The New Audi S3: A Thrilling Driving Experience

As I put the new Audi S3 through its paces, I couldn't help but notice how much more fun it was to drive compared to its predecessor. The adaptive dampers, which are only available on the top-of-the-line trim level, made a significant difference in terms of handling and responsiveness. The car felt slightly firmer than before, but not uncomfy, and seemed to be more responsive immediately when I turned into corners.

One of the standout features of this new S3 is its rear differential, which cleverly sends power to the outer rear wheel as you accelerate out of a bend. This makes the car feel more agile and playful, and allows it to rotate more easily through turns. The trade-off for this increased responsiveness is a slightly firmer ride, but I found that to be well worth it.

The engine sounds are also noteworthy, with a fruity 5-cylinder sound that's reminiscent of its larger, more powerful RS3 cousins. This engine feels more engaged and responsive than the previous generation S3, and seems to have more "bite" when accelerating out of corners. The brakes are also good, with a nice feeling of grip and traction.

One of the things I appreciate about this new S3 is how Audi has managed to balance its desire for a sporty driving experience with the need for practicality. With an estimated economy of 16MPG, this car is certainly no slouch when it comes to fuel efficiency. In fact, in my tests, I was able to get around 40MPG on a long cruise at an average speed of 47mph.

So why might you want to shortlist the new Audi S3? Well, for starters, there's the option for adaptive dampers, which are only available on the top trim level. This is a nice-to-have feature, but one that's not essential. Additionally, if you're looking for a similar driving experience without breaking the bank, there's an alternative option available through Carwow: a BMW M340i. With its larger body and 6-cylinder engine, this car offers a similar blend of performance and practicality at a slightly lower price point.

In fact, I ended up choosing the BMW M340i over the S3, precisely because it offered more value for money. While the Audi is certainly more fun to drive, the BMW's larger size and more powerful engine make it a better choice for long-term ownership. As with any car-buying decision, there are pros and cons to consider, but ultimately, I think you should take some time to weigh your options before making a final decision.

Overall, I'm thoroughly enjoying driving the new Audi S3, and I would recommend it to anyone in the market for a fun and engaging driving experience. While it may not be perfect, this car is certainly one of the best around, and I think you'll find it well worth considering.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enAudi has fitted a call new button to its latest S3 so when I press the drive select mode button here you can see when I toggle into Dynamic you get a new Option up here Dynamic plus if I press that it automatically puts the stability control into sports mode but that is not the best bit you see this new S3 is fitted with a torque splitter differential on the rear axle and when you're in Dynamic plus the car sends as much power as it can to the rear axle and the outer rear wheel to help Drive the car through the corner now this is really exciting but is the rest of this new S3 just as exciting well I'm going to reveal all in this video I'm Watson and you're watching carow let's start off this video with the most important thing about the new Audi S3 and that is of course the engine as before it's a 2 L 4-cylinder turbo but now it has 333 horsepower which is an increase of 23 horsepower over the old car you also have 420 newm of torque which is an increase of 20 newm you still have Quattro all-wheel drive and you still have a 7-speed dual clutch automatic gearbox so what is the result on the performance well let's find out by launching this car Audi says the new S3 should do not to 60 in 4.7 seconds I'm going to time it for myself using my specialist timing gear up here and I'm also going to time it over the standing quarter mile so let's do this go into drive select dynamic dynamic plus turn off the automatic parking brake in sport mod for the gearbox left on the brake floor the throttle launch control activated release brake warning noises not 60 4.48 woohoo what the quart mile 12.93 now you might be wondering wait a minute Matt you got the saloon is a saloon quicker or slower than the hatchback well they're both weigh the same but did they deliver the same performance let's find out according to Audi the new S3 will do not to 60 in 4.7 seconds let's find out specialist timing gear launch it what we got 4.65 what the qu mile 13.14 I think it can go quicker now I had it in the dynamic plus mode which is designed for the racetrack I'm actually going to go in just the normal d dnamic mode and see if it goes better was it quicker ever are slightly keep going it's to the quart mile 13 seconds dead hm a slight difference then I suggest you go for a saloon but should you go for this all new model or just get a used version of the preface lifted car how does that one's performance compare to these newer models after all it is 23 horsepower down on power let's find out come on car there's a 60 quicker 4.4 seconds are we going to do a quart mile well I'm running out of Road oh I was hoping to the quarter mile then I think oh I think I was just a little bit shy it's saying 13.15 seconds but I reckon I was breaking beforehand right so the plot