From Pistonheads:
Then again, if you were tipping more towards practicality than performance, a Golf R was almost £10k cheaper than an RS3 when both were new. You'd have to spend a few bob on the VW to get it up to the same level as the Audi on some spec levels (five doors, 19in wheels, heated leather seats, DSG box, etc), but you could also say that you would have to spend on the Audi too to get things that maybe should have been included for free, like the sports seats.
Anyway, how much will a PFL (pre-facelift) 2015-on RS3 cost you? Quite a bit. We've seen cars for under £26,500, but they've all had more than 100,000 miles on them. For £28k, you'll get something with 70-75k miles on it, but for a mid-mile (60k plus) car with the popular options of mag ride, sports exhaust and B&O audio, you'll be over the £30k mark. Really low mileage PFLs like this 12,000-mile Sportback
will rush you £38,500, even though they're from 2016.
The saloon option wasn't available on PFL cars, so you'll be into the higher FL price zone for one of them. This 35,000 mile, four-door in the always fetching hue of Nardo Grey was
going for £38,480. The most affordable 362hp PFL RS3 on PH Classifieds at the time of writing was this
52,000-mile 2016 example in red at £29,495. The cheapest 394hp car was the aforementioned saloon, followed closely by this lower-mileage
Sportback at £38,500.
There's a whole bunch of cars for sale between £40k and £42k, and another slew at between £45k and £50k. The six dearest RS3s on PH were all over £50k, and all saloons. Read into that what you will. If you want to trump your mates without all the faff and expense of aftermarket tuning, why not go straight to one that's already had lots of money spent on it? This privately owned stage-two 2016 38,000-miler in Nardo has 447hp, 522lb ft and silver leather,
all for £34,000.
This is really all music to my ears as it means even if my car ends up being traded in with 75k miles (which seems unlikely as I am at 60k and I doubt I will drive 15k miles by the time my 8Y RS3 comes the value will still be over £10k equity... and I "only" need £9k to cover my deposit!
