An old coworker recently reached out as he’s in the market for a car that’s useful, fun to drive, city-sized and efficient. His shortlist included the usual suspects who make up this thriving segment: Mini, Audi A3, BMW 1-series, etc. To me, there’s no better compromise than the A3 TDI. It’s the best-looking, most efficient and most useful of the bunch, with plenty of luxury and tuneability. After witnessing my brother’s recent 50+ mpg road trip in a Jetta TDI, I could see going back to a long commute if I got to have an A3/Golf TDI with a chip.
2011 Audi A3 TDI w/ DSG for sale on eBay
Disclaimer: I plan to only own stick-shift manual cars forever. However, while I haven’t yet driven DSG myself, in a tech-laden young urban professional machine like this, it makes sense for efficiency, ease of use in the city, and even fun. My dream A3 would be a nice brown, but white will do. Fierce bidding has turned off the reserve at a low $18k, well below the asking price of $26k. Even into the low-20s, this is a great all-arounder that could still be plenty of fun.
-NR
Car is a year old and has 53k miles? And it’s off lease, with no mention of service records or condition of tires? Something else is weird, the auction is ended w/ no bids, yet the auction stated that “THIS IS 5-DAYS ONLY NO RESERVE AUCTION AND WILL BE SOLD TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER NO MATTER WHAT IT BRINGS!!!”
Damn that DSG. I would be all over an A3 or TT if you could get the combination of manual, quattro and turbo.
Gussied up last gen Golf with a DSG transmission that is known to chew up it’s mechatronic control unit just as it falls out of warranty ($$$).
The particulate filters on these get clogged up with sludge that can also generate some pretty wild bills.
Oh and the FWD chassis means plenty of torque steer especially when you start getting into the high hundred hp range.
I’d be looking for an off-lease 335d instead. Possibly the most fun diesel car I’ve ever driven.
The A3 it a pretty nice car that would have made a lot more sense to a lot more people if Audi had offered the right combination of features in the US market.
I agree with Nate – any time I can get away with it (which is, admittedly, not all the time), I prefer to drive a stick. But…you couldn’t get the stick with the quattro with the 3.2.
Then again, Audi USA doesn’t even offer the 3.2 in the A3 or A4 anymore. Another mistake.