thickens the previous generation car was quicker than both the saloon and hatchback version of the new model to 60 MPH however both the new versions are actually quicker than the old version over the standing quarter mile but really there's not all that much in it is there however there is a big difference in their prices you see this new car starts from just under £475,000 so thankfully you can save an average of £ 3,170 off an ads3 through car if you buying you but if you look down here you can buy used AUD S3 through car from just over 28 ,000 decisions decisions now if you're thinking about buying a car you want to compare all the different prices and of course you want to sell your current car you can do all of that through carw it's the place to go to change your car make sure you're getting a good deal on the car you're trying to sell as well as the next one you're trying to buy so make sure you do that so A has made some tweaks to the exterior design of the S3 and I'll talk you through those and the changes over the standard A3 so the S3 gets a boot lip spoiler you get the S3 budging it gets a more aggressive sportti rear bumper with the obligatory quad tail pipes now compared to the previous generation of S3 the design of this diffuser is ever so slightly different and this are is different and I'm going to show you a little clip of the previous generation car now and there's something on the old car I preferred than this car and that's this look I don't like the new Audi badge here at the back but it gets worse at the front we'll come to that in a moment also the updated car get slightly different Graphics in the tail lights moving down the side the S3 gets larger alloy wheels they start from 19 in and now they have a little Audi Sport logo in them as well you have the side skirts on the S3 compared to the standard car and black door mirrors moving to the front so the S3 gets a more aggressive front bumper we' got this blacked out Grill looks pretty angry now a change compared to the old S3 once again is the badge design here they've actually moved it up slightly so you can see these elements here like the Rings go into this part of the body but I really don't the look at this new grill it's awful that design looks like it's been stuck on it's horrendous what have they done I quite like the more aggressive like intakes here but I'm not liking the fact they've also removed the S3 badge from the front as well what's that all about let me know what you think of this in particular do you like that or not do you think they should just go back to the old design let me know in the comments I'm not happy want to sell your car quickly easily for a fair price then head to car where to have over 4,000 trusted dealers ready to to bid on it in an online auction first enter your car's registration to get an instant approximate valuation then if you want to proceed give us some more details and upload some photos and we'll help you set a fair reserve price for your car that's the minimum amount you'd be happy to sell it for once you've done that we'll enter your car into an online auction when the auction's over we'll let you know the result and the dealer with the winning bid will be in touch to arrange easy payment and free collection of your car 93% of sell surveyed said they got the price they expected or more through carb the best bit is it's completely free I put a link in the description of this video and the Ping comment to take you directly to carwow where over 4,000 dealers are ready to bid on your car or you can just click on the pop out Banner that should be appearing in the top right hand corner of the screen now alternatively just Google help me carwow and we will help you sell your car quickly easily and for a fair price on with the video here on the inside the S3 benefits from a sport s steering wheel now you can also get it with a flat bottom if you want also this new S3 get Alcantara here on the dash the old one didn't I like the Alcantara gives me somewhere to wipe my greasy hands after I've been applying Sun cream sorry Audi obviously being the s model you get the S sport seats very nice love the quilting got fine Napa leather on them as well and you get this as well the S on the kick plates plus little red suround for the starter button one thing that has changed for this latest version of the S3 and indeed the A3 is the gear selector there it's like a lozenge which you move in the pass it used to be like a little lever I prefer the lever here in the back there are very few changes to a normal Audi A3 which is a good thing so knee room's decent Headroom is decent you got good practicality look at the size of these door bins look at that lovely they're huge in the front as well the only real upgrade is that you get the napple leather seats with the quilting which is very nice very nice indeed and that brings on to five cool things about this new Audi S3 the S3 gets uprated Sports brakes so you get bigger brake discs they're 357 mm which is 17 mm bigger than the standard a3s and you get two piston calipers let's see how they perform okay I'm going to do a brake test from 60 M an hour so when I reach the braking Point full emergency stop see what we do here we go here we go here we go need to do it in at least yeah 35 M as I was going to say and look there we go we got 33 M that's some good braking right there happy with that I do wish cars wouldn't do that and put the hazards on when you break but I get it it's for safety it's just annoying when you're filming I don't know why I'm with Sprint