Audi A3 Advice

Hey all,

just after some advice and peoples opinions on a 2003 Audi A3 Tdi Sport. Anything I should look out for/hear for when test driving? Its done 75k, full service history, etc.

Thanks

blown turbos if it hasn't been looked after (ie driven hard and then turned off without waiting for turbo to cool).
VW/AUDI TDis are good engines generally.

Obviously with A3 you will need to make sure that the previous owner has removed all sharp object from glovebox (such as hair dressers scissors) before purchase.

😉

I have an A2 (other drivers assume I am on a shopping trip and make it their duty to overtake me) and do like Audi interiors.

I seem to be in a minority but I wouldn't be able to live with one of the older (pre common rail) VAG diesel engines. IMO they are god awful engines – I would rather have a tractor.

When I last changed my car I was quite open minded about have a diesel engine for the first time – but in relation to comparable BMW engines the VAG engines seemed very old school diesel. Ended up with a petrol engined Audi.

I would look out for a lot of horrible noise, odd surges in power and running out of puff just as you have started to get going and a strong desire to just stop get out and throw the keys at the salesman. Perhaps the car I drove was not run in.

Sorry not very helpful.

Actually, if you are unfamiliar with Audi's sport suspension then you may well experience a rather harsh ride depending on road conditions.

Just make sure the timing belt has been done, its a £400+ job and due around the 65k mark. I've owned 3 Audi's both 1.9 and 2.0 tdi's, put 100k on my last A4 with absolutley no issues only tyres and brakes. Make sure the sevrice history is all dealer too you can check by phoning any Audi main dealer.

Superb engines imo. Dad has one in his A6 and it's done 103,000 miles and still going well.

Got one in my Seat ibiza, on 77,000 miles with a re-map (175bhp/298 lbs/ft) and it again is brilliant! Ridiculous performance, with good mpg:

(over a 40 mile commute to work on A roads)

I did look at A3's However they were:
– Expensive
– More to insure
– Look dated

As I said you wont go wrong with one, as long as it has been looked after/serviced often. Just better value cars out there i guess.

The new seat ibiza looks lovely (with the scoop out of the rear quarter light for the handle, bit like alfa but nicer).
Same engines and bits as any Audi,skoda or VW.

Sport suspension is, as has been said already, firm on them… But not unbearable.

Engine wise, timing belt should have been changed at 60k, but otherwise everything is good to go on these engines for BIG miles. Oh, and check the fuel filter has been changed on time too. Things like injectors and fuel pumps should last a long long time, but if they go it's a BIG BIG bill. Likewise turbos

What BHP model is it? 90, 100, 110, 130? The 90 and 100 will seem a bit weak in the A3 as it's quite a heavy car, but the 110 and the 130 will be fine. 130 has appreciably more turbo lag though (bigger turbo boosting higher up the rev range), if that matters to you.

Yup 🙂 Some minor faults, but what car doesn't have them… Ie: From lights fog up when wet 😆

imo. Anything but the 130 would be painful, maybe the 110 would be "ok" depends what your using it for i guess.

On my A2, have just replaced the suspension for Koni FSD's. Its like platform damping for cars, absolutely transformed the car. Like a go cart now.
Though other drivers still treat me like a school run mom.
Its amazing how drivers see the A2 and think…must overtake this small pathetic thing.

For example, had this eejit in hogging the middle lane the other day. I catch up with him and he suddenly goes all ayerton senna on me (sadly without the car/wall interface).

Had an A2 try and race me the other day…Was right up my chuff! Showed him who is the boss with a little bit of traffic like Grand Prix mind 😉

Was it you 😆 ?

Drive an A3 too, generally a good car, easy to work on. Ditto good MPG, i drive ours from Northern Germany to the south of France and back no problem.Working in a garage repair bills for injectors or fuel pumps aren't that big, it's when valve seats go or water pumps need replaced things get nasty.

Obviously with A3 you will need to make sure that the previous owner has removed all sharp object from glovebox (such as hair dressers scissors) before purchase.

I lol'd.

will, where was it?
Was it a blue one?

Wasn't aware of any racing in recent days.

A46 from Leicester. A2 could have been blue, was too busy leaveing covered in smoke….Mine is black, low as ****, and with this on the back:

Not me. Only been on M62 and A1 between Harrogate and Leeds recently.

