lately the growing segment of entry-level luxury sedans in the United
States has become just that sedans Audi finally got with the program here on
the redesigned a3 which drops its predecessors hatchback only body style
for five seats for doors and an ordinary trunk which you see behind me here
there will also be a convertible and a hatchback version of the new a3 along
with a higher performance s3 we have the a3 here it's got a very classy styling
outside and it should aged pretty well it's also got gutsy turbocharged engines
but we aren't sold on every aspect and we'll show you why
III really doesn't break any new styling ground pretty classic traditional audi
lines here with a large upper and lower grille that are kind of fused together
into the same sort of mouth here looks a little bit like a squash day for
actually the wheelbase is a little bit smaller than the current a four
but overall dimensions are actually very similar to the first day for that showed
up in the nineteen nineties
the interior has a very simple aesthetic very gently sloping dashboard goes
toward the windshield
there's a screen here that rises out of the center part of the dashboard
actually pretty slick operation right here and it houses all your multimedia
settings a obviously the navigation system if you get that it all works
throughout these MMI system which actually has this touchpad atop the MMI
knob down here you can use that to do things like scrolling the map fairly
intuitive set up overall cabin materials obviously a big battle ground in terms
of entry-level luxury cars
he ate three has some nice touches here a very consistent grading here along the
dash and the doors could use a little more padding here along the upper doors
where your arms your elbows are kind of kind of rest but you know fabric down
the a-pillar nice touches like that all the way down the B and the c-pillars as
well overall space obviously something you're going to think about when you're
looking at small small kind of entry-level luxury cars a little bit
more cabin volume here then in the mercedes CLA class one of the a-threes
top competitors bedroom overhead is decent
there's a standard sunroof yeah it's pretty big but it does take away some
Headroom in our test car here
I'm six feet tall and ice it definitely a number of inches ahead of the seat
being all the way back so exceptional driver's seat adjustment range here in
the a 3 standard features an interesting mix here now leather seats are standard
so is this sunroof
those are typically features that you often have to pay extra for even
entry-level luxury cars
although things that are card doesn't have automatic climate control push
button start a backup camera and a power passenger seat those are all features
that you can get in cars at actually a lot less money so kind of an interesting
mix there
let's take a look at the back seat legroom in the back seat is actually ok
that's where I'd sit to drive the seat is a little bit low to the ground and
there isn't any payoff in terms of headroom because it's just really tight
here and for what it's worth this is a similarity between the a3 and the
cla-class the a3 family has a range of engines including a diesel engine into
turbocharged four-cylinder gasoline engines we have the base gasoline engine
1.8 liters hundred seven horsepower 200 pound feet of torque enough power here
but it's not a very smooth situation both in terms of going and stopping
there's some turbo lag there's some transmission lag there's even some
accelerator like they all kind of come together to make the car not very quick
when you need to immediately get around other cars breaking - it's kind of an
on-again off-again sort of binary position you're in here again not the
most linear experience coming down now
ride quality editors were a little bit split over some thought that it was a
very good actually other stuff but it was kind of too firm and a little bit
brittle over certain bumps
I'm kind of in between there but i think the real reason that the a3 is not
particularly fun drive has to do with the steering lots and lots of power
assisted steering it doesn't have a lot of feedback its kind of Numb
there's an optional audi drive select system that can firm it up a little bit
more miles back to the power 6 but overall still not a very fun car now
there is with Quattro all-wheel drive a 2-liter turbo four-cylinder some of our
editors have driven that that makes 220 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque
by the numbers it makes this little a 3 a pretty quick machine
the a3 like the cla-class has a little bit more refinement and sophistication
than competitors like the acura ILX in the buick verano to sort of bargain
priced entries in this segment but you also pay for it
pricing starts right around thirty one thousand dollars for the a3 goes well
into the 40s
you add up all the options so there's definitely a price premium for these
German cars
does that make us necessarily want one mm maybe but we really like to see how d
smooth out the driving experience both in terms of acceleration and braking
also how he needs to make a backup camera standard already not optional
fortunately these are things that brand could fix in the next model year or two
so we'll have to see what happens
I
yeah