My Boss in 2001 had a Black Audi A3 SE and I remember doing an 80 mile round trip for work with her. It was very quiet and very comfortable but above all very high quality from the seats to the dashboard to the solid thunk of the doors. It was also very quick when its power was summoned. At the time I was a big fan of the BMW 318i Compact but I changed my mind after traveling in the A3. It made my Fiat Panda seem like a 1970s budget car and my Wife's Citroën Xsara seem very ordinary.
These are remarkably modern looking and feeling cars, considering their era. This one is long gone, but you can still pick them up remarkably cheaply. The E36 Compact probably was a bit more cramped than this.
Thanks ever so much indeed, Matt! Yes, a very clean and neat looking car, especially in this original pre-facelift form. Hope that you enjoyed the review!
Really nice review, as an owner I agree with pretty much everything you said here. I have had the 5 door 1999 version of this car with the 1.8L NA engine and 5 speed manual for around 11 year now and been happy with it. Now around 280 000 km on the odometer. Its a comfortable daily driver and I really like how simple it is to understand how everything works and how easy it is to also fix yourself. I guess the cars from that era had the essential feature set figured out without including all the extra gadgets most modern cars have. There is probably some irony there, since this is coming from an automation engineer. :) I have had some technical issues, but since parts are cheap and since this doesn't really need to be taken to a more expensive Audi service center, it is quite inexpensive to maintain and I have been happy with total cost of ownership. Should obviously still make sure all the needed maintenance gets done. Especially the water pump and timing belt should be done in time, since if they break the engine is also ruined. Some unexpected gripes with it have been that fuse box mounted over battery is quite weak and it melted causing engine cooling fan to stop spinning and overheating the engine when idling or city driving. Air mass sensor has failed and needed replacing, the hand break does have some recurring issues and I had to replace a rear break caliper along with discs and pads since, rear breaks started sticking and wore the pads out. Also the plastic trimmings attached to the bottom edge of the doors can fill up with gunk causing the doors to start rusting. I have now sanded and repainted those parts of the doors myself a few times to keep it from getting much worse. It would be a great idea to remove those once a year and clean up the gunk to stop rust from appearing. For me it was too late, since I only noticed once the doors had already started rusting. Luckily some rust there is not a structural problem.
Thanks ever so much indeed for watching the video! Yes, this car also needed a mass air flow sensor a couple of months after we filmed it and there is a bit of rust on it (but not much). They are very cheap to find parts for, as many are just the same as on first generation Audi A4 or the Mark IV Golf (amongst others). Absolutely, doing the cambelt at the specified intervals goes without saying, even on a low mileage engine like this one. I agree, stay away from those Audi dealerships if you can with a car of this age!
A logical move and masterstroke because the entry level would have been the A4 1.6 or 1.8 which was quite a bit bigger. They did look classier than the BMW Compact and the interiors were the top of the class. Young professional ladies loved them and they all seemed to silver or black. Great car
Yes, surprisingly popular and a very modern design for 1996. I would rather have one of these than a BMW Compact (don't tell Mr Woollard from mattsbeamer), and my friend ended up keeping this car much longer than she anticipated as she absolutely loved it. Nowadays, most of these are definitely in No Budget Reviews territory.
I would say it's closest rival at the time would have been the Mercedes A class that came a long 1 year later in 1997. The press seemed to love is styling at the time but in 2019 I think the Audi has aged better
Thanks Matty! Another close rival, which came out in 1994, was the BMW 3-Series Compact. It was less practical than the Audi and the Mercedes-Benz due to the rear wheel drive layout, though. The Audi probably has aged the best in terms of the design, you are absolutely right.
Fabulous video as always Joseph, thank you!!! Its making me feel i really should purchase a Tweed Jacket for driving my own MK1 A3 .... looks just right :-)
Oh sir, they aren't expensive to get hold of! Glad you enjoyed the video, this was still early Tweed Jacket Reviews, Sensible Secondhand Reviews and No Budget Reviews had not been invited yet....
@@lloydvehicleconsulting I must look into it once the shops open back up again, its a lovely touch and looks so at home. Who would have thought where it would all have led to and look at the variety of your reviews now, its brilliant :-)
@@RMRetro , yes, this was less than a year after the channel started, I think that this video was made at around 400 subscribers. Plenty of Tweed Jackets will be in the charity shops now that people have been doing some spring cleaning, I imagine!
This was such a game changer. It was miles better than the A class, and a lot of people saw it ahead of the e36 compact. I prefer the compact as it was a great fun car to drive, especially with the rear e30 set up. Saying that thou, bmw made the e36 compact feel very cheap compared to the normal e36s, with the a totally different dash and the equipment was very basic too. The e46 was a great compact but the rear lights the shirt rear end and the front lights put people off. The 1series was the first successful hatchback and their first 5 door :)
Yes, the A3 is a historically very significant car. The 3-Series Compact would have had better handling, but I would have preferred the A3 out of the three. I just prefer Audis for some reason. All of these cars were interesting, but the Mercedes-Benz was the most revolutionary...
Thank you for watching and for your comment! Yes, I have driven this one (fairly frequently) and the current generation, but never a second generation A3. I imagine that they must be rather nice too!
I have an a3 2003 1.8t automatic with 100k miles and I'm a bit scared since a lot of people out there is saying that that car in automatic transmission does not last long :O. I'm afraid that given the milage it will crack down soon. Is that true? what can I do to keep the transmision working in good shape? should I expect bad things soon? thank you.
Oh, just simply get the automatic transmission serviced. It's a conventional torque converter unit in the first generation 1.8 A3. It's not necessarily true that automatic cars can't do high mileage, they just need to be serviced correctly.
Ah yes! I used to get What Car every month at the time. I probably read the very issue you are referring to. When Cherise and I were looking for her car, we also drove a Mark IV Golf, and it wasn't as good as this Audi, which says a lot, I think...
@@lloydvehicleconsulting they were a pretty standard affair when they first came out, but in 99 when the S3 was released the world really started taking notice!
@@trabali5168, yes, the A3 was a bit unusual at the time of launch as it was only available as a three door (like the BMW 3-series Compact), and it seemed quite expensive, but these days they are extremely cheap for the quality of the car. The S3 is something else entirely!
