Audi A3 3.2 2008

By Bruno Bouchard

Hard to justify

In last year’s sports compact comparo at Calabogie Motorsports, the Volkswagen GTI performance owned the car the title of “most balanced” out of all the cars at the comparo. With this in mind, I couldn’t wait to put my hands on the 2008 Audi A3 3.2. Surely, Audi added its own feel to the car but for me, it’s the presence of the 250 hp V6 I really wanted to see. The 3.2 model also comes with the DSG gearbox. This combination would surely have the A3 shame any of the cars on the comparo and that is why we’ve enlisted it this Summer first comparo: Mitsubishi Evo X, Subaru Impreza STi, BMW 135i and Audi A3 3.2.

Should I give away the ending now? Ah, what the heck… after one week in the A3 we, at road-test.com, are not sure it belongs in the upcoming comparo. What a bold statement. I will try to answer this as we go.

The price

I almost wanted to not believe my eyes when I saw the price tag for the test model. Could this be true? Nah… it had to be an error. After double checking at www.audi.ca, it was confirmed. The test model had a price tag of just under 50 000$. The Audi A5 we had a few weeks ago was listed at about the same price. And this A5 was no deception. Boy, was that a nice car! Well balanced, great handling, full of emotions. I thoroughly enjoyed my road test of the A5. As for the A3… well, it’s not as inspiring. The base price of the A3 is quite reasonable for an entry level luxury family sports wagon. The 2.0T motor is one of the best turbo engine in the world. The level of luxury and quantity of standard equipment is at par with a $33,000 (CDN) car. The beef I have with the A3 is with the more equipped S-line model. Adding more than $15 000 for a V6, DSG tranny, Quattro traction and sky roof is out of whack. This is almost $20 000 more than a Volkswagen Golf GTI!

Let’s forget about the price for a few moments and see what this car brings in term of driving pleasure. Well it’s an Audi and like all other Audis the steering feel is bang on. The direction is precise with good communication to the driver but a tad too heavy to my taste. The A3 is a heavy car for its size. It tips the scale at 1660 kg. Although braking is firm and stable, Audi engineers could not hide the weight of the car in the brake feel. Each time I had to slow the car down, I could actually feel the mass fighting me on initial braking. This sensation does not stay for long. As I said earlier, braking is firm and effective. The car is stable under heavy braking. I did not notice any brake fade.

Handling is always a good trait of Audi. This A3 is no different. Body roll is well controlled when cornering, there is a fair amount of grip but the P6 Pirellis are not sport tires. The suspension is a bit too firm for the winter damaged roads in Canada. The comfort level is not as good as expected as all the numerous little bumps are felt more than they should be. Although the suspension is quite firm for our roads and body roll is controlled, there is room for better handling. The S-Line is the sportier version and yet… it doesn’t feel that sporty. The car is high on its feet making the center of gravity much higher than it probably should be for the sport versions.

The 3.2 litre V6 has some proper power and good enough torque to make passing manoeuvres easy. But from a standstill the nod to 100km/h is much too slow. The A3 will achieve this in 6.8 seconds. This is just 0.2 seconds faster than the 2.0T 200hp model with the manual gearbox. I expected much more from this V6 especially since it’s matted to a six speed close ration DSG transmission. The transmission is actually not that quick. In automatic mode, this reveals to be culprit, especially upon re-acceleration manoeuvres. The transmission takes too much time to downshift and select the proper gear. One actually needs to be playing with the paddle shifters all time in order to find the appropriate gear when needed. This was disappointing. The gear ratio is quite aggressive since the engine revs at 3000 rpm at 120km/h. I’ve seen four cylinders with four speed automatics rev much lower than this. The result is that fuel consumption during the road test was higher than expected. The car made only 10 litres per 100 km on the highway and averaged 14 litres in all around driving.