MULTIMEDIA SYSTEM
The RS3’S standard offering on this front is a strong one. You get Virtual Cockpit as standard, which means there’s a 12.3in display screen where your analogue dials might otherwise have been, and you can configure that screen to show navigation mapping, your chosen radio station, trip computer information or any number of other things. And because this is an RS, there’s a special display mode with a central tachometer.
You also get Audi’s MMI Navigation Plus navigation system as standard. It teams up with Audi Connect (also standard) to provide online traffic updates for your route and excellent dynamic route guidance.
With Audi Connect, you get an onboard data sim for live information on things like fuel prices, flight times and weather updates.
The RS3’S infotainment system is well laid out and very usable. The system is beginning to show its age in the apparent lack of processing power here compared with the set-up in the related VW Golf R, but it’s still very feature rich and responsive compared with other systems.
it also falls back on conventional open differentials and brake-based electronic torque vectoring to marshal the driving force between the loaded and unloaded sides of each axle during cornering.
The RS3’S new all-aluminium 2480cc five-cylinder turbocharged engine may be the perfect cover for that slight shortcoming. Weighing 26kg less than the old iron-blocked five-pot and using both direct and indirect fuel injection, it produces 394bhp from 5850rpm to 7000rpm, as well as 354lb ft all the way from 1700rpm to 5850rpm. That power finds its way to the road via a sevenspeed dual-clutch gearbox.
Whether it’s starting with an A3 Saloon or Sportback, Audi Sport’s suspension modifications for the RS3 are materially identical. Both RS3S ride 25mm lower than their A3 counterparts and have axle tracks widened by 20mm up front and 14mm at the rear. But the RS3 Saloon starts with a couple of key dynamic advantages over the five-door, having a roof line that’s 12mm lower for a slightly lower centre of gravity, and a rear track that’s 14mm wider. The saloon is also longer and marginally heavier than the hatchback, but latterly only by 5kg.
Both RS3 siblings come with 19in alloy wheels and have passive variable-ratio ‘progressive’ power steering (whose ratio simply quickens off-centre) as standard. Mixed-width forged 19in rims with a wider tyre footprint up front are an option, as are RS sport suspension springs with adaptive dampers, carbon-ceramic front brake discs and an active RS sport exhaust.
Our test car had all of the above options save for the adaptive suspension and it weighed 13kg less than the four-cylinder Focus RS we tested last year: 1567kg, distributed 58/42 front to rear, which was also more favourable than the Ford’s.
INTERIOR
The fundamentals of the RS3’S cabin haven’t changed a great deal as part of Audi’s mid-cycle overhaul. You’re getting a little bit more equipment as standard than you might have two years ago, as well as a little bit more life and colour splashed around the place if, as our test car had, your car has Audi’s £800 RS Design Pack fitted. That gets you a welcome helping of red stitching for the seats and various other bits of leather upholstery, some red edging for its seatbelts, red accents for its air vents and garishly branded RS3 floor mats.
If another manufacturer were trying to sell a performance car
based on a hatchback available for little more than £20,000 at over twice that price, we’d be watching very closely that the car in question was up to snuff in terms of perceived quality. The material class of the RS3’S cabin is beyond question, though. It feels tactile, solid and upmarket exactly where it’s intended to and the smattering of richer than average materials – the Alcantara sections on the steering wheel, extended leather on the door cards and centre console and shiny metallic sports pedals – all do the trick in lifting the ambience that bit above the ordinary.
You do sit slightly perched at the controls, farther above the car’s belt line than you’d ideally like, and with necessarily bent knees if you’re long-legged. In a hot hatchback, an ergonomic compromise like that is still typical, but in a saloon, customers have a right to expect a more recumbent position.
Second-row space is more than adequate for smaller adults and growing teenagers, but a bit mean for a larger grown-up. As for cargo volume, the saloon bodystyle gives you a boot that’s 170mm longer than the Sportback’s and identically as wide but also only 430mm deep. By saloon standards, it’s a fairly small boot, at 315 litres. A Jaguar XE 3.0 S gives you 140 litres more.
PERFORMANCE
If you read our Best Affordable Driver’s Car contest (Autocar, 23 August), you may remember that, on another track and in slightly different test conditions, the new RS3 Sportback has proved itself capable of 60mph from rest in less than four seconds. Full of fuel, with two people on board and on a dead-level surface, the RS3 Saloon very narrowly missed out on recording a proper two-way 0-60mph road test benchmark beginning with a three, its best oneway clocking being 3.96sec.
