8.5Y RS3

M3 Convert said:
It's a shame as I think there's a lot to appreciate in the 8Y. For me, it's a great balance of everyday useability with little or no compromises plus enough performance for any road situation in the UK nowadays. All new cars are getting strangled with OPFs and every review harks back to the good old days when you could hear the 5 pot / straight 6 / V6 / V8 sing. Maybe I'm getting old but I think it still sounds decent with the valves open and I wouldn't want any more. I was never one for pops and farts anyway! The insurance hikes are a pain but affecting most high-performance ICE cars.
Click to expand...
I'd agree with all your comments, I keep looking around as i'm 2 1/2 years into RS3 ownership now and have itchy feet, It does wind me up a little with the odd software glitch but when I look around I think I have the best available for my needs, I have looked at

RS4...........seems to loose to much money, looks nice though
RS6............Audi offering best part of £25k off in the showroom, must loos megga £, 20-25 mpg max wouldnt work, looks stunning
BMW M3 touring..........couldnt handle a car with no indicators :tearsofjoy: dont like front or rear (compaared to RS4/6) and sounds ****
 
  • Like
Reactions: Frankel and flybynite
Mike.46 said:
RS4...........seems to loose to much money, looks nice though
RS6............Audi offering best part of £25k off in the showroom, must loos megga £, 20-25 mpg max wouldnt work, looks stunning
BMW M3 touring..........couldnt handle a car with no indicators :tearsofjoy: dont like front or rear (compaared to RS4/6) and sounds ****
Click to expand...

Have you looked at the Alpina B3 Touring? Better front, good residuals IMHO sounds better than the M3
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mike.46
Mike.46 said:
RS4...........seems to loose to much money, looks nice though
RS6............Audi offering best part of £25k off in the showroom, must loos megga £, 20-25 mpg max wouldnt work, looks stunning
BMW M3 touring..........couldnt handle a car with no indicators :tearsofjoy: dont like front or rear (compaared to RS4/6) and sounds ****
Click to expand...
I went through a similar exercise when shopping for the RS3 and reached similar conclusions. Just to add that they all need to go on a diet! The RS3 is still nicely compact by today's standards.

I waited for years hoping to jump from an E90 M3 into the G80. I followed all the talk about possible XDrive and then all the outrage about DCT to ZF box. But it was the looks that finally killed it for me. They totally nailed the engineering but made it M5 sized and fugly as sin!

We should be grateful that Audi haven't followed the BMW M styling team in a race to the absolute bottom. Alpina must be thanking them!
 
^ Yes, RS4 and RS6 look pretty nice from a side view (in fact any view) M3 touring from the side looks 'orrible (IMHO) and hideous from the front, again IMHO
 
IMG 6381IMG 6382
 
  • Like
Reactions: kayemill
kayemill said:
No front RS 3 Badge? Solid Rings :puke2:

Assume the back badge will be the new style also. With the Rhombus now being on a base model A3.

The back bumper is not an improvement.
Click to expand...
I know mate, could be just a render although they have done something similar with the FL S3 rear which leads me to think it’s not that far off.

I don’t like any of it, they think a light cluster gimmick is enough to make people part with 60k lol

Front grill looks messy, almost like they didn’t know what to do with it, maybe the interior will be a major talking point when we see it
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jassyo06 and kayemill
I'm not liking that :( It's almost as if they have run out of idea's now and are moving and altering stuff because they have to.

The wheels are OK, but, I suspect the cleaning of them would become a pain.....
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jassyo06 and kayemill
It's still a render, done over this:
1720184262297

See https://www.netcarshow.com/audi/2023-rs3_sedan_performance/

But I think it's close to the real thing. Compared to the camouflaged pictures there don't even seem to be any notable distortions. Looks way better than the earlier yellow pics.

I really like that they cleaned the lines of the front bumper lip. The rear still looks too baggy.
 
Last edited:
  • Haha
Reactions: HM3P
8YARWY said:
View attachment 277087View attachment 277088
Click to expand...


I like the facelift front a lot more than the prefacelift. It is a lot cleaner to me. I also like the diamonds in the facelift more than the rounded honeycomb in the prefacelift. The headlamp is definitely much improved. The rear is an improvement but still not good. The prefacelift fake black honeycomb was just ugly. This one is bearable but not great. The rear of the yellow render is better with the matte aluminium diffuser frame with less gloss black.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: Gazza84
LOL - That Hyundai wants to be an ICE car so bad. They actually made it slower to mimic the shifts :tearsofjoy:

I wonder what that boost button does to the range?
 
  • Haha
Reactions: kayemill
So the moral of the story is buy the Lamborghini then :tongueclosed:
 
  • Haha
Reactions: HM3P and kayemill
8YARWY said:
So the render i posted a while back isn't a million miles away from this.

That front end looks terrible, which i didn't think was possible, but somehow Audi have managed it.:puke:
Click to expand...
Yeah it was pretty accurate.
I don't mind it - FL lights looks way better with dark interior as opposed to silver I've seen so far, but the bottom bit seems pointless now with the 5x3 grid gone.
Front Audi rings look like they've gone missing though haha.
Here's pics of the rear stole from FB
FB IMG 1724066047330
 
Wouldn't say terrible but wtf are those "vents" on the sides of the honeycomb grille? There's too much going on inside the grille frame.
 
