2024 Audi S3 | PH Review

Do active differential and suspension mods justify a serious price increase?

Audi has long been expert at spotting and exploiting profitable niches, with the S3 representing one of the finest examples of the company’s canny marketing. The first version was launched a quarter of a century ago as what was basically a grown-up hot hatch for people who didn’t want something lairy and exhibitionist, and who were prepared to pay a premium to own it. That first S3’s combination of punchy performance and the dynamic security of all-wheel drive won plenty of fans.

The recipe has served through three more generations - turbo four-pot up front, Haldex clutch pack at the rear and the sort of discreet good looks that help it to fly under the radar. The arrival of the five-cylinder RS3 in 2011 - faster, louder and flashier - seemed to confirm the S3 in the role of understated understudy.

But no longer. When the current fourth-gen S3 was launched in 2010 it got a much more aggressive design than its predecessors, and now a mid-life facelift has turned the S3’s looks up by another couple of notches. It has also gained more power and, in a move that blurs the line between S3 and RS3, the junior car is also being given the same torque-biasing rear differential as its pricier sister - one that brings what is basically a drift mode.

Visually the revised S3 seems to be taking Audi’s ‘Darth Vader’s Helmet’ design language to its logical conclusion of looking ready to order a Death Star. The front bumper apertures have all grown bigger and though the grille has lost its S3 badge, onlookers will be in little doubt they are looking at one of the senior versions. (Up close, as with all revised A3s, model branding is now carried on the B-pillar next to the windows.) At the rear the S3’s bumper gets even more moulded mesh effect than before, plus a pseudo-diffuser and artillery calibre quad exhaust pipes. Subtlety has left the building.

Another strange detail – Audi is now offering A3 buyers the option of an adjustable DRL pattern. The 24 LED elements above the headlights can now be switched between four different configurations. One of these on the S3, in possible proof of the German sense of humour, looks like a pair of evil cartoon eyebrows.

The cabin has been tweaked too. Audi has responded to criticism of the pre-facelift A3’s low-rent materials and general gloominess with some brighter trim and a partial redesign. There is a new centre console with an EV-like gear selector replacing the outgoing car’s stubby little lever – as before, a double-clutch auto is the only transmission choice. The interior also gets new accent lighting and some colour contrasts to jazz things up, with digital instruments now standard across the A3 range. It’s definitely a more cheerful place than before, although there is still plenty of hard plastic trim. Definitely too much for a car that, in its cheapest form, is now pushing £47,000.

Mechanical changes are more promising. The first, always welcome, is an increase in power, with 333hp now available from the familiar 2.0-litre turbo four. That’s accompanied by a 13lb ft rise in torque to 308lb ft, numbers which put the S3 within a whisker of the output the 8P generation RS3 boasted in 2011. The S3 also gets the RS3’s pivot bearing front axle, giving a 1.5-degree increase in negative camber, plus stiffer mountings and new software for both the variable rate steering and gearbox. Brakes have grown bigger, too - with thicker 357mm diameter discs up front. Picking the pricier Vorsprung trim will also bring adaptive dampers.

But the headline tweak is definitely the active differential. As in the RS3 and Golf R Performance Pack, this brings individual electronically controlled clutch packs for each wheel, allowing pretty much full variation of the torque sent to each side. (As such it is very similar in principle to the Twinster diff at the back of the last Ford Focus RS.) The S3 also gets a new Dynamic Plus mode which Audi promises will send as much torque as possible to the outside rear wheel “resulting in a tendency to oversteer.”

Which is, as you would expect, the first part of the dynamic interrogation. I can report that the differential does indeed deliver a degree of tail-happiness well beyond that of any previous S3, but also that the reality is a little less exciting than the rhetoric makes it sound. That’s because, like the Focus RS, the S3’s differential is better at teasing than delivering heroic skids. With more effort going to the outside rear wheel under power, the car feels edgy and exciting once loaded up in Dynamic Plus – as if it's on the ragged edge of adhesion. But pushing hard enough to break traction tends to just produce a mini slide as the system immediately starts to direct torque to the other rear wheel to stop things from going too far. It’s fun, don’t get me wrong – but it doesn’t turn the S3 into a tyre-shredding drift machine. I preferred the less aggressive behaviour in the gentler dynamic settings, the torque switching helping to get the car turned without making it feel snappy.

The other improvements are all positive. The increase in power hasn’t made a noticeable difference to the performance numbers, the claimed 4.7-second 0-62mph time being just a tenth inside that of the outgoing car. But the engine feels more muscular in its mid-range, and the tweaked gearbox software is obvious with more confident part-throttle starts - in contrast to the regular A3 which seems to have kept the familiar DSG hesitancy. Brake pedal weight and feel is improved, too - and although I’m not a fan of the heavier steering that comes with the punchier dynamic modes, front-end reactions are crisp and a detectable amount of off-centre feedback gets past the electrical assistance. There is still an Individual dynamic mode to allow mixing and matching of the different settings.

The car I drove in Germany rode on the adaptive dampers which will come with the full-fat Vorsprung pack in the UK. These coped amazingly well with what could well have been one of the lumpiest roads in Bavaria, in marked contrast to previous S3s that have often felt under-damped when asked to digest bigger suspension loadings. With the active shocks the S3 was pliant without feeling too soft in Comfort, with Dynamic keeping it properly lashed even when dealing with big bumps and rapid direction changes at the same time. A stretch of derestricted Autobahn proved it still feels very stable at three-figure speeds, too. Let’s hope the passive setup gets close to the same level of control.

Overall the S3’s long-term core values seem to be intact while the driving experience has been turned up a couple of notches. Given the increasingly denuded nature of the hot hatch segment, that should keep the Audi somewhere towards the sharp end for the next few years. Yes, the pricing is going to seem pretty ridiculous for anybody who hasn’t been paying attention to this part of the market for the last few years. The cheapest Sportback is nearly ten grand more than when this generation first came out in 2020, and the most expensive Vorsprung saloon is going to be £52,965 - making it pricier than the turbocharged V6 Audi S5 Coupe was just eight years ago. That’s the crazy world we’re living in, but it’s also worth remembering that this S3 is almost certainly the last one. It won’t be long before cars like this are a fading memory.

Specification | Audi S3 Sportback Vorsprung Edition

Engine: 1984cc, four-cylinder, turbocharged
Gearbox: Seven-speed double-clutch, all-wheel drive
Power: 333hp @ 5600rpm
Torque: 308 lb-ft @ 2100rpm
0-62mph: 4.7secs
Top speed: 155mph (limited)
Kerbweight: 1,575kg
MPG: 32.4
CO2: 198g/km
Price: £52,400

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JJJ.

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