but I am the S3 gets something called Progressive steering what it means is that the steering can go from Lock to the other lock in just two turns watch this one two yet despite that which obviously improves the agility of the car when you just turn the wheel a bit it's not overly flighty so it's revving for some unknown reason why are you revving what are you doing are you all right are you okay go away there's no's revving what's going on put into drive no still not happy what's going on the airon isn't on what's happening okay I don't know we're having a meltdown let's just let's just try this again let's have a look that's better so as I was saying it means that the steering is responsive but not overly flighty so the car is responsive but I'm as bad as the car itself I think there's something in the air you get the idea the S3 also gets a rated suspension over the standard A3 so the car is lowered by 50 mm plus Audi has retuned the springs and the dampers to give the car a more sporty Drive more negative cber angle on the front wheels and stiffer bushings in the front wishbones help make the car more responsive compared to standard A3 unlike with s models of the past when you put this car's automatic gearbox into manual mode it won't change up you even when you hit the rev limiter look see you have to do it yourself oh yes how do is just like it's changed the S3 gets loads of standard kits such as adaptive cruise control with Lane keeping assist there's a Sonos stereo a heads up display and I like the fact that you can change the light signature of the front lights between four different choices look there's Design One let's try design two there's three and there's four I think we're going to stick with four however it's not all good here's five annoying things about the new Audi S3 the standard A3 saloon has a boot capacity of 425 L which is impressive however the S3 is fitted with that rear differential and sports exhaust and that does reduce the boot space by how much what we're going to find out now from our boot experts so what have you found out well I think it's all right in here but I reckon it's precisely 100 L less than a standard A3 Saloon oh dear the wide back Sports seats block The View forward for rear passengers worse than a normal seat would and that could be problematic if they suffer from car while the S3 does come with a sports exhaust as standard it's not the frest sounding gone give it some revs it's okay but as with every mod noway there's a really frustrating soft limiter darn it there's huge sonus rear speakers reflect really badly in the back window which means that when you're looking through the rear view mirror sometimes hard to see what's actually behind you you can only get adaptive dampers on the very top specification of the ads3 they're not even available as an option on the lower models it's annoying why can't you just get them optionally cuz I would definitely fit them but no look I can change the drive system the steering and the engine sound but not the Adaptive dampers because this isn't the top spec VPR anyway how does that affect how this car drives let's see what these changes do to this car so first thing I notice is that it feels slightly firmer than the previous generation S3 shame you can't get adapted dampers on all versions as an option because that might put a few people off but I don't find it uncomfy really it's just firm the trade-off though is it feels sharper immediately when you turn this car into a corner it just seems more responsive and then there's another element to it which I love so it just seems Keener to rotate and then when you accelerate as you're coming at the bend you can feel the drive coming from the outer rear wheel that clever rear differential really does do a job and just makes this car so much more fun here come some bends now look you can just pitch it in wee then flooor it and you can just feel the cars just more playful more agile than any other s model I've ever driven I really like what they've done with this you know I'm starting to think like what would be the point of having the RS3 is there any even the engine sounds a bit fruity like a 5 cylinder even though it's a four-cylinder this is an improvement in terms of engage engagement in the past journalists always used to criticize Audi for making cars that are you know F in straight line like but ultimately a bit dull they have changed and they have changed for the better this car's proof also this engine just seems more on it it really rips the brakes are good as well oh that's the bit right there when you just H it into a Bend accelerate out of it that drive comes from the rear from the outer rear wheel and it really does just feel nice I would be up for having one of these I know it's not a proper four-wheel drive system it's a HCK so it can only ever send 50% of the power to the rear but that ability to switch it over the rear axle makes all the difference and whatever they're doing with this new Dynamic plus mode it seems to work you know what I definitely think this car is more fun to drive than the Mercedes cla35 and the BMW m235i Grand Coupe I'd have this I would now one last thing to say on this car really is one of the great things about it being a 4cylinder 2 L over the 2.55 cylinder that you can get in the RS3 is the economy the long-term economy on this is like 16 MPG that's because I was drag racing it the other day thrashing the ass out of it however I also did a little test where I just drove it for a few miles put it in efficiency mode and cruised and