that mine doesn't crackle! The even better news is that it's a FANTASTIC system that causes ear pain well before I get any distortion. The sound is really well balanced (IMHO at least) straight out of the box, but I'd imagine the bass-heads would want to crank the bass and sub settings to really get the most out of it. The BAD news about it, is that it really shows up the poor quality of some of my MP3 collection. Top of the list now is to track down some high quality encodings of a few of my older albums.

ACC:
Having covered 100 miles on my first day, I'm already confident that I'd want ACC on any future car. It's a great system that (so far) hasn't been wrong-footed once and makes standard commuting effortless. The default gap (for me) is pretty much perfect and having drive select in 'Efficiency' has meant it doesn't lurch forward at every gap in traffic, instead smoothly adapting to the flow of traffic. FWIW I have the plate sensor rather than the dome.

Interior:
I've gone with the standard S-Line seats but the mono.pur interior finish. The quality, fit and finish of the interior knocks spots off anything I've driven before with the whole dash feeling properly nailed down. The seat adjustment and center arm-rest make it pretty easy to find a comfortable position but I'm sure there's still a bit of fiddling required to make it perfect.

ILP:
Was added as an option on the recommendation of the forum and I'm glad I specced it. Really makes the car look special inside at night, though having lighted footwells is going to take some getting used to.

Adaptive Headlights with Xenon Plus:
Not had all that much use just yet but they're certainly working and the throw of the xenons on full beam is really very good.

Hold Assist:
Not much to say other than it works, it's really useful and it means never having to touch the handbrake (except when starting the car without first putting on the belt...).

SE Suspension:
I did agonise about suspension choice as in my last car I'd done my best to minimise arch gap by fitting lowering springs and spacers but it did compromise the ride too much. Obviously the SE suspension does give big arch gap (see the side shots) but IMHO the shape and colour of the car mean that it doesn't look too bad and instead gives it an 'Audi Allroad' look. The ride itself is firm but not crashy and it doesn't seem to wallow in the corners. That said, I haven't really given it the beans yet so we'll have to wait and see what it's like at greater cornering speed.

The Engine & Performance:
As it's only done 100 miles I'm trying to keep the revs and the load low so it's not really shown any great acceleration yet but even within that range it feels pretty nippy and pulls well from low down. The engine note itself is very quite but ever so slightly rorty which I was actually pleasantly surprised by.

I'm assuming the engine will loosen up over the first 1,000 miles or so and improve but even fresh from the box it managed 63mpg on my 60 mile trip to work.

The Photos:

As requested...






1,000 Miles in:

To be updated!

10,000 Miles in:

(Left optimistically blank)

No problem, it's a nice release in a way to finally be able to tell people about it after having had to read, with great jealousy, all of the other write ups from those who've received theirs!

A3Kent said:

Oh man, I love it. Can't wait to get mine now! Is your ACC sensor dome or flat? Could you take a pic of the interior during the day? Interested in what the mono pur looks like.

Lovely lovely motor.....and it's efficient!

Click to expand...

Sensor is the flat one (no tech pack / driver assist package which seems to influence it).

Not got any great pics of the interior (really hard to get a representative shot!) but this is the best I've managed so far:

Up to just over 500 miles now and the lifetime MPG is actually down to about 54 but that's mainly a result of the different driving I've been doing over the weekend. A week's worth of commuting should see that dragged up somewhat.

Now it's getting closer to it's run-in mileage I've been using a few more revs and some more throttle and so far I'm very impressed with the power. Looking forward to seeing what it's got at 100%!

1000 miles in and time for another update...


Fuel Economy:

So now 1,000 miles down and the car has loosened up nicely. Fuel economy has been 52.3mpg for the month of October (i.e. lifetime figures) but there's been a fair mix of journeys and the odd b-road thrash as I've approached the higher miles. On my commute I've regularly been hitting 55-58mpg door to door but this has been offset by some bad traffic and some engine 'testing'. November's figure will probably be better again as I've got a few long journeys to get in.


Performance:

Now that I've had the chance to run the engine round the dial a bit I can comment on the performance and I have to say I'm impressed. It's clearly no sports car but it's very eager to go and the pick-up from quite low revs is very good. The gearing (IMHO) is perhaps a little unflattering as I think I'd prefer a slightly longer 2nd gear. As it stands, on full throttle it tends to whip through 2nd and then your hitting NSL in 3rd before you're really into the meat of it. Either way it covers ground very quickly for diesel hatchback so I've no real complaints.


