Driving the new 2.0TDI-140

[h5djr]

This afternoon I've been driving a new facelift A3 2.0TDI-140 Sportback for a couple of hours. This is the new common-rail version of the 2.0TDI engine and I have to say I was impressed. It's so much quieter than my current 170 version. Even standing outside the car with the engine running it's much quieter. Also there seems to be more torque available at low speeds than my 170 and I did find that I did not need to change down for some corners where I would normally. It did have an old fashioned manual gearbox but once I got used to that again it was OK. It had the new type DIS display which also showed the selected gear - not sure if the current manual does that.

The rest of the car, apart from the additional shiny bits inside was much the same. The actual model was a Sport version, black with black interior and black leather seats. Certainly would not be my choice but it was made a little better by the Open Sky Sunroofs. The door mirrors seemed huge but again once I got used to them they were quite nice with even a little repeater lens to show the indicators were flashing.

But the main thing was the new common-rail engine. A great improvement over the existing.

 

[davemk]

When you say "certainly would not be my choice", were you referring to the interior colour, the model or the A3 in general? And why?

 

[marriedblonde]

I'd guess David is refferring to not choosing a Sport and not have an all black interior!

J.

 

[h5djr]

When you say "certainly would not be my choice", were you referring to the interior colour, the model or the A3 in general? And why?

I was referring to the exterior colour, the interior colour and the seats. Basically I do not like black cars or black interiors. I've had both in the past and neither would be my choice again and I do not personally like leather seats. I also prefer the SE to the Sport model of the A3.

The main reason for driving the car was to try the new common-rail engine and I would certainly buy another A3 Sportback with the new 2.0TDI common-rail engine. But it would not be black, would not have a black interior or leather seats but would have a DSG gearbox.

 

[Matt]

My Dad picks his up 1st September... he is going from the old 140 engine in a MK5 Golf to the new CR 143 in an A3 Sportback.

He was originally wanting a Sport till I had one as courtesy car and told him about the ride, he tried one out himself and came to the same conclusion.

 

[h5djr]

My Dad picks his up 1st September... he is going from the old 140 engine in a MK5 Golf to the new CR 143 in an A3 Sportback.

He was originally wanting a Sport till I had one as courtesy car and told him about the ride, he tried one out himself and came to the same conclusion.

I think he will love it. I had an 'old' 140 before I current 170. The 170 is quieter than the 140 and the 'new' CR 140 is quieter still and more responsive to drive.

 

[RedSportback]

Got the new CR 140 in my A4, I thought the most noticeabel difference going from the A3 to A4 was the size of the vehcile, wrong then engine is the biggest difference. Much quieter as Dave said, more responsive and so far gives me great MPG.
Very impressed very happy with it.

 

[Markm49]

Also there seems to be more torque available at low speeds than my 170 and I did find that I did not need to change down for some corners where I would normally.

Dave the beauty of the 170 is the midrange pickup at say 50 -70 - how does the new 140 compare at the higher speeds ?

 

[h5djr]

Dave the beauty of the 170 is the midrange pickup at say 50 -70 - how does the new 140 compare at the higher speeds ?

Yes I agree, although I have to say I didn't really only noticed slightly less performance in the mid-range with the 140. The dealer has told me that as soon as they get a new CR-170 I can have a drive in that as well, so it will interesting to compare both with the 140 which they will still have as it's part of their company car demo fleet and the new 170 against my existing 170. Certainly up to around 90mph on a motorway it felt fine and it had plenty of go in the 50-70 range. The new CR engines are supposed to give better fuel consumption than the existing engines as well as lower co2 figures.

 

[bacardi]

cheers Dave, the new A4 estate has the 143 engine in it and is part of my shortlist of replacements for the bagga

Will be very interested to see how the 170 "new" one drives, please let us know

 

[steve184]

i just want to know when the bmw-matching 204bhp version is coming!!!

 

[h5djr]

i just want to know when the bmw-matching 204bhp version is coming!!!

I assume the 204bhp your quoting is the Alpina D3 which Bowfer will calim is not a BMW!

Taking the 'normal' manufacturers versions and I have chosen the Auto versions as personally, having had two S-tronic's, I would never buy another manual.

BMW 320d M Sport Auto / A3 Sportback 2.0TDI-140 S-tronic / TT-TDI
Max bhp = 130 / 140 / 170
Max torque = 350 at 1750 / 350 at 1250-2500 / 350 at 2500-500
co2 = 144 / 143 / 139
combined mpg = 52.3 / 52.3 / 53.3

So from these figure the performance of the 140 is almost identical to the 2.0TDI BMW. It will be interesting to compare the figures for the A3 2.0TDI-170 when the are released.

