Going green in an Audi RS3
Discussion
Lovely I was looking at one after having my fk8 for 4.5 years, fancying some 4wd autobox action plus seeing a nardo grey on the road, but prices at the mo are nuts. I was also reading on Facebook owners group of dodgy mods, maps and chocolate differentials, so you really gotta be sure of what your buying. Automotive addiction I would trust but jeeeeez u pay a premium.
We have different tastes though as I defo wouldn’t debadge it and plesse, please don’t paint the calipers green! They really make the car stand out from the s3.
Enjoy it!
We have different tastes though as I defo wouldn’t debadge it and plesse, please don’t paint the calipers green! They really make the car stand out from the s3.
Enjoy it!
Mr Moley said:
DanG355 said:
Didn't know these have wider front wheels/tyres than rear. Probably the first time I've seen this on an OEM road car. FWD drag cars do it to the extreme. Is this exclusive to the RS3 or do other VAG products such as the Golf R also have wider fronts than rears?
Nice colour and spec. A good all rounder I imagine with the 5 doors, medium sized, all weather traction and understated looks.
It's an option with the upgraded wheels Nice colour and spec. A good all rounder I imagine with the 5 doors, medium sized, all weather traction and understated looks.
Deerfoot said:
I read the thread title and feared a naff wrap in camouflage....
Thought exactly the same when I saw it the other day and assumed there would be a real shredding in the comments. 
The colour is amazing, great combination with the light interior too. Fully support the debadge, caliper colour change and brightening up the wheels to enhance the design/look less chavtastic.
I'll be keen to hear about how you get on and the ongoing running costs with the car, they're a great all round package that's been a bit let down after being embraced by the YouTuber and "it's Stage 6.33 bro" types.
Very nice. I can’t fully appreciate the colour on my iPad will look later on a laptop.
I reckon this is probably the best do everything car you can get.
Big enough and practical enough to take the family on holiday/trips in comfort combined with all weather grip and great pace to entertain.
All with reasonable running costs so not to scary! What more could you want?
Interesting to see how you get on with it.
I reckon this is probably the best do everything car you can get.
Big enough and practical enough to take the family on holiday/trips in comfort combined with all weather grip and great pace to entertain.
All with reasonable running costs so not to scary! What more could you want?
Interesting to see how you get on with it.
Bright Halo said:
Very nice. I can’t fully appreciate the colour on my iPad will look later on a laptop.
I reckon this is probably the best do everything car you can get.
Big enough and practical enough to take the family on holiday/trips in comfort combined with all weather grip and great pace to entertain.
All with reasonable running costs so not to scary! What more could you want?
Interesting to see how you get on with it.
Mrs Bolide wouldn't agree with this I reckon this is probably the best do everything car you can get.
Big enough and practical enough to take the family on holiday/trips in comfort combined with all weather grip and great pace to entertain.
All with reasonable running costs so not to scary! What more could you want?
Interesting to see how you get on with it.
The car's booked to have cruise control and reverse camera (OEM parts) fitted next week. The former is pretty essential to me and the latter will help when manoeuvring into my very tight garage.
I'm going to prioritise anything service-wise that it needs after that, so I will suck it and see with the wheels and brake calliper colours - both of which are options the first owner paid for after all.
The sunlight certainly helps bring out what is an very difficult colour to photograph. In real life it looks more like the rear of the first pic, while the second photo is more typical of what a camera captures:
Incidentally, my youngest loves it and has the RS3 badge in his bedroom somewhere. We took a quick trip to the supermarket earlier and just bimbling around at 20-30mph is such a pleasure on account of the noise - all full of warble and gentle turbo whooshing.
I'm going to prioritise anything service-wise that it needs after that, so I will suck it and see with the wheels and brake calliper colours - both of which are options the first owner paid for after all.
