Review: the new Audi A3 1.4 saloon

What’s this?

The new Audi A3, but also a bit of a curiosity.

How’s that?

Brits like their Audi A3s – and we like them a lot, because it’s been up among the top ten best-selling cars since the latest MQB-platformed version was launched in 2013 – but we like them in a very specific spec.

A hatchback boot at the rear. Four doors in the middle – that’s Sportback, in Audispeak – and a tax-friendly turbodiesel in the front. Small saloons are a bit of a European mainland penchant – and petrol engines just can’t dodge CO2 tax with the agility that’s crucial in a market where so many sales are swallowed by bean-counting company fleets. Around one in two, in the A3’s case.

So, having driven the many hatchback A3s and many diesels, we thought we’d have a go in an A3 saloon, with the 1.4-litre TFSI engine complete with cylinder deactivation and the seven-speed S-tronic gearbox. Just to see what we’re missing.

A 1.4-litre engine? Bit gutless, is it?

Absolutely not. In fact, among the many millions of engine variants stamped out by the VW Group behemoth, this unassuming little four-cylinder is a gem. It develops 148bhp and 184lb ft from 1500-3500rpm, and boy does this motor punch above its weight.

It revs cleanly, without getting thrashy and out of sorts. It’s enough to make light work of the A3’s impressive 1245kg kerbweight, puffing to 62mph in 8.2 seconds and 139mph flat out. But the in-gear pull, which is far more relevant than the classic launch stats, is more than satisfactory.

Downsized engine has torque: hardly a newsflash…

The really clever bit is the cylinder deactivation. You have to jump through some hoops to send two pistons to sleep: engine producing up to 73.8lb ft of torque, while crank speed is between 1400 and 3200rpm. It’s a motorway cruise feature. Line up those crosshairs and – with no discernible labouring from the engine –  economy climbs rapidly. An average of 38.7mpg sailed into the 40s once we got the A3 in its motorway mooch comfort zone.

Click the S-tronic into efficiency mode and it disconnects from the engine when you lift off, slashing your freewheeling friction and massaging fuel mileage further. It takes a bit of concentration, predicting who’s going to pull out in front of you, where the gradients are and when best to lift out of the throttle, but if you’re content to study revs as hard as the road, the gains are there for the taking.

Thumbs up for the powertrain then?

Yes, but it’s not cheap. Audi doesn’t offer the cracking 1.0-litre turbo triple in the saloon, so this 1.4 ‘CoD’ motor is the entry-level choice, but outfitted with S-line trim and the dual-clutch gearbox, it’s already over £27k. And while this gets you a largely refined and polite car, it certainly doesn’t bring you an entertaining one.

One thing to watch out for: if you want 18-inch alloys, magnetic dampers are compulsory. You pay £1100 for the posh rims, and then have a £995 bill heaped onto that for the three-mode dampers. Look, the ride is actually fine – Audi has left behind the bad old days of teaming lean looks with crashy suspension – with the typical Audi ‘bounce’ in Comfort mode, a well-sorted compromise in Normal and a healthy tightening up of roll angles in Dynamic. But that’s a stack of money to engineer your way out of an issue that’s avoided entirely with 17-inch alloys. Just a thought.

So should I buy a saloon?

Interesting one. The saloon may very well be the most perfectly proportioned A3 – it’s an extremely handsome little car, all squat and square-stanced and crisply detailed. But it won’t go winning over Brits brought up on a diet of furniture-swallowing hatchbacks.

Rear headroom is tight, and inferior legroom to the Sportback means it’s a child-only zone. But if you regularly ship little ones, you’d want a more practical boot opening, for swallowing prams, bikes, the guinea pig hutch and so on. The saloon looks cooler and more business-like than the three-door A3, but beyond that, the hatch is a better all-round bet. Especially as it’s £550 cheaper.

A five-door A3 hatch with the 1.4-litre cylinder-on-demand engine (costing £25,150 in manual, S-line form) might be the best A3 of them all, in fact. Certainly, between this motor and the 1.0-litre triple, our favourite new A3s come with fewer cubes under the bonnet. Perhaps in a few years, new laws of the land will see them overtake the ubiquitous diesels...