Audi A3 1.4 TFSI SE review
by David Finlay (23 February 2009)
Although it was facelifted last year, the Audi A3 has been around in more or less its present form since 2003, and it's starting to show its age. By far the best part of the version tested here is the turbocharged 1.4-litre petrol engine, now common among vehicles produced by the Volkswagen Group and a part of the A3 range for just over a year.
It produces a maximum of 123bhp, which would be a startling amount for a non-turbo 1.4, but the impressive thing about it isn't so much the performance as the way the engine feels so much larger than it really is. On paper it's equivalent to a good naturally-aspirated 1.6, but in everyday driving it actually feels more like a two-litre, without any hint of turbo lag to give the game away.
This relaxed, big-engine impression is contradicted by official fuel economy and CO2 figures of 47.9mpg and 140g/km respectively. It's customary at this point to say that these numbers don't reflect the real-world situation, but during this test they proved to be reasonably close - on a long motorway run I went through a tankful of petrol at the rate of 43.4mpg, while a combination of motorway and A-road driving brought the figure down to 41.2mpg. I think I could live with that.
I'm less sure that I could live with the rest of the car. For a start, there's very little room in the back, though that probably isn't a concern for most buyers. Where the A3 is really beginning to show its age is in the driving experience; it is severely underdamped at the front end, a problem which was much more widespread in the motor industry back in 2003 than it is now.
The effect is that the car wallows around far more than it should do, and this has a serious effect on comfort. It also makes the A3 less fun to drive, particularly as you enter a corner. On many occasions I would turn the steering wheel by what seemed the appropriate amount, only to find that the nose (the car's, not mine) would start drifting around as if paying more attention to the road camber that to what I was asking it to do, with the result that a second, corrective steering input was required almost immediately.
If you're pushing on hard you can force the issue to some extent, and in these conditions the A3 becomes a lot more enjoyable. But in normal driving, which is all that something like 100% of all owners are likely to do nearly 100% of the time, it just feels plain wrong.
And for nearly £17,000 (or actually more than £18,000 if you specify the test car's optional audio upgrade and dual-zone climate control air-conditioning) it's very dull inside. There's a definite feeling of well-builtness, but the design is bland and the buttons disappointingly basic - though, in fairness, not to the same extent as in a similarly low-spec BMW.
One relatively old-fashioned feature I do like is that the footrest is in a sensible place. More recently developed Audis have their footrests so far forward that I have to stretch my left leg a long way to reach them, which seems to miss the whole point. In the A3 the rest is pretty well ideally placed.
But it's difficult to recommend a car simply on the basis of a good engine and a properly considered footrest. The A3 as a whole faces very strong opposition within the VW Group from the Volkswagen Golf and the Skoda Octavia, and although potential buyers may blow chunks at the thought of deserting Audi in favour of either of those brands, that in itself does not mean that the A3 is the best car of the three.
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