Driving Impressions

Vehicle Dynamics International drives many of the latest vehicles on the market, and you can read our subjective impressions of the cars here!

Most of the cars we drive are standard production vehicles driven on our regular public road test routes near the VDI office in Surrey, UK. This provides a more controlled test environment and enables us to make more valid comparisons between models. If a car was tested elsewhere, or the vehicle was not a final production model, this is stated at the top of the relevant review.

Latest Test Drive: Audi RS3 Sportback

For anyone for whom the rapid S3 wasn’t fast enough, Audi has produced this last hurrah for the outgoing A3 Sportback.

Sharing much of its powertrain and underpinnings with the TT RS, the RS3 gets the distinctive-sounding 2.5-liter, five-cylinder turbo. The unit comes complete with 340PS, an S tronic twin-clutch gearbox and an appealing exhaust woofle.

As you’d expect, it’s very fast indeed in a straight line – Audi quotes a zero to 100km/h (62mph) time of 4.6 seconds, and the performance is always a shove of the throttle away. But there are times when you feel the drivetrain struggling to deal with the demands placed upon it, notably some unpleasant shunt when you quickly drop two gears. Perhaps the cold temperatures of our test days didn’t help, although Surrey in December is hardly reminiscent of an Arctic Circle proving ground... One part of the car that definitely didn’t like being cold were the substantial front brakes, which squealed unpleasantly as you came to a standstill for the first couple of uses.

This front-heavy car has a 22mm wider front track than lesser versions of the A3 and, unusually, wider ContiSportContact 5P tires on the front axle than the rear (235/35s versus 225/35s). Previously Audi has tried to put more power to the rear wheels to balance such vehicles, but this can easily result in RWD behavior instead of 4WD. By going with wider rubber up front, Audi has in theory made room to balance the car well, without resorting to extreme cambers on the front axle that will wear the tires excessively on straight roads.

Ride and handling-wise, the results are a mixed bag. The RS3 rides firmly but never harshly on its 19in rims, continuing a commendable trend begun by the old RS4. But on lumpy roads the car can feel like it’s being fired back off the surface after a big primary input. This isn’t such a problem driving straight-ahead, but does the driver’s confidence no favors when the wheels aren’t straight – even at moderate speeds, say 50mph. The high-speed stability on a flat road is as reassuring as you’d expect, however.

The RS3 turns in keenly, but there isn’t much feel from the steering. Indeed, we felt there was a more general lack of engagement from the car. It has an efficient but slightly soulless demeanor, especially when you use it at everyday, legal speeds. Perhaps that’s the inevitable result when you try to safely squeeze 340PS into a small family hatchback.

With thanks to Jonas Jarlmark Näfver

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