The sunlight certainly helps bring out what is an very difficult colour to photograph. In real life it looks more like the rear of the first pic, while the second photo is more typical of what a camera captures:
Incidentally, my youngest loves it and has the RS3 badge in his bedroom somewhere. We took a quick trip to the supermarket earlier and just bimbling around at 20-30mph is such a pleasure on account of the noise - all full of warble and gentle turbo whooshing.
The car now has cruise control and a reversing camera, with original parts courtesy of a local retrofitting company. Not cheap, but good value for me as it finishes the package.
I turned my attention to the interior during a little break today. Just as with the exterior colour, the interior is hard to capture on camera and tends to look beige whereas it's definitely more of a grey in the flesh. Either way, it's pretty distinctive compared to my other A3s and is full of little details.
The quilted seats are in good shape as you'd expect at still under 24k miles. I doubt they've been given any treatment before and so any dirt has improved after a quick leather clean.
Detail differences include RS3-specific door handles, alcantara inserts and matching armrests / pulls. The car is spec'd with the Bang & Olufsen sound system and deep-pile RS3 mats, together being well over £1k of the options. The mats' piping matches the interior colour as well.
There's even an RS logo on the key...
I dressed the interior plastics, vynils and cleaned the glass. Ingrained dirt around places like the seat belt holder was removed, but on the whole it's in very clean condition and remember everything shows up with this trim colour.
There remain just a few scuff marks like across the passenger thigh bolster here, which have improved but will probably show more than on a dark interior.
The engine bay was in pretty good shape, too:
Hopefully the smell of the previous owner will lift a bit, as that's still pretty evident. I'll give the interior another go-over in the next couple of weeks as I'm noticing what seems like an OAP scent a lot. I am getting carried away, perhaps unkindly, imaging this was some sort of big 75th birthday present to the original owner.
Whoever they were, they certainly didn't abuse the car. There are almost no stone chips to the front and the tyres are all on 5-8mm all round. All are Pirelli P-Zero, but one of the fronts don't match - one has a massive, and I mean massive, kerb protector like the rear... while the other front doesn't. It seems that several of the tyres had perishing, cracking and bulging issues that are common to these tyres (based on MoT advisories) and I guess they were replaced at those times. I'll need to check that the two front ones actually match size.
I have about 900 miles of driving coming up this week and though mainly motorway it should give me a good sense of what the car's like.
I turned my attention to the interior during a little break today. Just as with the exterior colour, the interior is hard to capture on camera and tends to look beige whereas it's definitely more of a grey in the flesh. Either way, it's pretty distinctive compared to my other A3s and is full of little details.
The quilted seats are in good shape as you'd expect at still under 24k miles. I doubt they've been given any treatment before and so any dirt has improved after a quick leather clean.
Detail differences include RS3-specific door handles, alcantara inserts and matching armrests / pulls. The car is spec'd with the Bang & Olufsen sound system and deep-pile RS3 mats, together being well over £1k of the options. The mats' piping matches the interior colour as well.
There's even an RS logo on the key...
I dressed the interior plastics, vynils and cleaned the glass. Ingrained dirt around places like the seat belt holder was removed, but on the whole it's in very clean condition and remember everything shows up with this trim colour.
There remain just a few scuff marks like across the passenger thigh bolster here, which have improved but will probably show more than on a dark interior.
The engine bay was in pretty good shape, too:
Hopefully the smell of the previous owner will lift a bit, as that's still pretty evident. I'll give the interior another go-over in the next couple of weeks as I'm noticing what seems like an OAP scent a lot. I am getting carried away, perhaps unkindly, imaging this was some sort of big 75th birthday present to the original owner.
Whoever they were, they certainly didn't abuse the car. There are almost no stone chips to the front and the tyres are all on 5-8mm all round. All are Pirelli P-Zero, but one of the fronts don't match - one has a massive, and I mean massive, kerb protector like the rear... while the other front doesn't. It seems that several of the tyres had perishing, cracking and bulging issues that are common to these tyres (based on MoT advisories) and I guess they were replaced at those times. I'll need to check that the two front ones actually match size.