with an average speed of around like 47 mph it did just over 40 MPG it's brilliant such a great all around of this car I really like it so then what's my final verdict on the new Audi S3 should you avoid it should you consider it should you short list it or should you just go right ahead and buy it so I was going to say you know what you should go right ahead and buy this because thanks to that new torque splitter rear differential this new S3 is noticeably more fun to drive than its predecessor and I prefer it overall compared to its Mercedes and BMW equivalent however I then went on carw and noticed that through carwow for similar money to this brand new S3 I could get a BMW m340i with its larger body and it's 6-cylinder engine you see the price of that BMW is normally £60,000 but through carbo you can get one for £51,000 so it's pretty much the same money as this and I would definitely have the BMW and that's why I'm going to say you should actually short list this new Audi S3 anyway I hope you enjoyed the video if you did give it a like you want to watch some other videos then click on the windows and if you want to make sure you're paying a fair price for the next car buying and to see whether you could actually get a better model than you thought because you can get a discount on that car through car then click on the carwow logo make sure you're not missing out thanks for watchingAudi has fitted a call new button to its latest S3 so when I press the drive select mode button here you can see when I toggle into Dynamic you get a new Option up here Dynamic plus if I press that it automatically puts the stability control into sports mode but that is not the best bit you see this new S3 is fitted with a torque splitter differential on the rear axle and when you're in Dynamic plus the car sends as much power as it can to the rear axle and the outer rear wheel to help Drive the car through the corner now this is really exciting but is the rest of this new S3 just as exciting well I'm going to reveal all in this video I'm Watson and you're watching carow let's start off this video with the most important thing about the new Audi S3 and that is of course the engine as before it's a 2 L 4-cylinder turbo but now it has 333 horsepower which is an increase of 23 horsepower over the old car you also have 420 newm of torque which is an increase of 20 newm you still have Quattro all-wheel drive and you still have a 7-speed dual clutch automatic gearbox so what is the result on the performance well let's find out by launching this car Audi says the new S3 should do not to 60 in 4.7 seconds I'm going to time it for myself using my specialist timing gear up here and I'm also going to time it over the standing quarter mile so let's do this go into drive select dynamic dynamic plus turn off the automatic parking brake in sport mod for the gearbox left on the brake floor the throttle launch control activated release brake warning noises not 60 4.48 woohoo what the quart mile 12.93 now you might be wondering wait a minute Matt you got the saloon is a saloon quicker or slower than the hatchback well they're both weigh the same but did they deliver the same performance let's find out according to Audi the new S3 will do not to 60 in 4.7 seconds let's find out specialist timing gear launch it what we got 4.65 what the qu mile 13.14 I think it can go quicker now I had it in the dynamic plus mode which is designed for the racetrack I'm actually going to go in just the normal d dnamic mode and see if it goes better was it quicker ever are slightly keep going it's to the quart mile 13 seconds dead hm a slight difference then I suggest you go for a saloon but should you go for this all new model or just get a used version of the preface lifted car how does that one's performance compare to these newer models after all it is 23 horsepower down on power let's find out come on car there's a 60 quicker 4.4 seconds are we going to do a quart mile well I'm running out of Road oh I was hoping to the quarter mile then I think oh I think I was just a little bit shy it's saying 13.15 seconds but I reckon I was breaking beforehand right so the plot thickens the previous generation car was quicker than both the saloon and hatchback version of the new model to 60 MPH however both the new versions are actually quicker than the old version over the standing quarter mile but really there's not all that much in it is there however there is a big difference in their prices you see this new car starts from just under £475,000 so thankfully you can save an average of £ 3,170 off an ads3 through car if you buying you but if you look down here you can buy used AUD S3 through car from just over 28 ,000 decisions decisions now if you're thinking about buying a car you want to compare all the different prices and of course you want to sell your current car you can do all of that through carw it's the place to go to change your car make sure you're getting a good deal on the car you're trying to sell as well as the next one you're trying to buy so make sure you do that so A has made some tweaks to the exterior design of the S3 and I'll talk you through those and the changes over the standard A3 so the S3 gets a boot lip spoiler you get the S3 budging it gets a more aggressive sportti rear bumper with the obligatory quad tail pipes now compared to the previous generation of S3 the design of this diffuser is ever so slightly different and this are is different and I'm going to show you a little clip of the previous generation car now and there's something