Hi all,
My S3 is broken again. Basically I drove it one week in the last 6 months...because it is always at repair shop. This time a defective oil squirter required the engine to be removed from the car and opened apart.
In the meanwhile they gave me a courtesy facelift brand new 1.6 TDI A3 sportback.
God I love it. I am discovering what fuel economy really is! Obviously it is totally impossible to make a comparison with the S3 engine, but I can assure that also the baseline engine can give some little satisfactions when required. The automatic gearbox (I suppose it is the dry-clutch seven gears they put on the smaller engines...) is slower, less progressive, noisier and clumsier than my S3 oil-clutch 6 gears. The difference is BIG.
Here are my two cents about the interior differences between my pre-facelift S3 and this new one!
1) The macroscopic thing is the main display: now also the base radio/navigation has a big hi-res display from 2017 and not a small, ugly, low res, "game-boyish" one like my S3.
2) The control input logic is totally different: now there are only two buttons around the dial and not four. BTW the new input logic for address with one only text field is clumsy and counter-intuitive for me. I prefer the old one, despite being slower to computate.
3) Revamped graphic: nice but sometimes a little over-crowded of useless details.
4) The courtesy A3 has monochromatic DDIS. Nice one, they finally added the clock in the bottom menu you can change with the steering wheel dial. My S3 only has the date. This is a mystery.
5) Controls backlight around the interior is now white. I like it much more that the red one of my S3. Also the letters of the S-Tronic lever are white backlit now.
6) new steering wheel design! Nice but the rotary dials are much more flimsy than the ones on my S3.
7) new slim levers around the steering wheel and new selector for windscreen wiper interval. More intuitive. I like it
8) The Start-Stop switch is now linked to the DDIS now when activate it, "Start-Stop deactivated" appears on the DDIS. This not happened on my S3. The light on the button is now red. On my S3 it is amber..
9) Also if you did not get the "quattro" you have a nice a "4 rings" badge in front of the passenger.
10) I hoped it was fitted with the virtual cockpit but, being a courtesy car, obviously not.
At the end I absolutely do not think it worths to swap to the facelift if you do not absolutely want the virtual cockpit that I think it is the most exciting feature of the facelift.
My S3 is broken again. Basically I drove it one week in the last 6 months...because it is always at repair shop. This time a defective oil squirter required the engine to be removed from the car and opened apart.
In the meanwhile they gave me a courtesy facelift brand new 1.6 TDI A3 sportback.
God I love it. I am discovering what fuel economy really is! Obviously it is totally impossible to make a comparison with the S3 engine, but I can assure that also the baseline engine can give some little satisfactions when required. The automatic gearbox (I suppose it is the dry-clutch seven gears they put on the smaller engines...) is slower, less progressive, noisier and clumsier than my S3 oil-clutch 6 gears. The difference is BIG.
Here are my two cents about the interior differences between my pre-facelift S3 and this new one!
1) The macroscopic thing is the main display: now also the base radio/navigation has a big hi-res display from 2017 and not a small, ugly, low res, "game-boyish" one like my S3.
2) The control input logic is totally different: now there are only two buttons around the dial and not four. BTW the new input logic for address with one only text field is clumsy and counter-intuitive for me. I prefer the old one, despite being slower to computate.
3) Revamped graphic: nice but sometimes a little over-crowded of useless details.
4) The courtesy A3 has monochromatic DDIS. Nice one, they finally added the clock in the bottom menu you can change with the steering wheel dial. My S3 only has the date. This is a mystery.
5) Controls backlight around the interior is now white. I like it much more that the red one of my S3. Also the letters of the S-Tronic lever are white backlit now.
6) new steering wheel design! Nice but the rotary dials are much more flimsy than the ones on my S3.
7) new slim levers around the steering wheel and new selector for windscreen wiper interval. More intuitive. I like it
8) The Start-Stop switch is now linked to the DDIS now when activate it, "Start-Stop deactivated" appears on the DDIS. This not happened on my S3. The light on the button is now red. On my S3 it is amber..
9) Also if you did not get the "quattro" you have a nice a "4 rings" badge in front of the passenger.
10) I hoped it was fitted with the virtual cockpit but, being a courtesy car, obviously not.
At the end I absolutely do not think it worths to swap to the facelift if you do not absolutely want the virtual cockpit that I think it is the most exciting feature of the facelift.
