Pre facelift rs3 is basically a European muscle car. You aren’t buying it to blitz a track but to make a load of noise, have great street presence and have a buttloads of straight line speed.
Bachar Halabi in what way?...the rs3 is faster, sounds much better its not those exhaust farts only at gear shifts its continuous and deep and also the interior looks better with those seats and the screen in the a45 looks like an ipad sticked to the dash and then the looks of the exterior is up to personal taste but to my taste this looks gorgeous
For a start you it now costs around £31k without an auto which the RS3 has. If you get an auto its £33k. Secondly you lose over 60hp and a hell of a lot of torque. Thirdly to get a M135i up to the spec of the RS3 you will need to spend a good 5-6k so now you have a £39k car without AWD and without a modern chassis and slower!
S Miller The M135i is 326bhp. The RS3 is 362bhp. Where I was taught maths, that isn't 'over 60bhp' of difference. And by the sounds of the review, the RS3 still understeers badly like it always has, so its 'modern chassis' hasn't done it much good. Also, the RS3 won't be discounted. The M135i can easily be had with a 20% discount, so the price difference is huge.
Those gearboxes(DSG, STRONIC)are very strong if you maintain the service intervals. I do launch control maybe 3 times a month when I'm feeling adventurous at the stop lights and no problems in my audi and vw gti.
Driver doesn't know much details about RS3. Old RS3 was much quicker than advertised. It could hit 62 on 4 seconds dead, and 124 in 15.7. So this new one will be faster.
Rihards Linde Those may be the quickest figures recorded in all of the tests out there - but in fact, the average of all reviews is 4,5 to 62 and 17,6 to 124 (average of 11 sources = car magazines.)
just so people know....the ECS was permanently turned on for this journalism shoot. Dunno why they did that but it can be fully turned off. Should really make a huge difference with the track part. Cant wait for Chris Harris to give it a shot
Well they say it can send up to 100% to the rear. The key question is "under what conditions?" If it only does it at low speed or when the front is slipping under low grip conditions, it's useless. Even if it slides a bit under trail brake, the question is what it does when you transition to full gas? Will it keep its tail happy or will it go to full understeer? Well, it's all theoretical until Harris gives it a go and tell us ;)
yes all true, well just have to wait and see, but hoping that it tries to send as much to the rear as useful. Even so, the aftermarket Haldex units will most likely have a "drift mode" so that would be cool.
dimos k that's bcoz Audi always tune their Quattro with understeer towards the limit for safety issue..... that's why most owners love it and most journos hate it.
Hey Audi - please give serious consideration to bringing this perfect Audi to the US market! WE WILL BUY IT! REALLY! Since you will have federalized the 4-dr, e-tron sportback, why not prorate that cost across the line with an RS3 Sportback offering?! Please...Danke!
Can't see how the gearbox can get any better? I can. Make it manual - the whole point of a hot hatch is to throw it through corners and get attached to it - the one thing a DSG box doesn't really let you do!
It´s more than fast enough for most people and a quite good all rounder and on the design side it is close to a Sleeper for non car enthusiast - Which I recon is properly the most fun part about having one of these. Not my favorite car but still I would not mind the keys to one. Design wise it still keeps it´s proportions very well has not overgrown and remains fairly compact - It´s not stunning but neither is it ugly in anyway. A well balanced and super fast compact car that can be driven all year around everyday.
A45 AMG 2016 ... out this October `15 ... now has 381 BHP .... 19 more than the RS3. Torque is also up 25NM to 475NM. Gears have also been shortened so acceleration is quicker ... 0 to 62MPH @ 4.2 sec.
+3Vimages and yet, the A45 is still slower in all the metrics. The RS3 is actually closer to 400hp, and a confirmed 3.9sec to 62mph. Audi have always been very understated in the brochure and this is no exception
stinger15au Everything you say is just wrong. The RS3 is 362bhp (A45 381bhp). 0 to 62mph is 4.3sec (A45 4.2sec) Torque is 465nm (A45 475nm). The A45 is ahead in all metrics which is even more impressive considering it is only a 2 litre 4 pot compared to the RS3's 2.5 litre 5 pot! In fact the AMG A45 has more power per litre (190.5obhp) than any other road going production car on earth ... including all supercars! That is almost 50 bhp per litre more than the RS3! Stop inventing 'facts' that are just wrong!