Fair enough 😆

Anyway buy a VAG 1.9tdi engine, there great fun!

will, what car is yours? difficult to tell from the dirty side pannel?

Are the VAG TDis still no power at all and then a stupid amount of torque then power tail off to change gear?

They may have changed things but I've preferred the Renault and Ford jobbies that have a much smoother power curve

I seem to be in a minority but I wouldn't be able to live with one of the older (pre common rail) VAG diesel engines. IMO they are god awful engines – I would rather have a tractor.

When I last changed my car I was quite open minded about have a diesel engine for the first time – but in relation to comparable BMW engines the VAG engines seemed very old school diesel. Ended up with a petrol engined Audi.

I would look out for a lot of horrible noise, odd surges in power and running out of puff just as you have started to get going and a strong desire to just stop get out and throw the keys at the salesman. Perhaps the car I drove was not run in.

Sorry not very helpful

having owned 4, 5, and 6-zyl versions, (and a Massey-Fergusson 35Xtractor); I have never observed the problems you describe. They are run-in on the bench, and I can vouch for 240K miles, my mechanic tells of 350k-400k models running fine.

I'd just cleaned it CHB, it;s the camera's fault:

Pieface – Standard yes, around 1800 to 3000 there was power, then not much else, after my map there is power from around 1800 to 4500 and loads more power 🙂

If its an early one without the dreaded dpf filter in the exhaust,its better for it. Is it the 2.0 140 engine, then it could be the best of the bunch. Mine was a 130 quattro and absolutely brilliant and faultless for all of the 120K miles I had it. Google audi-sport.net for all you need to know.

How much does a re-map cost? about £500?

03 – will be the 1.9Tdi 130bhp version. As already said, great engines. Think smiffy's post is a good example.

£295 on a rolling road with a before and after print out of results, also a performance panel filter included there. Although do your research there are alot of firms offering the service, all depends what type of map you want, eg: massive torque spike then no power, or smooth delivery of power through rev range.

my wife has the A3 2.0Tdi SE. I love driving it although as stated the ride is a bit harsh. Build quality is supreme. It's got that power band thing going on but you learn to control it and it really does fly when you nail it. i've not heard of any real issues with them but obviously it's an Audi so it'll cost more than a Seat or a Golf and double any guess you might have about how much it'll cost to service.

The comments from Pieface

Are the VAG TDis still no power at all and then a stupid amount of torque then power tail off to change gear?

This perhaps describes my experiences more eloquently.

If the engines were that damn good why is it that VAG have for the last couple of years started using common rail engines – they seemed very very slow to follow BMW, Ford and others in this respect IMO.

Will, I have exactly the same max mpg reading from my Ibiza TDI (standard) with obligatory phone pic!

Keep debating getting a re-map but always indecisive.

Think the new common rail engines are much more refined/more efficient/quieter. But that doesn't mean their better 😉

Stumpy – I think if i followed a lorry i could get better (in fact that will make the commute to work more fun 😆 )
In terms of the map, i did a lot of reasearch before hand. Yes as a result i now need new brakes, new front tyres, and at some stage will need an uprated clutch… However! The benefits are just huge, yes it is a lot of money, but the performance gains are unreal! 175bhp and 298 lsb/ft of torque is a little car… And thats only a stage 1 map 😉

What BHP model is it? 90, 100, 110, 130? The 90 and 100 will seem a bit weak in the A3 as it's quite a heavy car, but the 110 and the 130 will be fine. 130 has appreciably more turbo lag though (bigger turbo boosting higher up the rev range), if that matters to you.

Its the 130 TDI verison. I currently drive a pug 306 Dturbo, its the type of car that needs the turbo to get anywhere ;P

Cheers for all the replies, my friend has a VW GT TDI 150 and thats pretty rapid, why i was looking at getting something similar with the A3. It will be mainly used for my communte to Uni and back (70mile round trip) on A roads.

Probably already been said but make sure the cam/timing belt has been changed as different VAG engines require it at different times (some possibly at 80k). Reason is it's an expensive job.

Our A4 Avant (1.9 Tdi, 03 I think) is on about 150k now – clutch at about 120k (motorway miles – used to be my OH's company car), new wishbones(cos of integral bushes) at about 140k – but not that expensive if done at an independant (it's just a nuts n bolts job, nothing too tricky). Not sure when the last set of pads were fitted, but probably ought to put new front disks on 'cos they're getting lipped – pretty sure they're the originals, neither of us are that hard on the brakes.