on the old car I preferred than this car and that's this look I don't like the new Audi badge here at the back but it gets worse at the front we'll come to that in a moment also the updated car get slightly different Graphics in the tail lights moving down the side the S3 gets larger alloy wheels they start from 19 in and now they have a little Audi Sport logo in them as well you have the side skirts on the S3 compared to the standard car and black door mirrors moving to the front so the S3 gets a more aggressive front bumper we' got this blacked out Grill looks pretty angry now a change compared to the old S3 once again is the badge design here they've actually moved it up slightly so you can see these elements here like the Rings go into this part of the body but I really don't the look at this new grill it's awful that design looks like it's been stuck on it's horrendous what have they done I quite like the more aggressive like intakes here but I'm not liking the fact they've also removed the S3 badge from the front as well what's that all about let me know what you think of this in particular do you like that or not do you think they should just go back to the old design let me know in the comments I'm not happy want to sell your car quickly easily for a fair price then head to car where to have over 4,000 trusted dealers ready to to bid on it in an online auction first enter your car's registration to get an instant approximate valuation then if you want to proceed give us some more details and upload some photos and we'll help you set a fair reserve price for your car that's the minimum amount you'd be happy to sell it for once you've done that we'll enter your car into an online auction when the auction's over we'll let you know the result and the dealer with the winning bid will be in touch to arrange easy payment and free collection of your car 93% of sell surveyed said they got the price they expected or more through carb the best bit is it's completely free I put a link in the description of this video and the Ping comment to take you directly to carwow where over 4,000 dealers are ready to bid on your car or you can just click on the pop out Banner that should be appearing in the top right hand corner of the screen now alternatively just Google help me carwow and we will help you sell your car quickly easily and for a fair price on with the video here on the inside the S3 benefits from a sport s steering wheel now you can also get it with a flat bottom if you want also this new S3 get Alcantara here on the dash the old one didn't I like the Alcantara gives me somewhere to wipe my greasy hands after I've been applying Sun cream sorry Audi obviously being the s model you get the S sport seats very nice love the quilting got fine Napa leather on them as well and you get this as well the S on the kick plates plus little red suround for the starter button one thing that has changed for this latest version of the S3 and indeed the A3 is the gear selector there it's like a lozenge which you move in the pass it used to be like a little lever I prefer the lever here in the back there are very few changes to a normal Audi A3 which is a good thing so knee room's decent Headroom is decent you got good practicality look at the size of these door bins look at that lovely they're huge in the front as well the only real upgrade is that you get the napple leather seats with the quilting which is very nice very nice indeed and that brings on to five cool things about this new Audi S3 the S3 gets uprated Sports brakes so you get bigger brake discs they're 357 mm which is 17 mm bigger than the standard a3s and you get two piston calipers let's see how they perform okay I'm going to do a brake test from 60 M an hour so when I reach the braking Point full emergency stop see what we do here we go here we go here we go need to do it in at least yeah 35 M as I was going to say and look there we go we got 33 M that's some good braking right there happy with that I do wish cars wouldn't do that and put the hazards on when you break but I get it it's for safety it's just annoying when you're filming I don't know why I'm with Sprint but I am the S3 gets something called Progressive steering what it means is that the steering can go from Lock to the other lock in just two turns watch this one two yet despite that which obviously improves the agility of the car when you just turn the wheel a bit it's not overly flighty so it's revving for some unknown reason why are you revving what are you doing are you all right are you okay go away there's no's revving what's going on put into drive no still not happy what's going on the airon isn't on what's happening okay I don't know we're having a meltdown let's just let's just try this again let's have a look that's better so as I was saying it means that the steering is responsive but not overly flighty so the car is responsive but I'm as bad as the car itself I think there's something in the air you get the idea the S3 also gets a rated suspension over the standard A3 so the car is lowered by 50 mm plus Audi has retuned the springs and the dampers to give the car a more sporty Drive more negative cber angle on the front wheels and stiffer bushings in the front wishbones help make the car more responsive compared to standard A3 unlike with s models of the past when you put this car's automatic gearbox into manual mode it won't change up you even when you hit the rev limiter look see you have to do it yourself oh yes how do is just like it's changed the S3 gets loads of standard