I have about 900 miles of driving coming up this week and though mainly motorway it should give me a good sense of what the car's like.
Edited by The Cardinal on Friday 4th March 15:59
I'm just back from a mammoth few days of driving - nearly 900 miles in all for a variety of reasons. Mainly motorway and dual carriageway, but plenty for me to get to know the car.
So, what did I learn?
Not so good?
Getting straight to it... I think my old facelift S3 was slightly more suitable as a straight line cruiser. This is because it could crack 50mpg in warm weather and had the Tech pack, which included the digital dash / auto-dimming mirrors all round / wireless phone charging / bigger map display / touch pad etc. I certainly missed these when faced with about 18 hours of driving this week - I do between 3-5,000 miles a year driving this sort of journey.
I also have to find time to visit three different people to sort some things out:
- The retrofitted rear camera has gone all fuzzy - temporarily fixed by opening and closing the boot lid! I'll need to take it back to the retrofitter.
- An intermittent front end squeak / creak has appeared at low speeds at the end of my journeys. Sounds like suspension top mounts or the subframe as it's across the whole front end - and I'm a bit baffled as it seems to only happen once the car has been on a long run. I'll take it back to the seller to have it remedied.
- The offside front P Zero is thankfully the same 255/30/19 size as the nearside one, but isn't an exact matching RO2 (no tyre wall protector) and looks to be at the early stages of cracking. A new matching one is therefore justified.
- The steering pulls right, so I'll get the alignment done at the same time as the above.
I've also got some boring jobs to do like OEM wiper blades and rear door sill protectors to fit (can't believe the latter aren't standard):
Definitely, definitely good
As I walked out of the BP garage in York after filling up, the mid-afternoon light fell on the car just as the sun started to set. You know, the sort of light you get in car adverts. "Wow", I thought - "That car is lush and I really, really like it". Isn't that what ownership is about?
It certainly gets a lot of attention on the road with lots of cars slowing for a look and a drop of the window on the motorway. Thankfully it's all good... but I can see that with a different attitude to my own this car would end up duelling a lot of M2/3/4 and 140is, probably rather unsafely given how quick these cars are.
Unfortunately the 8am light afforded by the Shell garage in Bristol didn't quite recreate the York forecourt scene, but I had a go!
To be fair, the cruising MPG isn't that bad either. It basically splits the difference between a Mk5 Golf GTI / 8P A3-era 2.0T and 3.2 VR6 in the R32, both of which I've done many tens of thousands of miles on similar journeys in.
Then there's the noise - oh wow! It just makes every journey a pleasure. I don't need to drive fast to enjoy it; I just drop the windows at slow speeds, flip the paddles (manual mode holds the gear, unlike most VW Group DSG boxes) and let the melodious and very rich tones reach into the parts that other hot hatches can't. Nothing ungracious, just well-judged and sociable...ish.
The road noise is a lot better supressed than in my old S3. I think this is because it has more soundproofing in the front wings and the tyres are noise-supressing apparently (well, 3 of them anyway!). That new cruise control has been a god-send as well.
Finally, after thinking about it hard I am replacing the "RS" number plate as it isn't quite my cup of tea. Our van has a colour-themed plate so this one felt a bit more personal:
So, what did I learn?
Not so good?
Getting straight to it... I think my old facelift S3 was slightly more suitable as a straight line cruiser. This is because it could crack 50mpg in warm weather and had the Tech pack, which included the digital dash / auto-dimming mirrors all round / wireless phone charging / bigger map display / touch pad etc. I certainly missed these when faced with about 18 hours of driving this week - I do between 3-5,000 miles a year driving this sort of journey.
I also have to find time to visit three different people to sort some things out:
- The retrofitted rear camera has gone all fuzzy - temporarily fixed by opening and closing the boot lid! I'll need to take it back to the retrofitter.
- An intermittent front end squeak / creak has appeared at low speeds at the end of my journeys. Sounds like suspension top mounts or the subframe as it's across the whole front end - and I'm a bit baffled as it seems to only happen once the car has been on a long run. I'll take it back to the seller to have it remedied.