The 170 in the TT is interesting in that it gives the max torque figure of 350Nm but at higher rev of 2500-5000, which personally I find with the current 170 although the brochure says it's 1250-2500!

 

[mfspen]

It will be interesting to compare the figures for the A3 2.0TDI-170 when the are released.

You should be able to get a pretty good idea from the figures for the TT TDI, as that uses the new 170 engine.

What was the Sport suspension like in the latest A3 compared to the old one ? According to the reviews, the Sport suspension in the new Cabrio is supposed to be very good.

 

[Matt]

I'm going to have a go in a new A3 when they start getting the CR 170 engine in them. Be interested to see the difference between it and my 170 engine. Not really looking to change. They'll probably want a ridiculous amount of money plus my car anyway

 

[h5djr]

You should be able to get a pretty good idea from the figures for the TT TDI, as that uses the new 170 engine.

What was the Sport suspension like in the latest A3 compared to the old one ? According to the reviews, the Sport suspension in the new Cabrio is supposed to be very good.

Personally I'm not keen on the Sports Suspension hence I have an SE, but the new one did seem a little less harsh the I remember from driving other Sport models.

With regard to the 170 in the TT-TDI it could well be a good comparison. The only real difference being the weight. I have a look on Audi UK because there is no data for the 170 in the current A3 brochure.

 

[h5djr]

I've now added the TT-TDI figures to my previous post.

 

[h5djr]

Having commented in my earlier post about the new TDI-170 in the TT-TDI having the same 350Nm of max torque but produced at higher revs of 2500-5000, I had a look on the Audi Germany website and it gives different figures. On that site it gives the figures for both the A3-170 and the TT-170 as 350Nm at 1750-2500. A little higher revs that the A3-140 which is 1250-2500 but not as high as 2500-5000. Looking again at the Audi UK site the 2500-5000 figures are the same as for the 2.0TFSI so I think someone has copied the wrong figures, again!!

Certainly in my current 170 I do have to change down lower than I used to on my 140 for some corners and the difference between max torque starting at 1750 for the 170 rather than 1250 for the 140 could well explain this.

 

[mfspen]

It's interesting that both the 140 and 170 have the same maximum torque, but at different revs. This may mean that the 140 is the best engine to have for normal day to day driving.

 

[davemk]

Less CO2 for the 170 (Vs 140), and more MPG - are those figures correct?

 

[h5djr]

Less CO2 for the 170 (Vs 140), and more MPG - are those figures correct?

They are taken from Audi websites. The figures for the 170 are for the TT-TDI and not the A3 so the difference in weight may make some difference. Audi have not yet published on figures for the 170 engine in the A3.

 

[Irnbrukid]

I assume the 204bhp your quoting is the Alpina D3 which Bowfer will calim is not a BMW!

Taking the 'normal' manufacturers versions and I have chosen the Auto versions as personally, having had two S-tronic's, I would never buy another manual.

BMW 320d M Sport Auto / A3 Sportback 2.0TDI-140 S-tronic / TT-TDI
Max bhp = 130 / 140 / 170
Max torque = 350 at 1750 / 350 at 1250-2500 / 350 at 2500-500
co2 = 144 / 143 / 139
combined mpg = 52.3 / 52.3 / 53.3

So from these figure the performance of the 140 is almost identical to the 2.0TDI BMW. It will be interesting to compare the figures for the A3 2.0TDI-170 when the are released.

The 170 in the TT is interesting in that it gives the max torque figure of 350Nm but at higher rev of 2500-5000, which personally I find with the current 170 although the brochure says it's 1250-2500!

Do you think you should not be comparing the 1 series with the above cars (audis) it's usually 1 v A3 or 3 v A4...

The BMW 320d has 177bhp not 130 the 118d (140bhp) would be a closer comparison and the 120d (177bhp).

And the 204bhp version is in all the 1 series shapes, think it's pushing out 214bhp in the Alpina.

 

[Irnbrukid]

I assume the 204bhp your quoting is the Alpina D3 which Bowfer will calim is not a BMW!

Taking the 'normal' manufacturers versions and I have chosen the Auto versions as personally, having had two S-tronic's, I would never buy another manual.

BMW 320d M Sport Auto / A3 Sportback 2.0TDI-140 S-tronic / TT-TDI
Max bhp = 130 / 140 / 170
Max torque = 350 at 1750 / 350 at 1250-2500 / 350 at 2500-500
co2 = 144 / 143 / 139
combined mpg = 52.3 / 52.3 / 53.3

So from these figure the performance of the 140 is almost identical to the 2.0TDI BMW. It will be interesting to compare the figures for the A3 2.0TDI-170 when the are released.