Toys:

The B&O system continues to impress and I've had no issues with it in respect of crackling. I have, however, managed to give myself a headache on a few occasions by having it cranked a little too loud with D&B

Now that the nights have drawn in the adaptive lights are coming into their own. On the dark back roads round my way the xenons are just perfect and really move into the corners in a useful way. The static cornering lights are good too but I'm not sure if they should also be illuminating junctions as I pass (as I have the SD nav). Either way, they're still pretty useful at junctions. Interestingly I have had a couple of 'Adaptive Light Failures' when starting the car but it clears immediately if you restart the car. If it becomes more of an issue I'll be back to the dealer but it's so intermittent I couldn't reproduce it if I tried.


The Niggles:

I'm struggling a little with seat position though as the side bolster does dig into my leg a little (28" thighs don't help...) but I'll have a fiddle with the seat and see if I can sort it.

The adaptive cruise control has been pretty much flawless in operation but there are a couple of foibles to work around. I do find myself having to juggle the distance setting from single to dual carriageway a lot. On single carriageways I set it to maximum distance which helps it adapt better to changes without constantly braking / accelerating. On dual carriageways that setting is too long as it brakes the car when approaching traffic long before I'd normally consider pulling out to overtake. Even on the short distance setting I do occasionally get caught out which must make me look like a berk as I brake randomly then pull out into a clear overtaking lane. The other (very slight) problem is that the ACC rides the brake more than I would normally which is making my front wheels dirtier than I'd like!

Drive select is a great system but I'd really like it if it could be set up to toggle between two settings. I use 'Economy' for 90% of my driving but I switch it into 'Dynamic' if I want a quick blast. As it stands that's something like four jabs of the button to switch. It'd be really nice if the '*' on the steering feel could be set to switch between 'favourites' rather than all of the modes.

Parking mirror. I understand that the left mirror (if selected on the mirror controls) will drop when reversing. That's great, but both at work and at home I park up against a kerb / path on the right hand side of the car so it'd be much more useful for me if it worked onboth sides.


General Impressions:

Overall I'm still really impressed with the car. The more intangible qualities like cabin noise levels and comfort are really great. Compared to my old Mondeo the heating seems to come onmuch more quickly and the whole A/C system is so much quieter I just don't hear the fans going at all. All of these refinements do perhaps draw your attention to the tyre roar from the Contis. It's not as bad as I'd thought it might be but on some road surfaces it's by far the loudest sound in the cabin (B&O excluded of course!).

I'm really pleased I specified the mono.pur too as my seating position does press my left leg up against the centre console so that extra couple of mm of padding makes it so much more comfortable.

I know this is perhaps controversial on this forum but I also really like the stop-start. It doesn't get used all that much as my commute is fairly flowing but I find it really relaxing to stop at lights and the car to just go totally silent. Very good at keeping traffic stress down!

A3Kent said:

Hi Phil, thanks for the write ups. Very useful.

How tall are you out of interest? I am 6ft 5 and suffered quite a lot from my leg sitting up against the centre console in my last 8P. This meant that not only was it slightly uncomfortable after a length of time but by leg was very close to the bottom of the steering wheel which wasn't ideal when turning sharply as my hand would clip my legs on the way round.

I have ordered mono.pur in mine so I'm hopeful after your comments that it'll give me extra padding on my leg but wondered what the gap was like from your leg to the steering wheel.

I did test drive one and it seemed better than the 8P, specially with the flat bottom steering wheel

Thanks again

Click to expand...

I'm 6' but with long legs for my height. Not quit 6'5" length though I'm sure.

Just done another 4.5hrs in the car today and it wasn't really an issue for me. I usually sit with my knees quite well under the wheel and it's size means I don't really catch my hands.

Time for another update...

3,500 miles down

Road Trip

Managed to get some serious mileage on it this month and have done nearly 2,200 miles in just four weeks. Good job really as I'm now laid up recovering from a knee arthroscopy which will leave me housebound for a week or so.

As a good mate of mine is heading down under for a few years we thought we'd have a bit of a road trip to mark the occassion of both his emigration and my new car. After picking him up just north of Leeds the plan was to head to Peebles on the A68 through the national park before heading into Edinburgh for a couple of nights. After that we trekked north to Aviemore but with some large detours to seek out the best driving roads off the A9 including athe Aberfeldy loop round Loch Tummel back into Pitlochry and then taking in the final leg through Bramar.