- The offside front P Zero is thankfully the same 255/30/19 size as the nearside one, but isn't an exact matching RO2 (no tyre wall protector) and looks to be at the early stages of cracking. A new matching one is therefore justified.
- The steering pulls right, so I'll get the alignment done at the same time as the above.
I've also got some boring jobs to do like OEM wiper blades and rear door sill protectors to fit (can't believe the latter aren't standard):
Definitely, definitely good
As I walked out of the BP garage in York after filling up, the mid-afternoon light fell on the car just as the sun started to set. You know, the sort of light you get in car adverts. "Wow", I thought - "That car is lush and I really, really like it". Isn't that what ownership is about?
It certainly gets a lot of attention on the road with lots of cars slowing for a look and a drop of the window on the motorway. Thankfully it's all good... but I can see that with a different attitude to my own this car would end up duelling a lot of M2/3/4 and 140is, probably rather unsafely given how quick these cars are.
Unfortunately the 8am light afforded by the Shell garage in Bristol didn't quite recreate the York forecourt scene, but I had a go!
To be fair, the cruising MPG isn't that bad either. It basically splits the difference between a Mk5 Golf GTI / 8P A3-era 2.0T and 3.2 VR6 in the R32, both of which I've done many tens of thousands of miles on similar journeys in.
Then there's the noise - oh wow! It just makes every journey a pleasure. I don't need to drive fast to enjoy it; I just drop the windows at slow speeds, flip the paddles (manual mode holds the gear, unlike most VW Group DSG boxes) and let the melodious and very rich tones reach into the parts that other hot hatches can't.
Nothing ungracious, just well-judged and sociable...ish. The road noise is a lot better supressed than in my old S3. I think this is because it has more soundproofing in the front wings and the tyres are noise-supressing apparently (well, 3 of them anyway!). That new cruise control has been a god-send as well.
Finally, after thinking about it hard I am replacing the "RS" number plate as it isn't quite my cup of tea. Our van has a colour-themed plate so this one felt a bit more personal:
Nothing like a good long road trip to get to know a car. I'd imagine it feels like a more refined version of the supercharged R32.
Simply stunning colour, I can see why it's getting alot of admiring glances. Hope the dealer manages to fix the minor niggles without too much inconvenience.
I'm intrigued, what did/does the old man whiff smell like!?
Simply stunning colour, I can see why it's getting alot of admiring glances. Hope the dealer manages to fix the minor niggles without too much inconvenience.
I'm intrigued, what did/does the old man whiff smell like!?
I think the "old man" smell is potentially lack of use; smells a bit urine-ish, fusty and with a hint of brut (the perfume my grandad wore). It's improved a lot in the last week of use. I'll change the cabin filter anyway, though it was supposedly done 5k miles ago.
This car did 5k miles in its first two years, before averaging less than 3k in each of the subsequent four years. From the lack of stone chips, smell and general condition I'd guess at this being consistent with use as an occasional car.
Si, it definitely shares spirit with that old 'charged R32.
This car did 5k miles in its first two years, before averaging less than 3k in each of the subsequent four years. From the lack of stone chips, smell and general condition I'd guess at this being consistent with use as an occasional car.
Si, it definitely shares spirit with that old 'charged R32.
I find using Vanish on the mats and carpets freshens them up quite well. How's the reversing camera? I was thinking of getting one for my TT, the reversing lights being useless, but the dealer didn't do it and the company they recommended charged £1k and never replied to my email so I didn't pursue it.
The Cardinal said:
I think the "old man" smell is potentially lack of use; smells a bit urine-ish, fusty and with a hint of brut (the perfume my grandad wore). It's improved a lot in the last week of use. I'll change the cabin filter anyway, though it was supposedly done 5k miles ago.
The service history said that filter was changed about that many miles ago too, but the car was the second in the household and had not been used much due to Covid and WFH. The anti-bacterial one was about £12 in a sale.
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