Took mine off as I think it looks nicer and doesn't seem to attract idiots trying to show there cars are better
Deletion of Model/Designation?
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When I was 18 had a Corsa C 1.8 SRI and felt the need to stick 2 SRI badges on it as didn't look sporty enough or different lol
Whenever I see a car with the model removed the only thing I think is the owner is trying to hide the fact that they are in an A* instead of an S*
To be honest, I think diesel is dead. Not immediately but, within 5-10 years, I think it's on the way out.
Diesel just doesn't offer the advantages it once did. Petrol is far far closer on both economy and emissions these days, especially with modern engines (just look at the efficiency of the 1.4 COD). When you factor in the additional cost of fuel and that diesel cars cost more to start with, you really need to be doing a lot of motorway miles to get any significant benefit.
The future for the next 5/10/15 years is going to be hybrids and these are going to be petrol/electric hybrids, not diesel/electric ones. Eventually we'll end up fully electric but only once there's been a significant breakthrough in battery technology or fuel cells or such like.
I just don't see a long term future for diesel.
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I totally agree. We were succoured into buying diesel cars as the Govt told it they were more economical, cleaner etc. And diesel fuel was cheaper than petrol on the Continent. Oh how we fell for that! The capacity wasn't there to produce diesel fuel in the UK (and the refineries couldn't be converted) so the price of diesel fuel was higher, we were not told about the health problems and yes the car companies charged us lots more to buy diesel cars.
I, for one, prefer the driving characteristics of a petrol engine and now my 1.4COD will have emissions as low as diesel and great economy what's not to like?
Just been doing some maths...
If we compare the A3 2.0TDI and 1.4COD models which have the same 150PS power rating and are thus fairly "equivalent" models.
If we say you did 20000 motorway miles a year and that the diesel averaged 60mpg whilst the petrol managed 45mpg.
The prevailing fuel prices around here are 130.9 for petrol and 134.9 for diesel so we'll use those.
In the diesel, those 20000 miles would cost you £2043 whereas the petrol would cost £2644, so £601 more in the petrol.
The petrol model costs £1450 more than the diesel, so it'd take you nearly 2.5 years just to recoup the additional expense of the diesel.
Bear in mind that this is a fairly extreme example as not many people will be doing 20k miles a year on the motorways and the economy differences in urban environments are much smaller, plus the 60/45mpg figures I've used are pretty conservative - in reality the petrol would probably achieve more like 50mpg.
If we compare the A3 2.0TDI and 1.4COD models which have the same 150PS power rating and are thus fairly "equivalent" models.
If we say you did 20000 motorway miles a year and that the diesel averaged 60mpg whilst the petrol managed 45mpg.
The prevailing fuel prices around here are 130.9 for petrol and 134.9 for diesel so we'll use those.
In the diesel, those 20000 miles would cost you £2043 whereas the petrol would cost £2644, so £601 more in the petrol.
The petrol model costs £1450 more than the diesel, so it'd take you nearly 2.5 years just to recoup the additional expense of the diesel.
Bear in mind that this is a fairly extreme example as not many people will be doing 20k miles a year on the motorways and the economy differences in urban environments are much smaller, plus the 60/45mpg figures I've used are pretty conservative - in reality the petrol would probably achieve more like 50mpg.
You guys crack me up, some of the rubbish in this thread is laughable.
I drive a chav'd up S3 with a front mount hanging out the front bumper, nobody tries to give me a hard time.
Mega lols. Nobody actually cares what badges your car has if any, your presence on the road and driving style dictate what other drivers think about you.
I drive a chav'd up S3 with a front mount hanging out the front bumper, nobody tries to give me a hard time.
Mega lols. Nobody actually cares what badges your car has if any, your presence on the road and driving style dictate what other drivers think about you.
The switch of company car tax from the old mileage system to an emissions based one also massively promoted diesel cars. The far lower emissions made them a no-brainer for company car drivers and the industry invested a lot of money in developing better diesel technology to capture as much of this market as possible. There was such a swing that the government ended up putting the 3% surcharge on diesels to try to recoup some of the lost revenue.
Diesels can still make sense as leased company cars, especially if you're a rep doing a lot of miles each year but the advantages are nowhere near what they used to be. I think many these days have been a bit brainwashed into just thinking that diesel is more economical when, if you actually do the maths, it's often not the case.
