New S3 saloon concerns

TurboBen · Nov 22, 2015

I picked up a new S3 saloon Stronic last month. I've put about 900 miles on it, and have a couple of concerns that I'd like to get peoples opinions on. I don't know if it's at all relevant, but there is a fault with the battery monitoring device, but that shouldn't affect anything here I don't think.

First, I have noticed what seems to be a knock/thud coming from under the car when going over bumps. It often seems to be smaller bumps in the road that cause it, rather than things like speed bumps. If I had to guess, it sounds like the exhaust bumping the chassis. Has anyone else had this issue?

Second, the performance of the car seems a little sedate to me. I've had fast cars before, and this seems a little slow. I've noticed that in first gear, only 5 or 6 lights on the boost gauge light up. In second, it slowly builds to 7, sometimes lighting up all 8 just before red line. In any gear above that, all 8 light will be lit at full throttle as low as 2500 rpm. Is this normal? I've looked at acceleration videos and it seems that the boost gauge should fully light in all gears when pushed hard.

Third, the fuel economy seems poor. I'm not expecting 40mpg average, but i'm struggling to get above 27mpg, and that's taking it very steady. At one point it was at less than 22, though there were a lot of short trips to work and back. If I take it on an A road and sit at 50mph in 6th, it'll do about 37 mpg. I can't see any way to get better than that, but I see in other threads people getting over 40mpg. This could of course be linked to issues in point two above.

She's going in for the battery monitoring device tomorrow night, I'd like to have a better idea of whether or not these are issues, or whether it's just me.

Thanks in advance.

RO65ERS · Nov 22, 2015

give it time with the engine to bed in. i found around the 3000 mile mark for the mpg to increase and the engine performance to really come alive.
I've had other cars that its happened sooner, and others have taken 5k...

the more you drive, the better the return will become...*all to an extent anyway.

SJ43 · Nov 22, 2015

I'd say pile on a few thousand miles you'll be surprised how the performance/economy and even the sound of the car improves. Found this to be the case with every new car that I've had.

Simon L · Nov 22, 2015

I'm getting about the mpg as you, also have a short commute to work. Not having any problem getting all the boost lights on though lol......................I'm about 1800 miles and would say the performance has definitely increased since new.

SJ43 · Nov 22, 2015

Is it likely Audi has limited boost for the first e.g 1000 miles? Just a thought

RO65ERS · Nov 22, 2015

sj43 said:
Is it likely Audi has limited boost for the first e.g 1000 miles? Just a thought

well you mention this, my s3 - manual, would not launch. not at all, ESP on, in sport, or off, as soon as i revved it and lifted the clutch it would just shut all power down.
got to about 3k miles, i can sit full throttle, holding it at 4 grand, and come off the clutch and launch it like a freaking hero... honestly, the engine performance and drivability completely changed. so maybe you're onto something with your comment of it being limited for a set distance during break in.

I've only had stronic on my avant, and that was used so i can't really comment on any of the other features with the boost gauge lights.

TurboBen · Nov 22, 2015

sj43 said:
Is it likely Audi has limited boost for the first e.g 1000 miles? Just a thought

That did cross my mind.

I'm going to see if I can get another S3 as a courtesy car when it goes in tomorrow night, have something to compare it to then. I got a manual S3 last time mine was in. It fealt much quicker than mine.

msdmjb · Nov 22, 2015

I disagree and it needs checked out, if you floor the throttle even in 6th at 2k rpm the boost gauge should be fully lit, you do not need to be anywhere near full revs to get full boost. OK the performance will physically increase but the turbo should still be on full boost out of the box. There is no boost limit from new.
If I try I can easily get low 40s on a 75mile trip on a mix of A and mway.

TurboBen · Nov 22, 2015

msdmjb said:
I disagree and it needs checked out, if you floor the throttle even in 6th at 2k rpm the boost gauge should be fully lit, you do not need to be anywhere near full revs to get full boost. OK the performance will physically increase but the turbo should still be on full boost out of the box. There is no boost limit from new.
If I try I can easily get low 40s on a 75mile trip on a mix of A and mway.