  • Like
  • Haha
Reactions: VeeDubDan and HM3P
JKP said:
Wouldn't say terrible but wtf are those "vents" on the sides of the honeycomb grille? There's too much going on inside the grille frame.
Click to expand...
Lol it's horrible, and the rear wtf is that all about, are they doing a 'BMW' by having the detail get larger each time, i mean the gloss black diffuser is half way up the rear of the car......not good at all
 
Agree about the rear. Also the exhaust pipes look huge, again like the diffuser was drawn in different scale than the rest of the rear parts and somebody just merged the blueprints, "ok done".

Edit: Bimmerpost forum is worth the visit, check any thread about the new M5 Touring. :tearsofjoy: There are quite a lot Bimmer fanboys stating how much better Audis look today compared to BMW's latest designs, especially the RS6 vs M5. Guess you can never be happy.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: HM3P
JKP said:
Agree about the rear. Also the exhaust pipes look huge, again like the diffuser was drawn in different scale than the rest of the rear parts and somebody just merged the blueprints, "ok done".
Click to expand...
Here’s the newer version

IMG 6702
 
  • Haha
  • Like
Reactions: VeeDubDan, Mr Freeze, Jaeger12 and 7 others
VeeDubDan said:
Glad I bought a pre-facelift.
Click to expand...

Glad I bought a facelift ...... 8v :grinning:

JKP said:
Bimmer fanboys stating how much better Audis look today compared to BMW's latest designs,
Click to expand...

Not been a fan of BMs since they stopped putting 4 round headlights on them,

Properly lost their way now but European market doesn't matter any more to most manufactures, how they go down in the far east is what seems to matter.
 
www.autocar.co.uk

New Audi RS3 is a five-cylinder swansong with improved agility | Autocar

Hot hatch arrives with updated front end, interior and reworked brake torque vectoring
www.autocar.co.uk www.autocar.co.uk

Not a fan of the new steering wheel, which is just a flat-bottomed version of the bus wheel, but it does seem that the final edition now comes with the RS buckets as standard.

Sent from my SM-G991B using Tapatalk
 
Me neither. Otherwise the official pics with full resolution look miles better than the leaks or renders. I might think the new front is a bit nicer than the original one, The cleaned straight line line under the grille is much better than the zigzag of lines in the old one. Old rear is better especially in the Sportback. Sedan manages to carry the new rear bumper better than the SB and is overally now a better looking one. Generally I've always liked the Sportback form better in A3.
 
  • Like
Reactions: kayemill and Jsimba
Personally, I think the 8Y facelift looks much better than the 8Y prefacelift RS3, especially the diamond grill pattern. I hated the prefacelift 8Y's rounded iron chain grille pattern. I also like the new back more than the old one.

Con wise...WTF Audi? Steering wheel with capacitive buttons... did you not learn from VW? The new logo looks cheap as well.

Nonetheless, I will take the facelift over the prefacelift for sure. It looks much much better in my opinion.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jsimba
Yeah, there's lots to like. I'm a fan of the rear diffuser/bumper over my pre-FL version. The main section of the front grille I actually don't mind much between the two, although the cleaner lines of the vents look quite nice, I have to say.

I'll be the first to bite and ask the question: I wonder if the RS buckets are easily transferable to the pre-FL, although I expect anyone mad enough to take them out and sell them on will be quids in!

Sent from my SM-G991B using Tapatalk
 
VWNCC said:
Personally, I think the 8Y facelift looks much better than the 8Y prefacelift RS3, especially the diamond grill pattern. I hated the prefacelift 8Y's rounded iron chain grille pattern. I also like the new back more than the old one.

Con wise...WTF Audi? Steering wheel with capacitive buttons... did you not learn from VW? The new logo looks cheap as well.

Nonetheless, I will take the facelift over the prefacelift for sure. It looks much much better in my opinion.
Click to expand...
Yeah, not a fan of the haptic buttons on the wheel either over the physical ones. I'm sure they're great and do the job well, but I just prefer something a bit more traditional!

Sent from my SM-G991B using Tapatalk
 
Steering wheel is awful, as is the rear.

Seats are minted, however I doubt they will ever see the light of day in the UK. Always teased in a euro spec car but never make it here. We'll see.

Edit: I must have posted at the same time as above.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jsimba
kayemill said:
Steering wheel is awful, as is the rear.

Seats are minted, however I doubt they will ever see the light of day in the UK. Always teased in a euro spec car but never make it here. We'll see.

Edit: I must have posted at the same time as above.
Click to expand...
I agree with you on the rear - too much black and too little body colour for my liking. It would've looked quite smart if they'd balanced that out better

Sent from my SM-G991B using Tapatalk
 
  • Like
Reactions: HM3P
kayemill said:
Steering wheel is awful, as is the rear.

Seats are minted, however I doubt they will ever see the light of day in the UK. Always teased in a euro spec car but never make it here. We'll see.

Edit: I must have posted at the same time as above.
Click to expand...
If the performance RS6 didn’t get those seats at 130k then there’s zero chance of the ‘cheaper’ 8Y getting them
And it only has same power as PFL 8Y
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: FBF01, Snake Pliskin and kayemill
Yeah those seats will be for the publicity car only.
OMG they have made an awful steering wheel even worse !!!!
What on earth is going on in Audi with steering wheels on the RS3 ?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mr Freeze, HM3P and Jsimba
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Back