The roads were absolutely fantastic and the A3 really got a hammering. I have to say the car (IMHO) had the perfect amount of performance for most of the drive as many roads had nice short dashes between corners meaning you could drive flat out until the braking zone each time. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure you S3 owners would have loved it too but I very rarely found myself wanting more power. More courage maybe...

The car itself had no problems doing what was asked of it and the engine was really starting to feel eager to both rev (in a diesel!?) and pull strongly even when being asked to pull off overtakes on steep inclines.

In spite of driving around 4 hours with long sections of full throttle / full brakes it still turned in a respectable 43mpg.

For reference, the route was:

https://goo.gl/maps/ilFY2

On the way back we took the straightforward route on motorways through Glasgow and down the M6 which gave us a chance to stretch out the economy a bit. Motorways with ACC on set to 70mph gave us around 55mpg.


Trip to the dealer

On returning from Scotland I had the car booked in for them to look at the creamy dipstick mayo as well as an intermittent adaptive lights failure (failure to adapt, not the more dangerous failure to light!).

The lights are apparently a software issue which they're waiting on a fix from Audi, but the oil problem was a bit more severe as they eventually diagnosed a head gasket failure!

It can't have been that big a failure though as I spotted no significant loss of coolant in the 1,000 mile road-trip and it ran okay.

However... after getting the car back (nicely cleaned and vacced by King's Lynn Audi!) it does seem to have improved performance quite considerably at higher revs. It's throwing the ESP light a lot more in full throttle corner exits and is really pushing me back into the seat which is nice!


Nothing else to report really, but I'm still really impressed and happy with the car. Having driven a brand new S-Line A1 for a few days the A3 really doesn't feel like it's only one class removed.

Miles for the month: 2,200
November MPG: 52.7

Manual car I'm afraid

I'm now 10,000 miles and six months into ownership so it's time for a bit of an update.

Fuel Economy

If I'm honest, it's still falling short of where I'd hoped it would be, but ultimately hitting book figures would only save me a further £20/mth. Against the ongoing lease cost it's not all that much so I'm not having to sell my children just yet. For reference I've achieved the following figures (from DIS) since I got it:

October - 1,324mi / 53.2mpg
November - 2,164mi / 52.7mpg
December - 1,095mi / 52.6mpg
January - 1,520mi / 53.2mpg
February - 1,010mi / 49mpg (two weeks off work, short journeys)
March - 1,575mi / 54.2mpg

Most months the actual driving is the same ; mainly A-roads in flowing traffic at 45-60mph with a ten mile dual carriageway taken at 60-75mph depending on mood.

The economy does seem to be improving with the increasing temperatures but I'm offsetting that by giving it some more welly too so it'll probably even out!

The Good

While I have flagged up a bunch of problems below, overall I'm still really pleased with the car and would definitely consider an Audi again next time around. Maybe even one of those shiny new RS3s...

• The interior is still fresh as the day I picked it up and is still a great place to be. I very occassionally get a rattle from the seatbelt (fixed with a quick jiggle) and sometimes there's a squeak from the seat-belt anchor (also easily jiggled) but other than that it's wonderfully well screwed together. Now if only the two child seats in the back were equally well put together...

• I'm still getting a lot of use out of the B&O and have been steadily trying it out at higher and higher volumes where it continues to impress. I still find myself listening to the system rather than listening to my music though, i.e. picking out tracks to try and test it's reproduction but once the novelty of rearranging my internal organs with bass fades that'll probably stop.

• All the automation and assists still get a tonne of use too with ACC being used for a good 95% of my driving and obviously the auto-lights and wipers too. Hold assist is permanently on and has just faded into the background which is a testament to how well it's working (for me! I don't want to start that one again). The only problem is I keep forgetting to put the handbrake on when I've moved the wife's car so her car will probably end up in a hedge shortly.

• The car does seem to have loosened up too which means I'm enjoying giving it a bit of a thrash when traffic permits. It's interesting that it's quicker than my old diesel Mondeo but the delivery makes it actually feel a little slower in a straight-line due to the lack of drama / noise. Using an iPad app I figured a few times if anyone's interested. I'm sure I could have got some better numbers with a more aggressive start and gear changes, but as a rough indication it's okay:

• It seems to get a caning on here from a lot of people, but I really like the stop-start facility. With it being a manual it's no effort to avoid it in creeping traffic if you don't want it but I still find it incredibly satisfying to pull up at the lights and then sit there in silence without the engine rattling away up front.

