Audi S3 (8Y) | PH Used Buying Guide

Launched in 2020, the current S3 is arguably the best of the lot. But what's it like to own?

By Tony Middlehurst / Sunday, 26 October 2025 / Loading comments

Key considerations

Available for £24,500
2.0-litre inline-four petrol turbo, all-wheel drive
Easily out-drags a Porsche Cayman
Infotainment much improved over gen-one
Retains physical buttons
Probably the last ICE Audi S3

Today’s buying guide focuses on the gen-four 8Y version of Audi’s S3 pocket rocket, available for order in the UK from August 2020 for deliveries in the latter part of that year. The S3 proposition was simple enough: the practicality of a small hatch with the performance of a hot one. Dynamically, S3s haven’t always appeared on the top of many ‘ultimate excitement’ lists, but if you were prepared to trade that off against dependability, safety and the potential to pack away long trips in a short time the 8Y S3 presented itself as a pretty good shout for a wide range of motoring applications from shopping trips to short-notice blasts to the ski slopes.

On the traditional basis of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ the 8Y stuck to the same turbocharged four-cylinder plus quattro Haldex all-wheel-drive recipe as its forebears. S3 power outputs have increased by around 50 per cent over the model’s long history. The first 1.8-engined 8L launched in 1999 produced either 207hp or 222hp. The 2.0 8Y we’re looking at here dishes up 306hp and up to 295lb ft of torque, transmitted to the road by lowered suspension and an uprated quattro system.

S3 body formats have been chopped and changed over the years, too. The previous 2014-20 8V S3 could be had as a convertible, a saloon or a hatchback with three or five doors, but the 8Y we’re looking at here was only available as a saloon or five-door ‘Sportback’ hatch. From the front, it was distinguished from the 8V by a toothier honeycomb grille, more gaping bumper corner intakes with contrasting edge trims, and revised light units with slightly shorter ‘twin stripe’ DRLs. From the rear, it stood apart from lesser A3s courtesy of its rooftop mini-aero, fake diffuser and four exhaust tips – which of course sprouted from a single main pipe, what with it being a four-cylinder engine. Maybe there were some exhaust efficiencies with that four into one into four setup. Seems unlikely somehow, but even if there were, would they have been enough to compensate for the extra weight? We’ll leave that one to you.

Just as an aside, in May 2021 we put together a buying guide on the previous 8V model (2013-20) S3 with the 300hp 2.0 TFSI engine. Back then, you could pick up an early and/or higher mileage one of those gen-threes for £12,000. Today, the entry price for a high-mile (100k+) 8V is down to £8,000.

Back with the gen-four, new prices for the base Sportback version of the 8Y started at £37,900. The saloon was an extra £565 at £38,465, which was actually less than Audi was charging for the outgoing 8V S3 saloon. Those prices made the S3 competitive with similarly specced rivals from BMW (M135i) and Mercedes (AMG A35), and cheaper than the Golf R that somehow managed to start at £39,270. The sunroofed and adaptively damped S3 Vorsprung came with different wheels, Matrix LED headlights, Bang & Olufsen sound and electric seats and cost £44,000, which by 2023 had gone up to over £47,000. Sitting between the Vorsprung and the standard S3 was a Black Edition with much of the Vorsprung’s kit but not the adaptive dampers.

The 8Y S3 was refreshed in 2024. Actually, it was somewhat more than a refresh. There were some big changes, mainly a power and torque hike to a slightly peakier 329hp from 5,600rpm-6,500rpm and 310lb ft from 2,100-5,500rpm. It also had the benefit of the RS3’s brakes, torque vectoring rear diff, front axle, lowered and retuned (especially on the Vorspung) suspension, a titanium sports exhaust by Akrapovic and a more aggressive exterior look. Inside, there was a redesigned gear selector, revised infotainment, larger chromed air vents and new trim materials. Black Edition became the baseline spec and the S3’s weight increased by 35kg to a new figure of 1,535kg.

Unsurprisingly, the price for the refreshed S3 went big too, going up by around 15 per cent to take the regular Sportback to £46,900, the regular saloon to £47,490 and a mildly optioned Vorsprung to comfortably over the £50k mark. These are expected to be the last ICE S3s, with an electrically-powered S3 rumoured to be due in 2027.

