Audi A3: Familiarity breeds content

By Alan Douglas
Published on 26/09/2012 12:38

THE simpler the game, the more fun it can be. Draughts is pretty straightforward and certainly less challenging than the cerebral gymnastics of chess. I-Spy is much easier to manage and understood even by five-year-olds – depending on what it is you’re spying – than brain-testing crosswords which can be incomprehensible to their grandparents. Joining the dots to create an emerging picture is straightforward.

One of my long-time favourites, which requires nothing more than basic observation, is Spot The Difference. This is where you compare two pictures and identify minor changes between them. I wondered if the people at Audi had decided to play games with me when they presented the third generation of their hugely successful A3 which will be in the showrooms at the end of next week.

“It’s all new, redesigned from the ground up,” the man from Audi assured me and I should have detected from his insistence that he was perhaps overstating the case. “We’ve subtly redefined the look and it’s all-new, state of the art. It’s absolutely new”.

His words were ringing in my ears when I went to look at this all-new car which I had been told had been parked alongside the outgoing model. The old and new had to be pointed out to me because at first sight, I found it difficult to spot the difference. That’s not surprising because the outward changes are minimal. The car is the same shape and length, with only a 23mm increase in wheelbase, or about an inch in old money.

The xenon headlights and rear LEDs have adopted the family look which is on each one of the Audi range and there’s now a delicate crease running along the lower part of each door. If the car passed you on the motorway, you’d know it was an A3, but it’s unlikely you’d be distracted by the realisation it was the “all-new” model. You’d be more likely to spot its brand new 62 plate than anything about its styling.

But after a couple of hundred miles behind the wheel, I can confirm that it does have a brand-new feel and almost all of the changes are out of sight. For a start, it’s saved 80 kilos in weight by using lightweight materials in its construction. The bonnet and front wings are made from aluminium and combined with a stiffer chassis and new suspension – there’s now a broad choice of settings – it drives better and more efficiently, although I did feel that the steering seemed lighter to the touch than I would have liked and, depending on the surface, there seemed more road noise than I would have expected.

In the case of the 2.0-litre diesel version I drove, Audi claims it’s possible to get almost 70 miles out of every gallon. The engines – two petrol and one diesel – have been “reworked” to achieve this and reduce CO2 which in the case of the 1.6 diesel, which will be available from the end of the year, has dropped to only 99g/km, and returns up to 85mpg. A more powerful 1.4 petrol engine and Sportback and Quattro versions will complete the line up in the Spring. The existing cabriolet will continue for the time being. On the inside, the test car had almost £3,500-worth of extras, but even the standard equipment is comprehensive to say the least. It includes a new electrically retractable slimline monitor screen which rises out of the centre of the dash for driver information, audio and SD card satnav which is a £495 option. Audi say the technology will appeal to the computer generation, the sort of people who use a tablet every day and are used to working their way through electronics.

The overall build quality is excellent and Audi is particularly proud of its tight “shut lines”, the gaps between the body panels on doors, bonnet and boot.

Audi presents a confident image and even though it admits that the current market is challenging, it believes it will be giving the BMW 1 Series, the Mercedes A Class, the Alfa Giulietta and the new Volvo V40 something to think about. They claim to have founded the premium compact hatchback segment when they introduced the A3 in 1996 and say they are the experts in it. With the new A3 they believe they’re setting a new segment benchmark for the others to follow. It’s a crucial car for the company, making up 20 per cent of all their sales and more than 330,000 have been sold in the UK in the past 16 years, so you’re likely to see a lot of them. That’s if you spot the difference.

VITAL STATS

CAR Audi A3 2.0 TDI SE 150PS

PRICE £22,150 (£25,540 as tested)

PERFORMANCE Max speed 134 mph; 0-62 mph 8.6 secs

MPG 68.9 combined

CO2 EMISSIONS 106g/km