A stylish and enjoyable ride.

I commute at least 80 miles each day and while I enjoy driving I have tended to lease practical cars for many years and have been driving a lot of Subarus most recently. I intended to go for another practical commuter car this time (another Subaru, maybe Toyota Matrix) when the A3 caught my eye. So the debate between the car enthusiast and practical driver raged for about a month, and you can guess who won.

I'm confused by the marketing approach for the A3. Here is a car that is supposed to be targeted to buyers like me who can be enticed into the brand with a value-priced car. And yet, practically all of the dealer stock is in fully-optioned Premium models. There is no financing incentive on A3 and it is possible to get a similarly equipped A4 (with incentives) at or near the price of a loaded A3. The dealers I went to don't seem to be interested in actively selling it either. The car I got was on the lot for several months.

This review is on the base A3 with the DSG transmission. Because of the pricing I don't think the option packages add up to a good value.

Interior/Exterior. Either you like hatches or you do not. I happen to like them and I like the way this looks, it looks like it would be sporty and fun to drive with its swoopy stance and angles. It looks more aggressive than other Audis and sports the new big grille which looks better here than on the big cars. Yes there is a lot of plastic inside, but I am truly impressed with the quality of the plastics and cloth. I'd rather have this than a lot of fake wood. This is a small car but there is adult sized room front and back. Overall you can look at this car and say that it belongs to the Audi family and it is not some half-hearted attempt at a value-priced knockoff.

Driving impressions. A3 is every bit as enjoyable to drive as its sheetmetal suggests. In everyday driving you have to be impressed with how easily it takes the average hill and dip and curve in the road. Power is seemingly available all of the time, it reacts quickly (usually) to throttle, and pulls and pulls without fuss. DSG in standard automatic mode (you can also choose automatic Sport mode, or shift it manually) has the best program of any automatic I have ever driven. Shifts are imperceptible, and aside from the dash display which shows what gear you are in you would probably never notice that it is upshifting and downshifting as needed. It rarely gets caught in the wrong gear. I like manuals but resigned myself to the fact years ago that I would be driving automatics (wife has to drive the car too). I thought if I had the option to go manual that I would want to use it, but I'm finding that when you have an automatic that works this well why bother.

Some reviewers say that there is no turbo lag but I would say there is some. There is a noticeable kick at 1,800 rpm and DSG leaves the engine below that threshold in normal running. So when it does shift it will hit the threshold and rush a bit. You will notice this for example if you are maneuvering in traffic. If you normally throttle hard to make a quick move you will find yourself on the rear bumper of the car in front of you before you know it. The excellent braking system is more than capable of keeping up with the power and hauling the car to a stop.

Ride and handling could be better. The car is heavy and solid and the ride is firm. You will feel all the bumps, they are somewhat damped but you will know they are there. There is quite a bit of body lean on turns. While I generally feel that the car is well grounded and the wheels are stuck to the road there is this sense that the body is floating independently of the chassis on turns. Seems out of sync, it is a firm ride yet in this way is also soft. See the Road and Track road test on their website, they describe the handling better than I can. I've pushed it and I'm confident that I could make a quick turn at speed if I ever had to, but I am not inclined to throw it around corners just for fun.

If I were to summarize the overall driving dynamic, I see A3 in base or Premium form as more of a touring car than a sportster. I happen to like a good touring car so this still adds up to an enjoyable ride for me but take this into consideration if you like a sporty drive.

EPA mileage estimates are realistic, in mixed driving I get almost 30 mpg.

Now for the nits:

The climate control system is unnecessarily fussy. I prefer basic controls. Give me a temp control, vent control, and a switch for the A/C and I will decide what I want. This has a dial-a-temp thermostat HVAC system. Great if you want to leave it on auto and let it decide temp and vent and A/C. But if you want to go without A/C or roll down the windows, well you have got to deal with a lot of button pushing and it still will not give you complete manual control - roll down the windows on a cool day and the heat will come on unless you also set the temp to match the outside temp, etc. The buttons are indistinct and tough to control by feel, so it is hard to deal with climate adjustments when the car is moving.

Stereo sound is boxy but that is not unusual in a hatch/wagon. You do not have the luxury of mounting speakers in a rear deck and using the trunk as a big speaker box like you do in a sedan. Radio reception is the absolute worst of any car I have ever had. Small indistinct buttons again make it hard to adjust the stereo by feel.

Low seating, low roof line, smallish glass, and small mirrors can make it feel closed-in. Large pillars restrict visibility, especially to the side and back. Low seating also puts the window opening about shoulder level which makes it hard to reach out through the window and get your mail or toss your toll money in the bucket. (Now that's something you don't normally see in a car review...)

Base seats mostly comfy and easy to fit in, but firm on top of the firm ride.

The 'trunk' area is very shallow and the spare tire is given a lot of space. Those lifestyle things that Audi wants you to toss in the trunk (golf clubs, guitar, e.g.) won't fit without dropping the rear seatbacks. Seats don't fold flat.

I was surprised at tire and drivetrain noise that leaks into the cabin. I had been looking at Matrix which is a very, very noisy ride, and while I am not suggesting the A3 is as noisy as Matrix I do have to say that the noise level in the A3 made me take notice of it just like it did when I drove the Matrix.

The base seats have manual adjustments for seat height and recline but the mechanism looks like something from a 70's or 80's econobox and seems out of place in the otherwise upscale interior.

The center armrest is high in its neutral position. It is adjustable but if you lower it you can't pull up the parking brake. Negotiating the cup holder takes more thought than it should. Up and out of the holder and up and over the brake lever and around arm rest ... but you are supposed to be driving and not drinking, right?

The doors open to 3 ratchet positions. The door is barely open at the first position. So your inclination when you hit the first ratchet stop is to shove or yank the door right to the max opening, and the max opening is very wide. I anticipate a lot of door smacking in parking lots and garages.

If you are in automatic ('D') mode and you are stopped on a hill, when you release the brake the car will roll back like a manual transmission until you throttle. It will also roll after you shift into park on level ground. I am sure there is some technical explanation for it, but this is unexpected if you are used to driving automatics. Audi says that the DSG transmission includes a feature called 'hill hold assist' to prevent this. There is some discussion of this on the various Audi user forums, some drivers say that their car doesn't roll and others have cars that roll, but at least on my car it does not work as described here:

"Audi hill hold assist helps the driver perform a hill start. When the foot brake is pressed for some time when stationary, the braking pressure that has been built up is retained momentarily after the foot brake is released. Thanks to this automatic brake intervention, the system makes it easier to perform a hill start without rolling backwards."

The accumulation of nits would annoy me in a lesser car, but the ride is just sooo good that I chalk them up to character. Bottom line is I look forward to my commute and any other excuse I can dream up to go for a ride.