As I said above, personally I'm removing the badge because I think it looks cleaner but I know many do to try to hide what model they have for whatever reason.
Never seen the point in this. Those who are knowledgeable enough to care what model it is will be able to tell anyway and everyone else won't care anyway
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Well this has been an interesting read.
The badges are a status thing really, whether you want them to be or not. It's there to show that your car is better than the one lower down the chain, and worse than the one above.
Some people will be modest and want their s3 to look more understated, some people will want to hide the fact they bought a base model tdi from the uneducated masses, but they're not really fooling anyone.
Personal taste at the end of the day.
The badges are a status thing really, whether you want them to be or not. It's there to show that your car is better than the one lower down the chain, and worse than the one above.
Some people will be modest and want their s3 to look more understated, some people will want to hide the fact they bought a base model tdi from the uneducated masses, but they're not really fooling anyone.
Personal taste at the end of the day.
But even then, they don't do a very good job. Both the 110bhp 1.6TDI and the 184bhp 2.0TDI are just going to say 'TDI' on the back.
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Looks good, now debadge the number plate
Ha yeah that would look lovely with everything else gone. Want rid of the wiper aswell but I use it too much lol
Looks good, now debadge the number plate
Ha yeah that would look lovely with everything else gone. Want rid of the wiper aswell but I use it too much lol
Another reason the saloon looks better
I did want a saloon Tbh, couldn't justify the extra cash and possible wait
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The poll is kind of silly if it only offers choices which are irrelevant to the people who actually debadge their cars.
I have always done mine for a cleaner look. I think it looks 100 times better than all of that silly chrome advertising. I don't care if people understand what model and engine I have and I certainly don't care enough to have all of that tacky lettering all over the back of my car.
I have always done mine for a cleaner look. I think it looks 100 times better than all of that silly chrome advertising. I don't care if people understand what model and engine I have and I certainly don't care enough to have all of that tacky lettering all over the back of my car.
Ooh, split exhausts! Don't think any UK model comes with those, where are you and what model is that (no the irony of asking that in this thread isn't lost on me )
)Haha!Ooh, split exhausts! Don't think any UK model comes with those, where are you and what model is that (no the irony of asking that in this thread isn't lost on me
It's a 2015 A3 Premium Plus in the USA with "Sport Suspension".
Interesting - looking at the Audi website I presume it's either a 1.8 or 2.0TFSI then?
It's weird that the US still gets the 2.0TFSI engine that hasn't been available here in the A3 for a while now and also that they have a different exhaust configuration over there.
It's weird that the US still gets the 2.0TFSI engine that hasn't been available here in the A3 for a while now and also that they have a different exhaust configuration over there.
Don't they have different emissions standards across the pond that mean you end up with slightly different engine ranges?
I'm not entirely sure where you get that from in light of the fact that it goes completely against the trend over the past ten or fifteen years and especially with the relative fuel price rises of the past five or six years. The fuel prices never rise proportionately and it always favours diesel when it happens. Twenty years ago no one had a diesel car unless they spent all their time on the motorway, but that's the reason that has changed in recent years. It's a trend that isn't going to recede.
In addition, there is still more energy in a litre of diesel than there is in petrol and it can be burned more completely so there's simply more scope for diesel engine technology to improve.
Petrol is nowhere near being close to diesel's economy despite the modest improvements in petrol engine technology in the last few years. The catch is that when you start demanding more performance from the car and using the power that official figures don't show the mpg figures drop like a brick for petrol and they diverge completely from diesel. The difference between the 1.8 TFSI and the 2.0 184 TDI in particular is night and day. On top of that diesel engines deliver the power where people need it on the road, which is lower in the RPM band. The way to get power from a petrol engine is through RPM and that isn't going to change.
Not any more, and the trend over the last ten or fifteen years has shown that. An engine like the 1.6 TDI is extremely affordable and very efficient and if you want a more powerful engine and still be able to keep your economy respectable then diesels are the only way today.
Hybrids are a total dead-end expensive waste of time to get people from A to B. They combine two different, and competing, forms of propulsion in an internal combustion engine and an electric powertrain and they are hideously complex and expensive to design, build and maintain. Eventually we will go all electric but we'll go straight from diesel to electric once the cost has come down significantly. That will probably take a good decade or more.
Well, that goes against the trend we've seen for many years now. Petrol is a dead-end and second-hand petrol cars are going to be a hot potato no one wants to be left stuck with.