Although that’s a shame, it doesn’t really make this car’s accelerative pace any less incredible. The RS3’S blend of awesome power, torque, response and operating rev range has an effect on your expectations of a compact, practical, relatively affordable performance car similar to that of a torpedo propeller on a bowl of sherry trifle. This engine is magnificent – too good, probably, to be considered appropriate for a car like this by almost any other manufacturer. And, being teamed with an equally brilliant driveline and launch control system, it makes for the kind of performance that’d be more recognisable to an owner of a supercar of, say, 10 years of age or so, than it would be to most hot hatchback regulars.
Despite being at disadvantages of £15,000 on list price and more than 100bhp on peak output, the four-wheel-drive RS3 Saloon can out-sprint an Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio to 60mph. Running side by side, it would still be gapping the Italian all the way to 80mph, with the Alfa needing a full standing quarter of a mile of flat-out running to finally overhaul it.
The RS3 needs an absolutely perfect start to realise that kind of showing and its launch control and four-wheel drive system guarantee one. Flat-chat upshifts are supremely timed and very rapidly delivered by the dual-clutch gearbox, which is equally good at selecting the right gear for an opportunistic overtake or a fast-entered, trail-braked corner when you select ‘S’ mode on the shift lever. In manual mode, it can be a wee bit slow to respond to the paddles, but usually only at lowish crank speeds.
The RS3’S brake pedal tuning is a notable disappointment because of a laughably over-sensitive pedal whose initial bite is so vicious that you could probably still be getting used to it, coming to an overly abrupt halt in traffic queues more often than not, after months in the car.
But, wow, what an engine, which, by the way, also sounds every bit as brilliant as you’d hope it would. Rarely has a five-star section score been so well earned.
RIDE AND HANDLING
It’s difficult to gauge whether Audi is any closer to bringing the RS3 to its full dynamic potential now than it was two years ago, when last we tested an RS3 Sportback. The slightly
altered dimensions of the saloon body prevent us from making perfect like-for-like comparisons, as does the particular specification of our test car. The RS3 we road tested in 2015 had the adaptive dampers of Audi’s Dynamic Package Plus but the car being tested here came on standard passive suspension.
It certainly wasn’t made any more effective as a driver’s car for the omission. The RS3’S remorselessly firm damping isn’t quite as large a barrier to your enjoyment of the car’s driving experience on a really great, testing road as its powertrain is a fillip for it, but the two are certainly comparable.
On standard suspension, the RS3 has the kind of bustling, rebounding, aggressive ride that few passengers could fail to comment on. On wellsurfaced A-roads and at licenceworrying motorway speeds, that ride begins to ease up and breathe, ever so gently, with the tarmac under its wheels. But on trickier stretches, it can toss you around quite uncomfortably and begin to markedly undermine the stability of the car. If you plan to enjoy your RS3 on a typical British B-road, we’d suggest that Audi’s RS sport suspension is a must-have for the added suppleness that it brings.
When settled into its stride, the RS3’S lateral grip level is certainly high, but it’s not as dialled up as its handling response, which is such that the car dives into bends like a Labrador at a lamb bone. If the steering offered greater resistance over its first few degrees away from the straight-ahead, it’d be much easier to get used to that directional malevolence. But with the rack offering very little useful contactpatch feedback however you program the drive mode, it can be hard to place the car accurately and carve a perfect, smooth line through a fast bend. As in just about every other facet of its character, the RS3 is simply too keen to show off a hyper-energetic, reflexlike response to your every input.
BUYING AND OWNING
Having cranked up power and performance to almost unprecedented levels for this kind of territory, Audi has seized tacit permission to crank up RS3 prices to match. The Sportback we tested two years ago was a £40,000 car with no fitted options, and 10% is quite a big leap to take in that timeframe for what was already pretty much the most expensive car of its kind.
But the financial case is less extortionate when you look in greater detail. The RS3 Saloon comes for a premium of just under £1000 compared with the hatchback and for many, given the chance to swap a pudgy-looking five-door body for a more elegantly profiled saloon, that’ll be money worth spending. Car value expert CAP rates the saloon slightly weaker than the five-door over a typical ownership period on residual value but places both at close to 60% retained after three years and 36,000 miles. In terms of value lost, a new RS3 should cost you £20k over that time – and plenty of considerably cheaper performance options will actually rinse their way through your hard-earned just as quickly.
Among the RS3’S standard equipment are Virtual Cockpit digital instruments; MMI Navigation Plus with its 3D mapping, 7.0in infotainment screen and touchsensitive input device; and Audi Connect with a free 36-month subscription, which effectively puts your car online. Maybe the adaptive dampers ought to be standard but, overall, it’s no meagre kit count.
Wow, what an engine, which, by the way, also sounds brilliant