Electrics occasionally get confused about whether the odd bulb has blown, that's pretty much the only issue.

We used to have to top up the oil from time to time (low level warning light seems pretty accurate), but since my OH's stopped doing 120 miles a day we haven't need to touch it.

Headlamp bulbs are a bit of a fiddle to change on the A4, but once you know how (and have a long enough torx wrench) it's a 15 minute job, as opposed to 30-60 quid in the dealer for a 2 quid bulb 😮
Dunno if the A3's the same, there was a useful pdf about it on the vwaudi forums.

We've got a couple of decent audi specialists round here for servicing – still ain't cheap but a bloomin' site cheaper than Audi…

The VAG 1.9 TDi is particularly noisy and inflexible compared with more modern units. If you can stretch to the newer and more expensive 2.0 TDi you will probably be a lot happier.

I think that the 1.9TDI cambelt is now set to 60k miles across Seat, VW, Audi & Seat.
Cambelt change & 60k service cost me £270 for the lot, so it's not all that pricey. I imagine the labour time on an A4 would be very similar to an Ibiza, perhaps even a bit less as perhaps more room to work?

Yeah Will, they're basically my concerns. I do 600 miles/week so can't really afford to lose any economy. People always say their economy goes up, but really?? Does it?
And I imagine I will go through more tyres & then an uprated clutch is £750 fitted….plus should really let the insce company know.

75k?

The only thing I would say is that I think the audi service manual recommends changing the timing belt at 80,000 miles. This can be quite expensive. Although not as expensive as not changing it and it breaking, destroying your (A4) engine whilst you are on the 5 lane Bay bridge between san francisco and oakland, having to freewheel off with no electrics and get towed back to San francisco! That was a fun evening I can tell you! the $3k it cost me for a new engine wasn't much to laugh at though!!

Will, that sticker is bloody EXCELLENT.
Bored of seeing nurenburgenergenshlergenfergen ring stickers on the back of cars

nice car too 🙂

stumpy01 – Member
Yeah Will, they're basically my concerns. I do 600 miles/week so can't really afford to lose any economy. People always say their economy goes up, but really?? Does it?
And I imagine I will go through more tyres & then an uprated clutch is £750 fitted….plus should really let the insce company know.

I do 300 miles a week and my max mpg went from 62.7 to 70.6 and that is driving the same etc… I am consistantly getting better mpg figures. if it is below 50 then i have been booting it for a while 😆
Tyres yes, obviously depends how hard you drive it, but in the wet i can't get traction until 4th gear (with TC off) when booting in dry you will get spin in 2nd. Stnadard clutch is rated to 300 lbs of tourque, so in theory you'll be fine. However high mileage cars, where the clutch may go anyway, simply means that the clutch would probably go sooner…
Insurance…Yes well, you know… I can't even lie. It puts the price up. However i will say that there is no way to trace it, unless you stick it on a rolling road, and i doubt Mr Direct Line will want to do that 😉

Olly – Member
Will, that sticker is bloody EXCELLENT.
Bored of seeing nurenburgenergenshlergenfergen ring stickers on the back of cars

nice car too

Cheers Olly 🙂 You can get one in the shape of the Nurburgring which says "neverbeen" 😆 i however loved this sticker too much not to get it. Also the looks on people face when there behind you 😆 Quality!

will (sorry to op for dragging this totally off A3s) is that mpg actual or as displayed on the little computer jobbie?
I've read in various places that re-maps screw up the calculation, so you can only judge mpg from tank to tank fill-ups.
Although you should know whether you go further on a tank or not, without looking at a display.

My current to-do list on the car is:

– sort out tear in drivers seat
– get wheels re-furbed as they look a state
– get rear 3 window lightly tinted to reduce chances of bike/camping stuff being spotted
– get rust on boot lip sorted after previous owner opened it (I presume) against a ceiling or low garage.

so re-map will probably have to wait.

Stumpy – Good point about the mpg… However i'm sure that i'm getting more miles to a tank, however next week i'll fill up on Monday morning then see when i next need to fill up.

I think your current list should be like this:
– Re-map.

Would say you could see mine this weekend at D2D, but think i'm getting a lift down…

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that the service intervals are generally between 18 – 24k miles or 3 years depending on how you drive.

Not with mine. Every 10K or every year. Which ever is first.

Same on my dad's Audi (with same engine)