The Bad

All cars have the faults, obviously, but I've been pleased with how few I've had so far.

• Mechanically it's been fine, but checks on the oil and coolant levels resulted in a new head gasket early on and required a coolant top-up last month. The latter was most likely down to an air lock from the head gasket change so I'm not overly worried about water pumps yet..

• Now that we have two kids under 3 we're finding the luggage space to be a little restrictive. With a buggy frame in the back we've got room for a couple of bags and that's it so even a night away means overspilling into the main cabin with various bags. I appreciate it's sold as a 'Sportback' rather than a full fat 'Avant' but the smallness of the boot is a little deceptive and coming from a cavernous Mondeo it's often a little frustrating. For the first time I think our family holiday will start with a trip to Audi for some roof bars and a box.

• I'm not sure if it's tyres or road surface but I've been surprised at the level of ESP intervention when giving it full throttle in 2nd gear in a straight line. As you can see from the figures above it's no rocket and I've had a 280bhp/364lbft Focus ST on the same size tyres that had less ESP intervention whilst accelerating a hell of a lot more quickly. Anyone else suffering the same or am I just being too heavy footed on crap roads?

• It's a pretty petty niggle, but a niggle nonetheless, that there is no scrolling of titles on the standard MMI setup. I've got quite a lot of music with long track titles and it amazes me that there's no attempt to scroll the title when the track changes. Is this how it behaves on the MMI High too, albeit with more characters shown in the first place?

The Ugly

Thankfully not too much in the way of big problems, but...

• What I simply cannot get my head around is the behaviour of drive select. If I have the car in dynamic mode (or the engine set to dynamic in 'Individual') that means I want the full dynamic throttle response. It's simply unacceptable to have to press drive select a handful of times to cycle back to the same mode I was allegedly already in!? Who on earth decided on that particular behaviour?

• It's only ugly in an aesthetic sense rather than it being a major fault, but the car really does pick up the dirt in annoying ways. I understand that the flat back pulls road spray into the void and over the rear bumper / screen but I also find that the front wheels throw loads of spray and dirt down the sides of the car too. The upshot is that even a single short journey with damp roads seems to get the car filthy. Not sure if this is a consequence of getting the SE suspension option but it's pretty annoying.

Just to add to this thread, I'm now due my second replacement windscreen in a month...

A few weeks ago I was hit with a large rock thrown up by a truck which cracked the screen (thank god it didn't hit a body panel) so I called my insurer (glass cover) and they sent out Autoglass.

The screen was replaced with no problems and I thought no more about it until I returned to my car a few days ago and found the rear-view mirror hanging down by the cables.

As I was due to be passing the Audi dealership on my way home I dropped in and was told they couldn't do anything as it wasn't an OE Audi screen and the gel pack (?) wouldn't necessarily be the same fit.

Called Autoglass expecting them to send a guy out to reglue it but instead they said it's probably a faulty screen and they'd replace the whole thing!?

Bit narked about having to drive around without a rearview mirror, but hopefully sorted by Wednesday...

Hey Rich,

It's definitely got better as the weather has warmed up and the roads have dried out but it's still there occasionally.

I'm 15,000 miles in on these tyres now and the fronts (at least) will need replacing soon. Given my miles are 99% brain-off commuting and 1% giving it the beans I'm probably going to go for a set of Goodyear EfficientGrips to try and get the road-noise down a bit. Will be interesting to see how the grip compares.

Phil

rvtb101 said:

Mileage wise about the same with me, but these tyres are wearing incredibly well. Will probably be looking for new fronts nearer Christmas so would be brill to hear what you recon about some different rubber.

Out of interest which drive select mode do you have yours for the majority?
Rich

Click to expand...

Morning commute - Efficiency
Evening commute - Comfort/Efficiency (if it's a hot afternoon, the A/C on 'Efficiency' just doesn't cut it)
If the traffic clears / driving for enjoyment - Dynamic

I've got Individual set up quite well but as the throttle response resets every time you restart the car it was kind of pointless as you had to jab the 'Drive Select' button six times to get it back. May as well leave it in Comfort/Efficiency and then get the full Dynamic response when you need it.