The 170 in the TT is interesting in that it gives the max torque figure of 350Nm but at higher rev of 2500-5000, which personally I find with the current 170 although the brochure says it's 1250-2500!

Is the torque value above not also 320.

 

[h5djr]

The BMW figures came off their website so perhaps there are as bad as Audi and getting the figures right.

And yes the 140s max torque should read 320 and not 350. It's my 170 that has 350.

But there again numbers do not tell the whole story anyway. It's what it's like to drive that counts and the 2.0TDI-140 was very pleasant. It would have been even better if it had been an S-tronic!!

 

[h5djr]

After further attemps to get at the correct information on both the BMW and Audi sites here are a revised set of figures for anyone who is interested:

BMW 120d auto / Audi A3 2.0TDI Sportback S-Tronic / Audi TT-2.0TDI-170 manual

max power 177bhp / 140bhp / 170bhp
max torque 350Nm@1750 / 320Nm@1750-2500 / 350Nm@1750-2500
co2 145 / 143 / 139
combined mpg 57.4 / 52.3 / 53.3

It will still be interesting to see what the new 170 in an A3 is like to drive. The choice for me will be between the A3 Sportback 140 or 170 as I personally don't like the BMW 1 series. I have not tried the auto box in the 120d but if it's anything like the 3 series auto I drove before I purchased my current A3 18 months ago, it was horrible when compared with the S-tronic.

 

[Evolve]

This afternoon I've been driving a new facelift A3 2.0TDI-140 Sportback for a couple of hours. This is the new common-rail version of the 2.0TDI engine and I have to say I was impressed. It's so much quieter than my current 170 version. Even standing outside the car with the engine running it's much quieter. Also there seems to be more torque available at low speeds than my 170 and I did find that I did not need to change down for some corners where I would normally. It did have an old fashioned manual gearbox but once I got used to that again it was OK. It had the new type DIS display which also showed the selected gear - not sure if the current manual does that.

The rest of the car, apart from the additional shiny bits inside was much the same. The actual model was a Sport version, black with black interior and black leather seats. Certainly would not be my choice but it was made a little better by the Open Sky Sunroofs. The door mirrors seemed huge but again once I got used to them they were quite nice with even a little repeater lens to show the indicators were flashing.

But the main thing was the new common-rail engine. A great improvement over the existing.

Interesting comments.... We currently have a A3 2.0TDi S-line (2008) 140 BHP (well it was!!!) and I find it quite noisy. I don't know if its because its my first diesel so I have nothing else to compare it too. Not so much the engine noise but road noise.

I agree with regards to colour, mines Black outisde and black inside. In hindsight, I should have got a white one.

Overall however, I have to say I'm very impressed with the car and can see us getting a newer model in the future.

 

[h5djr]

I find that if you take out the actual engine noise, the actual noise my car makes is very dependant on the road surface. Near where I live they have recently finished a new bypass to a village and this new road joins straight on to the end of another bypass. The new one has a totally different road surface to the old one and when I drive from the old to the new it's as though someone turns off a switch.

It was mainly the actual engine noise that was so much quieter on the new CR diesel when compared to the older diesel.

 

[Irnbrukid]

After further attemps to get at the correct information on both the BMW and Audi sites here are a revised set of figures for anyone who is interested:

BMW 120d auto / Audi A3 2.0TDI Sportback S-Tronic / Audi TT-2.0TDI-170 manual

max power 177bhp / 140bhp / 170bhp
max torque 350Nm@1750 / 320Nm@1750-2500 / 350Nm@1750-2500
co2 145 / 143 / 139
combined mpg 57.4 / 52.3 / 53.3

It will still be interesting to see what the new 170 in an A3 is like to drive. The choice for me will be between the A3 Sportback 140 or 170 as I personally don't like the BMW 1 series. I have not tried the auto box in the 120d but if it's anything like the 3 series auto I drove before I purchased my current A3 18 months ago, it was horrible when compared with the S-tronic.

The 120d figures are wrong again

co2 144

combined mpg 51.4

http://www.bmw.co.uk/bmwuk/pricesandspecifications/0,,1156___bs-MQ==@bb-S08=@sit-bmwuk,00.html

Why dont you compare the 170 stronic sportback

co2 149

combined mpg 49.6

The manual figures make the gap even wider, think the stronic is more economical than the manual in the audis.


Think bmw will release the new dct box down the range soon enough to go head to head with the dsg/stronic.