That's correct, there's the 1.8 or 2.0 for 2015 and the Sportback 2.0 TDI on its way according to some sources. The options packages are different too from what I can glean from some of the conversation here.
If you actually use the 150PS in both engines then the mpg figures will diverge markedly between those two engines. Once you put your foot down in a petrol car and use the RPM they slurp. The petrol produces 110kW at 5000 - 6000 RPM, but you're never going to want to go there often.
There is no way the petrol will be doing 50 mpg and those figures for the COD engine are wildly optimistic.
Gone a bit off-topic there......
You need to get out more then. When I got a test drive in a red 3 door Quattro for a day I had idiots in Civics, Golfs and BMWs glued to me **** all day and the car I had was in automatic mode and being driven extremely conservatively.
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I've owned S3's for almost 7 years now and never felt the need to de-badge as I was being harassed by other road users.
s3_trev
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Where is the option, "I believe it will make my car less likely to get stolen". Also, could someone explain to me how removing a badge can be classed as vain in any way?
Thanks.
Thanks.
Cilurnum, you're entitled to your opinion of course, but I have to take issue with these two points...
Diesel has been consistently 4/5p a litre more expensive than petrol for the last five or six years, the differential hasn't changed much and petrol certainly hasn't risen faster than diesel has. Going back further than that, diesel used to be cheaper than petrol, then rose to be roughly on a par, and since then has been more expensive.
I've seen a few reports from 1.4COD owners saying their cars will do 50mpg at a motorway cruise. Given that the official extra-urban figure is 69mpg (hopeless optimistic I know), I see no reason why 50mpg isn't achievable.
In fact, if you compare the official figures, the diesel is only between 14 and 16% more efficient. I know these figures are fantasy land but they do at least provide a comparison and the point is that modern, efficient diesel engines are far far closer to diesels than they've ever been.
I guess we'll find out for sure when my 2.0TDI is replaced with a 1.4COD later this year. I don't plan to drive it any differently at all and most of my driving is short urban trips with lots of acceleration required which you seem to be saying is where diesel would win out more. We'll see how the economy compares - I'd wager it's not going to be by that much and certainly not enough to offset the additional cost of the car and fuel.
Diesel has been consistently 4/5p a litre more expensive than petrol for the last five or six years, the differential hasn't changed much and petrol certainly hasn't risen faster than diesel has. Going back further than that, diesel used to be cheaper than petrol, then rose to be roughly on a par, and since then has been more expensive.
I've seen a few reports from 1.4COD owners saying their cars will do 50mpg at a motorway cruise. Given that the official extra-urban figure is 69mpg (hopeless optimistic I know), I see no reason why 50mpg isn't achievable.
In fact, if you compare the official figures, the diesel is only between 14 and 16% more efficient. I know these figures are fantasy land but they do at least provide a comparison and the point is that modern, efficient diesel engines are far far closer to diesels than they've ever been.
I guess we'll find out for sure when my 2.0TDI is replaced with a 1.4COD later this year. I don't plan to drive it any differently at all and most of my driving is short urban trips with lots of acceleration required which you seem to be saying is where diesel would win out more. We'll see how the economy compares - I'd wager it's not going to be by that much and certainly not enough to offset the additional cost of the car and fuel.
I think that was in reference to those who are trying to hide the fact they drive a diesel
The natural assumption is that you've bought an s-line pack and want to make it look like an S*. I've seen plenty of cars with the model removed then something like S3 XXX as the numberplate.
I know it's gone way off topic but got to add my two pennyworth!
Saying that the trend towards diesel over the past 10-15 years is an indicator for the future is like the financial adverts say "past performance is not an indicator of future results". We were not told that diesel would cost significantly more than petrol. We were not told that diesel has harmful exhaust emissions. We were not told that diesel cars were going to cost significantly more than petrol ones.
I did a calculation recently (for a neighbour) showing that a 1.4TFSI COD would cost less over 3 years than a diesel car when you take into consideration the extra cost of the car, the fuel and the VED. If the depreciation is similar then the diesel car will cost £714 more over 3 years so not a lot in it.
And then if you factor in (IMO) the nicer driving characteristics of the petrol car (smoother quieter engine, wider rev range) then for me there was no choice - it had to be petrol. When I had a caravan it had to be diesel as the characteristics of diesel for towing were right but I must say I never enjoyed driving it like I do my petrol TT. But we all look for different things from our cars and therefore there are no absolute rules, only opinions.