Although the S3 8Y we’re looking at here was technically available from late 2020, you’ll be doing well to find a used one from that year. Damaged repaired cars start at around £23k but you’ll normally need at least £26k to score a clean early example with 50-60,000 miles on the clock. Having said that, one car did come up at tempting money just as we were going to press. Check it out in the Verdict at the end. If it’s a Vorsprung you’re wanting, you’ll have to increase your budget to a minimum of £30,000, and even with that wad on your hip you’ll still need to get lucky in your searches. Good residual values like these usually indicate good reliability and a happy ownership proposition, but is that expectation borne out in reality? Let’s take a look.

SPECIFICATION | Audi S3 (2020-24)

Engine: 1,984cc TFSI 16v inline four petrol turbo
Transmission: 7-speed S tronic dual clutch auto, all-wheel drive
Power (hp): 306@5,450-6,500rpm
Torque (lb ft): 295@2,000-5,450rpm
0-62mph (secs): 4.8
Top speed (mph): 155
Weight (kg): 1,500
MPG (WLTP combined): 38.1
CO2 (g/km): 178
Wheels (in): 18 or 19
On sale: 2020 - now
Price new: from £37,900 (Sportback), £38,465 (Saloon)
Price now: from £24,500

Note for reference: car weight and power data is hard to pin down with absolute certainty. For consistency, we use the same source for all our guides. We hope the data we use is right more often than it’s wrong. Our advice is to treat it as relative rather than definitive.

ENGINE & GEARBOX

The TFSI EA888 evo 4 engine came to the 8Y S3 with considerably higher fuel pressures (like 50 per cent higher) and 1.8 bar of turbo boost. The intercooler was larger, both to reduce lag and to extend the duration of maximum torque from 2,000rpm to 5,450rpm, at which point the 306hp power peak kicked in for the last 1,000rpm before closing time. The result with launch control engaged was a claimed 0-62mph time of 4.8 seconds. In practice, the S3 would easily beat that, reliably delivering times closer to 4.5 seconds. The Golf R was more powerful, more torquey and weighed slightly less too, advantages that were all reflected in even shorter 0-60mph acceleration runs. In fact, the VW could be as much as half a second quicker than the Audi.

In isolation though, the S3 was plenty quick enough, with strong low and mid-range shove overlaid by a bonus lunge at higher revs. If you tried to take the engine to the redline the 7-speed twin-clutch automatic would change up even if you were in manual mode, which was slightly annoying. Apart from that frustration, the DSG gave more or less everything you could realistically want, with snappy changes under pressure, practically imperceptible ones in softer driving, and well-tailored adaptability to your driving style. Unlike the previous car, no manual transmission option was offered for the 8Y.

The exhaust note was adjustable via Audi’s drive select system, giving you a choice of subdued or slightly less subdued. That’s maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but the first 8Y was never really loud, especially from the outside. For those wanting less stealth the ’24 refresh addressed this with its new exhaust and additional Dynamic+ drive mode. On the inside, the piped-in sounds were more RS3 than S3, an apparent admission by Audi that five-pot engines sound better than four-pot ones.

The S3 was entirely daily-able, returning mpg figures in the high thirties with no bother at all and usually averaging something in the low 30s. Even at very high speeds, it wouldn’t drop much below 20mpg. On the negative side, it was a direct injection engine, so technically at least there was a greater risk of carbon deposits on the intake valves if you were doing more chugging than charging. PCV valves had the potential to fail too, a problem usually flagged up by high oil consumption, blue exhaust smoke and poor idling.

EA888s of yore have also been afflicted by leaky and/or prematurely worn turbochargers and faulty wastegate actuators so there’s no harm in doing that old-fashioned turbo thing of letting the engine warm up and cool down properly before and after a fast drive. Cracked thermostat housings were commonplace on older models but we’ve seen no evidence of it on the 8Y S3. The gearbox could suffer from mechatronic unit failures and worn clutches.

In fairness most of the issues we’ve just mentioned are more associated with earlier cars than the 8Y. Of course, sticking to a maintenance regime and using the right fluids and filters is always a smart approach no matter what car you have. Good discipline in this area should definitely help to prolong the life of an 8Y S3. The cost of a major service varies between £300 and £500 depending on where you live.