That's the odd thing, in 3rd and above, the boost gauge fully lights up at 2 - 2.5k no problem. It's only first and second where it looks and feels like it's holding back. First gear never gets past 5 or 6 lights on, second goes to 5/6 and slowly gets to 7 at about 5k rpm and sometimes 8 just before it upshifts.

TurboBen · Nov 25, 2015

My car has been in now and the start/stop system is now working. They had a look at the knocking sound and couldn't find anything. They also reset the ecu in an attempt to "fix" the fuel economy issue, although they were reluctant to admit that 22mpg was abnormal.

I had an S3 manual hatch while it was in. 15 plate with 4000 on the clock. It seems to do the same as mine where the boost gauge doesn't fill in first and second.

One thing is for sure though, the fuel economy was much, much better than mine. I'd say a good 25 to 30% better! Surely that's more than can be explained away by saying mine is a new engine? I've also noticed a lot of black soot around the exhaust which suggests to me it's over fueling.

glospete · Nov 25, 2015

Black soot is quite normal on A3/S3 models. It doesn't AFAIK signify any fuelling problem. The days of nice white exhausts stopped when they removed lead from our petrol.

Simon L · Nov 27, 2015

Anyone disappointed in their fuel consumption may take some solice from this (I know I did)........

I was talking to a guy at work the other day who's boss recently bought an RS6. His average fuel consumption is currently 8mpg!! Yep, you read that right...............might have supercar performance but it's got supercr*p fuel economy to go with it

pburv · Nov 27, 2015

Simon L said:
Anyone disappointed in their fuel consumption may take some solice from this (I know I did)........

I was talking to a guy at work the other day who's boss recently bought an RS6. His average fuel consumption is currently 8mpg!! Yep, you read that right...............might have supercar performance but it's got supercr*p fuel economy to go with it

Does his car go into minus mpg if he boots it?....... :haha:

Palacemads3 · Nov 27, 2015

I'm going to try the boost issue on the way to work now!

Regarding the mpg, it's very difficult to say, I've driven down to London from West Yorkshire, straight down the m1 and back and got around 44mpg which I thought was incredible.

As far as the speed goes, you say you are used to fast cars and I think this car genuinely is that too, but I think it's a constant build of power rather than a sudden surge you often get with turbos.

TurboBen · Nov 27, 2015

Palacemads3 said:
I'm going to try the boost issue on the way to work now!

Regarding the mpg, it's very difficult to say, I've driven down to London from West Yorkshire, straight down the m1 and back and got around 44mpg which I thought was incredible.

As far as the speed goes, you say you are used to fast cars and I think this car genuinely is that too, but I think it's a constant build of power rather than a sudden surge you often get with turbos.

It's been a few years since I had a fast car. I had a calibra 4x4 turbo tuned to 300bhp, so about the same, although quite a bit heavier. First and second were brutal on it though, the turbo used to overboost and then settle back to about 1.3 bar. The S3 seems to build boost very slowly in first and second, even at higher rpm. Maybe I just need to wait for APR to crack the new encryption on late 2015 ecu's lol

As for MPG, did a 10 mile run with the cruise set at 50mph. Flat road, hot engine, no acceleration, just 10 miles at a constant 50mph. Just broke 40mpg. I can't see how I could get this any higher. I'm assuming you weren't sticking to 50 all the way to London (even with all the roadworks!), so for you to get 44mpg makes mine look very poor. I average about 27 if I take it VERY steady. Any sort of "spirited" driving results in low 20's. For comparison, my 20 year old calibra that weighed 300kg more could get well over 30mpg easily (not driving like a grandad either).

Also, never had any soot out the exhaust except when the lambda sensor failed, never once had to clean the exhaust, and certainly not every few hundred miles. All that soot can't be good for the cat surely?

I should add that I've been using tesco momentum. I'm trying it with some 95 to eliminate fuel quality from the equation, but so far doesn't seem much better, if at all. Might try a tank of V power sometime, but can't see this doing anything other than confusing the ecu.