Lots of understeer? I had high hopes on this new RS3, The S3 handles pretty good so I thought it was going to apply here too. That's very disappointing. I guess the new M2 will blow everything out of the water, sadly it lacks the practicality of a hatch.
Juan Manuel Martinez M135i is the one to look for. It's the sweet spot with that inline 6. It's RWD, manual transmission, 300+ HP. Great car. I'd get the M235i personally, with the shift lights on the steering wheel. Yes please.
Juan Manuel Martinez The weight wasn't much of a surprise to me. My dad has a 2013 A3 and that POS weighs more than the heaviest version of both the MK4 Supra and Skyline R34-GTR. And that's the base version with a 2.0 TDI.
Juan Manuel Martinez The M2 is a true M car. M cars are rather expensive to buy and maintain. M235i is the sweet spot in my opinion because it's usable 9/10 on the road.
Juan Manuel Martinez The S3 feels as if it did, in fact, the S3 is quite disappointing regarding cornering and way inferior compared to i.e. the TTS. As always with Audis: If you want to go fast, you have to live with understeer if you drive it tight or you have to do more point and squirt style with heavy breaking into the turns. Same goes for the S1, it has no understeer but has a performance on track comparable to, say, 200kW Diesel sedans.
This is a Backward Step. Putting a Five Pot Engine in is heavy and makes the car understeer. Thats why fatter tyres are an option for the front, fatter than the back, and thge suspension is rock hard.
Always liked the look of the current A3/S3 series. Ride in this RS3 seems rather stiff though. May get annoying as a daily if you local roads aren't super smooth.
i wonder why they dont pu those large stationary paddle shifters like in rally cars? ive never used any of them but they look a lot more easy to use when the steering wheel is turning fast. also its weird why audi puts the gear lever with plus in front and minus in rear. in race cars its the other way around.
I'ms south american and in my country we don't have RS series, only S series. Hatches or sedans, all sporty variants of a german car (and other companies) has 2-doors. Golf GTi, the most sold hatch sport here has 2 doors. Why does a very boosted sport car, like this RS3 has 4 doors?
you say that the model you are driving has fixed dampers, but you also say it has the sports exhaust. I don't see this as an option combination at audi, can you please confirm?
At the end of September this year Mercedes are bring there 385bhp A45Amg to the market and it will be a bit cheaper then the Audi Rs3 but the Audi is good just looks like any other A3/S3
bb-23 It's crazy. I don't think a Golf R400 could be more pricey than this, because, well, it's a Golf... but at 400 hp it'd be above it on power. Which means pure awesomeness.
The Focus are RS is a Ford not a Audi so wouldn't even compare it to a RS3. People have been waiting for a while now on the Focus due to diff problems. it will never be as reliable as German engineering or interior wise. I had a look at the Honda Civic type R on the weekend not everyones taste of car I know, but fab interior, superb seats and great sound to the engine. My number 1 car at the moment has to be the Golf R. great handling, superb interior, comfortable too drive and looks cool. You can pick one up for £23,000 from a VW dealer with a couple of thousand on the clock.
Well, myself and my wife have had Audi's and golf's both petrol and diesel for 20 years now never had any issues or probs. Had a couple of Ford's and always a hassle also vauxhall. The car I thought was also fantastic a Toyota Celica Gt4 UK model. I drive a S4 now, my wife Audi A3, my dad VW Golf gt td, again no hassle and fab cars. Mercedes-Benz I would never touch. Got nothing against the Focus St, focus RS, plus drove a Honda civic type r last week a dealer feels like a good car. Everyone has there own opinion but that's a good thing.
I knew what this review was going to say before I watched.... even from Auto Express the verdict is the same. I know Audi are aimed at people who think that because they watch TopGear they are in fact enthusiasts which is fine because that's the market that buys Audi and it makes them money; but as a petrol head its gutting when the dangle recipe like the RS3 out there (Practical with a 5 pot engine...) and it turns out to be the most detached thing since an LCI 320d BMW! I honestly thought they could get it right this time. Oh well.
+Michael Goodwin lol they did get it right. Its a practical daily weapon that sounds like a supercar. Sure it understeer's a bit when pushed, like all AWD's do, but its not THAT bad. I have had mine now for exactly 6 days, and driven 1000km, loved every single second. It is an amazing machine.
+Al Seraidy Mohammed forget what the brochure says, this is closer to 390 to 400hp from the factory. 0-100 in a confirmed 3.9sec. Its a decent whack faster than the merc in straight line tests, overtaking, general day to day.