CHASSIS

Audi put more intelligence – or as they called it, modular dynamic handling control – into the 8Y’s quattro drive, which featured an electronically-controlled multiplate clutch ahead of the rear axle. Default drive was to the front wheels with up to 100 per cent of power potentially going to the back wheels as required, making it slightly more ‘taily’ than the 8V. In practice, however, the quattro system linked to the stabilisation control (and the adaptive dampers on Vorsprung models) almost always had the whip hand over the engine.

Those adaptive dampers functioned across a broader range between comfort and dynamic than the units found on earlier S3s, which was good, but you couldn’t option them on non-Vorsprung cars, whereas you could get them on a Golf R for around £800. Even so there’s no need to run away from used S3s with passive dampers as they work perfectly well enough for most. Indeed, some considered the passively suspended 8Y to be the first S3 that could genuinely be described as entertaining, with a touch of roll on turn-in and very little understeer, just lots of neutral punch out of any corner.

The ’24 refresh tuned some of that roll out of the car at the cost of some extra firmness to the ride which, in the UK at least, made the Vorsprung’s adaptive dampers seem a bit more desirable. As noted in the overview the refresh also added the RS3’s pivot bearing front axle with racier negative camber and a rear torque-splitting diff to open up the possibility of drifting.

The S3 rode 15mm lower than regular A3s and while you could hear and feel the suspension working at low speeds, at medium to high speeds, it wasn’t punishingly nobbly even in Dynamic mode and running Audi’s high-sounding recommended tyre pressures. That might be a disappointment for anyone expecting an edgier drive from their hot Audi, but other vehicles were available for that. The S3 wasn’t edgy.

Progressive steering was standard on the new S3, making it very manoeuvrable in town and solid at speed, but most testers felt it was lacking in feedback. On top of that, the car came with pre-sense front, swerve assist, turn assist and lane departure warning. Vorsprungs added lane change and exit warnings, rear cross-traffic and park assist systems, and adaptive cruise assist that matched speed and distance to the vehicle in front while also helping with lane guidance.

It seemed from the screen that you could disable the stability control, but in fact there was always some of it working in the background. The S-calipered brakes were upgrades over the 8V’s but the discs were quite a bit smaller than the Golf R’s and pre-refresh they were only single-piston calipers in the Audi as opposed to twins in the Golf. As with the drivetrain it was important to keep the quattro Haldex fluids and filters fresh as metallic wear in that department could cause the system to revert to two-wheel drive and eventually lead to pump failure, which was not cheap to put right.

BODYWORK

The new S3s were both longer and wider than their predecessors. The 2.63m wheelbase was the same for both body shapes but the saloon was given more of a lengthening treatment than the Sportback. Whereas the new hatch was 3cm wider and 3cm longer than the old one, the new saloon was 2cm wider and 4cm longer than before.

The ‘vent’ between the grille and the bonnet’s leading edge was not real. Neither was the nearside front bumper ‘intake’, but the one on the offside was. A sunroof was on the options list at around £1,000. Specced up Edition 1 cars had black grille surrounds, door mirrors and sill pieces to mark them out from commoner models.

The saloon’s boot offered 370 litres of space, which was 10 litres less than a normal A3 saloon’s (blame the quattro gubbins) and 45 litres more than the Sportback when its rear seats were in the human setting, but with the Sportback’s seats dropped that figure rose from 325 to 1,145 litres. Vorsprungs had electrically operated tailgates for those who liked to introduce needless complexity into their lives.

INTERIOR

Lovely new sports seats upholstered in Nappa leather, S kick plates and an S steering wheel set the tone for the 8Y S3’s cabin. A quattro badge replaced the normal A3’s four-ring badge on the oddments tray ahead of the passenger. Vorpsprung S3s had round steering wheels rather than the flat-bottomed ones fitted to regular or Black Edition cars.

There seemed to be general agreement that the 8Y’s driving position was an improvement on the 8V’s, the newer car’s seats being lower and nicely supportive, but some serial owners thought that the 8V’s cabin was less fussy than its successor’s and that the BMW M135i topped the 8Y in terms of quality feel. Hard to quantify that sort of thing, but the interiors of S3s in classified ads do seem to show good resistance to wear.