I don't know if you've noticed, but in the past six years fuel prices have increased hugely and the proportionate rise for diesel is always lower than petrol. Of course, diesel is cheaper on the continent but that's another story.
On a motorway cruise you might get a warm fuzzy feeling from the mpg figures, but 50 mpg is not something you're ever going to see in mixed driving conditions. That engine is also very selective about where it cuts cylinders off and the official figures will have been done in conditions where this happens the most. Mid-40s is the best you'll get even from a modern petrol and you'll have to use some lift and coast and cruising in fifth at thirty to get that.
I've driven the 1.4COD and it's a nice engine (lacking low end power though), but I won't want to repair it when that decision making process goes wrong.
I'm afraid it is a heck of a lot more than that and the mistake is looking at official figures. You also need to factor in the use of climate control, air conditioning and heating which impacts on fuel economy hugely. You won't find that anywhere in official mpg figures.
Like I said, there is a good 1kW more energy in a litre of diesel than in petrol.
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Price discovery and trends happen for a reason and the fundamentals are there. There is about 1kW more energy in a litre of diesel than petrol. This ain't finance, it's plain science.
Diesel has always cost more than petrol in this country (as to why is another story), but it has always stayed within a window above petrol and that means the proportionate rise for petrol is always more than diesel so as prices rise it favours diesel more and more. That's what's happened in the past six years. Of course diesel cars were going to cost more because effectively the refining costs are moved into the engine itself.
Using official figures? Not going to help you. Did you factor in climate control, air conditioning and heating in winter, because that absolutely sends your fuel economy, and the official figures, into freefall? Shutting down cylinders won't help you there. Depreciation has never been 'similar' for diesels and the residual difference will be a heck of a lot more than £714 in three years.
Honestly, you're really going to struggle to get takers for a petrol car in three or four years unless it is significantly cheaper.
Not in a modern diesel. I was quite shocked when I test drove the 150 and 184 and like I said, you spend a lot of your time accelerating and lower down in the rev range which is where the power is in a diesel. To get the equivalent power in a petrol you need to give it revs......and that drops your fuel economy a long way. That's why, somewhat counterintuitively, it's better to get a more powerful engine because you have to rev the less powerful one harder. As for the wider rev range, like I said, if you actually use that rev range fully your fuel economy will nosedive and will look absolutely nothing like official figures and will diverge from diesel dramatically.
Not here I'm afraid - diesel is diesel and it has more energy in it. It's pretty clear how and why diesel cars have become more popular and there just isn't any indication or anything fundamental at all that says that trend won't continue.
It's just important to consider how and why things have happened over the past few years and that not even official fuel economy figures can give you an accurate picture. You need to look at the fundamentals and go with them. I would only consider driving a petrol if I worked from home and didn't drive to work and that was going to happen for years to come.
Debadging has always been an interesting one...
I'm always in two minds about it: I always believed I would debadge my cars to the heavens, yet I've left my GTI badges on my Golf and I really don't know what to do with the S3 when I buy it.
I am considering removing both rear badges but keeping the front rings (I'm buying the RS grill) as I don't like the front debadged - it doesn't look right IMO and the black rings also look tacky.
Another reason for removing the rear badges is due to the fact I am deleting the rear wiper straight away and I'm keen on a custom black S3 badge as the only moniker. My mate has a silver S3 badge on his 8P and it looks great! Really blends in and stands out at the same time.
I don't need to hide the fact my car is the S3 as most people can identify it from miles out with the quad pipes and silver mirrors.
So I guess it's down to vanity and convenience where cleaning / detailing is concerned.
I'm always in two minds about it: I always believed I would debadge my cars to the heavens, yet I've left my GTI badges on my Golf and I really don't know what to do with the S3 when I buy it.
I am considering removing both rear badges but keeping the front rings (I'm buying the RS grill) as I don't like the front debadged - it doesn't look right IMO and the black rings also look tacky.
Another reason for removing the rear badges is due to the fact I am deleting the rear wiper straight away and I'm keen on a custom black S3 badge as the only moniker. My mate has a silver S3 badge on his 8P and it looks great! Really blends in and stands out at the same time.
I don't need to hide the fact my car is the S3 as most people can identify it from miles out with the quad pipes and silver mirrors.
So I guess it's down to vanity and convenience where cleaning / detailing is concerned.