kits such as adaptive cruise control with Lane keeping assist there's a Sonos stereo a heads up display and I like the fact that you can change the light signature of the front lights between four different choices look there's Design One let's try design two there's three and there's four I think we're going to stick with four however it's not all good here's five annoying things about the new Audi S3 the standard A3 saloon has a boot capacity of 425 L which is impressive however the S3 is fitted with that rear differential and sports exhaust and that does reduce the boot space by how much what we're going to find out now from our boot experts so what have you found out well I think it's all right in here but I reckon it's precisely 100 L less than a standard A3 Saloon oh dear the wide back Sports seats block The View forward for rear passengers worse than a normal seat would and that could be problematic if they suffer from car while the S3 does come with a sports exhaust as standard it's not the frest sounding gone give it some revs it's okay but as with every mod noway there's a really frustrating soft limiter darn it there's huge sonus rear speakers reflect really badly in the back window which means that when you're looking through the rear view mirror sometimes hard to see what's actually behind you you can only get adaptive dampers on the very top specification of the ads3 they're not even available as an option on the lower models it's annoying why can't you just get them optionally cuz I would definitely fit them but no look I can change the drive system the steering and the engine sound but not the Adaptive dampers because this isn't the top spec VPR anyway how does that affect how this car drives let's see what these changes do to this car so first thing I notice is that it feels slightly firmer than the previous generation S3 shame you can't get adapted dampers on all versions as an option because that might put a few people off but I don't find it uncomfy really it's just firm the trade-off though is it feels sharper immediately when you turn this car into a corner it just seems more responsive and then there's another element to it which I love so it just seems Keener to rotate and then when you accelerate as you're coming at the bend you can feel the drive coming from the outer rear wheel that clever rear differential really does do a job and just makes this car so much more fun here come some bends now look you can just pitch it in wee then flooor it and you can just feel the cars just more playful more agile than any other s model I've ever driven I really like what they've done with this you know I'm starting to think like what would be the point of having the RS3 is there any even the engine sounds a bit fruity like a 5 cylinder even though it's a four-cylinder this is an improvement in terms of engage engagement in the past journalists always used to criticize Audi for making cars that are you know F in straight line like but ultimately a bit dull they have changed and they have changed for the better this car's proof also this engine just seems more on it it really rips the brakes are good as well oh that's the bit right there when you just H it into a Bend accelerate out of it that drive comes from the rear from the outer rear wheel and it really does just feel nice I would be up for having one of these I know it's not a proper four-wheel drive system it's a HCK so it can only ever send 50% of the power to the rear but that ability to switch it over the rear axle makes all the difference and whatever they're doing with this new Dynamic plus mode it seems to work you know what I definitely think this car is more fun to drive than the Mercedes cla35 and the BMW m235i Grand Coupe I'd have this I would now one last thing to say on this car really is one of the great things about it being a 4cylinder 2 L over the 2.55 cylinder that you can get in the RS3 is the economy the long-term economy on this is like 16 MPG that's because I was drag racing it the other day thrashing the ass out of it however I also did a little test where I just drove it for a few miles put it in efficiency mode and cruised and with an average speed of around like 47 mph it did just over 40 MPG it's brilliant such a great all around of this car I really like it so then what's my final verdict on the new Audi S3 should you avoid it should you consider it should you short list it or should you just go right ahead and buy it so I was going to say you know what you should go right ahead and buy this because thanks to that new torque splitter rear differential this new S3 is noticeably more fun to drive than its predecessor and I prefer it overall compared to its Mercedes and BMW equivalent however I then went on carw and noticed that through carwow for similar money to this brand new S3 I could get a BMW m340i with its larger body and it's 6-cylinder engine you see the price of that BMW is normally £60,000 but through carbo you can get one for £51,000 so it's pretty much the same money as this and I would definitely have the BMW and that's why I'm going to say you should actually short list this new Audi S3 anyway I hope you enjoyed the video if you did give it a like you want to watch some other videos then click on the windows and if you want to make sure you're paying a fair price for the next car buying and to see whether you could actually get a better model than you thought because you can get a discount on that car through car then click on the carwow logo make sure you're not missing out thanks for watching\n"