Audi A3 Saloon (2013 - 2020) 1.4 TFSI (150bhp) Sport (Nav) 4d S Tronic Owner Review

Interesting car in that it is a very mixed bag. It is quiet, comfortable, economical and fast enough for safe overtaking and day to day use and very confident around corners (with good tyres and in right mode). Auto box is good, smooth and responsive (when in correct mode). Great grip and has got me home safely in very bad snow (with Nokian cold weather tyres). Great for short and long journeys, fast or slow - but being a saloon its not a removal van. Bad points include: Options - niceties such as heated seats, sunroof, auto dip mirrors when reversing, rear armrest/cupholder etc are all options so difficult/impossible to find when buying used car (unlike previous Seat Exeo that had them all as standard). this car had the expensive uprated sat nav, which is basically pointless as I dont want to draw pictures or letters whilst driving... road tax and fuel usage quite low, but insurance is high for a 1.4 and servicing costs very high. Rearward visibility via door mirrors not good. Handbrake is awful as electronic, either on or off and sometimes it switches itself off in a traffic jam when auto start/stop cuts back in, causing car to leap forwards. Headlights poor (mine isnt LED or Xenon etc). the sound from the (standard) Speaker system is only reasonable. It was extremely reliable until a garage fitted the wrong or faulty spark plugs (I will never use Servicing Stop again), which resulted in two breakdowns and AA callouts. last one was in France and found out that the third year warranty isnt valid in France - garage charged nearly 500 euros just to look at it, couldnt fix it and it had to be transported back to uk, arriving six weeks later. Finally got car back in December with a new engine after the breakdown in July. Costs at AUDI garages very high for size/type of car - eg £500 for rear discs/pads, £120 for spark plugs, but quality of work at AUDI garage is very good and I paid the price for trying to save money and use Servicing Stop....