Palacemads3 · Nov 27, 2015

TurboBen said:
It's been a few years since I had a fast car. I had a calibra 4x4 turbo tuned to 300bhp, so about the same, although quite a bit heavier. First and second were brutal on it though, the turbo used to overboost and then settle back to about 1.3 bar. The S3 seems to build boost very slowly in first and second, even at higher rpm. Maybe I just need to wait for APR to crack the new encryption on late 2015 ecu's lol

As for MPG, did a 10 mile run with the cruise set at 50mph. Flat road, hot engine, no acceleration, just 10 miles at a constant 50mph. Just broke 40mpg. I can't see how I could get this any higher. I'm assuming you weren't sticking to 50 all the way to London (even with all the roadworks!), so for you to get 44mpg makes mine look very poor. I average about 27 if I take it VERY steady. Any sort of "spirited" driving results in low 20's. For comparison, my 20 year old calibra that weighed 300kg more could get well over 30mpg easily (not driving like a grandad either).

Also, never had any soot out the exhaust except when the lambda sensor failed, never once had to clean the exhaust, and certainly not every few hundred miles. All that soot can't be good for the cat surely?

I should add that I've been using tesco momentum. I'm trying it with some 95 to eliminate fuel quality from the equation, but so far doesn't seem much better, if at all. Might try a tank of V power sometime, but can't see this doing anything other than confusing the ecu.

Well after my jury to work this morning I can definitely confirm you can get the full number of boost bars, at the very least in 1st gear!

It's difficult to help you regarding the speed, prior to this car I had the 8p model s3 for 7 years and prior to that I had a clio 172 for 4 years so I have been getting progressively faster in my cars. The one thing I notice between this and my previous s3 is that in 8p model there was a clearer shift after 2000 revs, with this model it's much less noticeable and so maybe that does make a difference. I also think that you do get slightly numb to the fast speeds after driving fast cars for quite some time. The only thing that I have felt goes quick since owning my audis was a mcclaren!

To get the 45mpg the roadworks played a huge part, the rest of the time I was going at about 80. I did notice improvement in my cars mpg post around 3000 miles.

I have only ever used v power, maybe give it a try and see what you think. It might make a difference!

I don't understand why you're not getting any soot on the exhausts. Particularly in the first 12 months of ownership mine were getting covered in the stuff, particularly the inside pipes. It's not as bad now but does still get some on them.

TurboBen · Nov 28, 2015

Sorry, I meant I didn't get soot out my calibra. S3 exhaust was black inside and out after about 300 miles! Did the reduction in soot happen at the same time you noticed your fuel economy improve? In my experience, soot means too much fuel.

If anyone gets chance, could you reset avg mpg 1 and post what you get holding a steady 50mph for a couple of miles. It would be interesting to get a few comparissons.

Holtt · Nov 28, 2015

The knocking noise i had an issue with, i took it to audi and they found a split exhaust rubber.

Supa Koopa · Nov 30, 2015

Not much help or comfort but my mpg is around the same. It's not as bad as I feared or as good as I'd hoped. Currently showing 26.4 since it was new, but I'm regularly in the low 20's as it just doesn't get driven much and when it does it's a;; . 1300 miles since new so may get better, but not really that bothered if it doesn't.

Palacemads3 · Dec 2, 2015

TurboBen said:
Sorry, I meant I didn't get soot out my calibra. S3 exhaust was black inside and out after about 300 miles! Did the reduction in soot happen at the same time you noticed your fuel economy improve? In my experience, soot means too much fuel.

If anyone gets chance, could you reset avg mpg 1 and post what you get holding a steady 50mph for a couple of miles. It would be interesting to get a few comparissons.

I can't really comment on a link between the decrease in soot to improvement in mpg I'm afraid. I have no idea if they are linked.

I will have a go at resetting the fuel economy and do a couple of miles at 50mph, I'll let you know my results.

xBox · Dec 3, 2015

TurboBen said:
I should add that I've been using tesco momentum. I'm trying it with some 95 to eliminate fuel quality from the equation, but so far doesn't seem much better, if at all. Might try a tank of V power sometime, but can't see this doing anything other than confusing the ecu.

Yup, ECU adjusts slowly, 2-3 tanks.

BTW, what engine mode are you driving in, is your cruise AAC and if so what setting (comfort, dynamic)?

AAC is not so fuel efficient and worse in the most dynamic mode.

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