There was a lot of storage in there too and it was a relief that Audi didn’t ditch all of the cabin’s physical buttons on this model or indeed the ’24 refresh. One demerit for UK drivers was the lower dash location of the Drive Select button on the LHD side of the cabin.

All S3s ran a new MMI operating system with gen-three MIB 3 infotainment that Audi reckoned had ten times more computing power than the old setup. It worked well. Standard S3s used the 10.10-inch touchscreen alongside the normal 10.25-inch Virtual Cockpit display, which to some was starting to look a little passé, while Vorsprungs had Audi Virtual Cockpit Plus with a bigger 12.3-inch central display.

All models had MMI Nav Plus, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Vorsprungs had a head-up display and Audi Phone Box that improved your mobile’s signal strength in weak reception areas by connecting your phone with an additional dedicated aerial. Phone Box also gave you wireless charging through a pad. Bang & Olufsen audio was available as a cost extra on non-Vorsprung models. Basic cars came with rear parking sensors but no rear camera. You needed a Black Edition or Vorsprung for that. Charging £425 extra for keyless entry on a £40,000 car seemed quite mean.

Infotainment blackouts used to be a thing with the MMI but we’ve seen no reports of problems with the 8Y S3. Electrical problems are far from unknown on VAG products generally but the situation did seem to have improved by 2020. You shouldn’t expect to experience more than the normal amount of electronic issues in an 8Y S3, and there’s a good chance of you experiencing fewer than normal. There was a recall in 2021 for non-functioning airbags and another in that same year for unsecured child restraint systems. There were additional recalls in 2022 for both these problems, and one in 2023 to rectify missing weight/loading information labels.

PH VERDICT

If a subtle rendition of high performance and a chassis that can make the most of the available power was your thing, the 8Y S3 had a lot going for it. There was some moaning about it not being sufficiently detached from a styling POV to the cheaper A3s, especially those with S line trim, but that was kind of missing the point about the S3. It wasn’t meant to shout about its capabilities. If you wanted to make more noise about the performance you’d bought you were supposed to go for an RS3. In real-world driving there wouldn’t be a lot of difference between one of those and an S3, but there was probably a better chance of you attracting the wrong kind of attention in an S3, especially if you didn’t opt for one of the louder paint colours like Turbo Blue.

Although we’ve mentioned some potential issues in this guide, they’re more generic/historic than they are likely to happen on these later 8Ys. Research on owners’ club sites revealed next to no complaints. The few points that we did find were trivial to the point of being inconsequential.

The ’24 refresh razzed the S3 up to a slightly more hooliganish level that in one sense was a shame as that took away some of its under-the-radar appeal. When you weren’t caning a pre-refresh S3 it was easier to forget that you were in a really quick car, a nice attribute in the context of long-term ownership. It didn’t feel necessary to bash about the place all the time, and that’s not something you could say about every vehicle in this ‘hold my beer’ category. Yes, the Golf R was quicker through the 0-60mph than the Audi and matched it on braking, but even at five-tenths in an S3, you would still be covering major amounts of ground in minor amounts of time.

When it comes to comparing the looks of the Golf to the S3, well, that sort of thing is always subjective but some would say that the Audi had more going for it than the VW. It felt classier on the inside too, with nicer seat coverings, proper buttons to press and a lower level of cabin noise, although it is true that rear seat passengers would probably prefer the Golf’s greater airiness, especially compared to the S3 saloon which could feel slightly cramped for adults.

In the overview, we said that 2020 examples of the S3 8Y would be hard to find on the used market, but just as we were going to press this 62,000-mile November 2020-registered 8Y Sportback popped up on PistonHeads Classifieds. The car has obviously been used: there are marks in the cabin and the boot, but the asking price of £24,390 reflects that.

For £25,950 you could have this 49,000-mile 2021 car in yellow, while another £1,000 on top of that would buy this ’21 saloon with 50,000 miles. The cheapest Vorsprung on PH Classifieds at the time of writing was this 52,000-mile ’21 Sportback at six quid under £32k.

See every S3 for sale