Styling
The looks of the Audi Q3 are as predictable as night following day. Essentially a boil-washed version of either the
Q5 or
Q6 SUV relations from higher up Audi's portfolio tree, the Q3 is inoffensive to look at - and not very daring, either. A big front overhang and that chunky chin are the overriding aesthetic impressions of the Q3, and when Audi's team are getting most excited about the optional Digital Matrix LED headlights more than anything else, then you know the design team behind this SUV probably had a quiet few months in the office after drawing up such a generic shape. Visually striking or particularly memorable to look at, this thing is not.
Interior
You know what we're going to say here about the Q3's cabin finishing: it's beautifully put-together and deploys some excellent materials. Well, on the latter score, in the main - the dimpled metallic dash trim of these S line and Edition 1 cars doesn't feel cheap but strangely does look it, so we'd specify something else here.
The problems, believe it or not with Audi of all marques, relate to some of the ergonomics for the driver. The 11.9-inch Virtual Cockpit instrument cluster isn't as good to use as some of the company's previous efforts in this regard, as it's a widescreen affair that looks terribly sparsely populated from a graphical point of view, exacerbated both by the drab grey backgrounds of the display itself and then the wasted black band of plastic trim above it that forms part of the Digital Stage construction.
The other malady is the decision to cluster the functions of what should be two separate column stalks, minimum, onto one ugly extrusion to the left of the steering wheel. This leaves you with all of the wiper, main-beam lights and indicator functions on a crazy tablet-like slab complete with rotary dials, moving tabs and bizarrely inset buttons. You'd get used to it, of course you would. But should you have to? No. You shouldn't.
Practicality
There's plenty of room in the back of the new Q3 for taller passengers, so long as you don't specify the Sportback because its 29mm-lower roofline does take its toll on headroom in the second row of seating. Similarly, avoid the PHEV and the Sportback models if you need the most boot space, as a petrol SUV like this 2.0-litre TFSI has the maximum 488 litres with all seats in use and an unsurpassed 1,386 litres with the back bench folded down. That row of chairs also slides forwards and backwards, to help you configure the passenger-to-cargo ratio just how you want, so overall the practicality of the Q3 (as a regular ICE-powered SUV, at least) is perfectly fine.
Performance
While not the most-powerful Q3 in the launch line-up - that honour falling to the 272hp e-Hybrid - the 2.0 TFSI 265 is a great unit for this compact Audi SUV. Strong, rorty and full of revs, it's no surprise it bestows by far the best on-road performance on any third-gen Q3 because it's essentially the powerplant lifted wholesale out of a
Volkswagen Golf GTI.
It won't be cheap to run, though, with an official 31.7mpg unlikely to be matched if you're enjoying the speed of the Q3 2.0 TFSI 265 - a sub-six-second 0-62mph time is only a partial indicator of how surprisingly brawny this little Audi is.
Ride & Handling
We drove three new Q3s before this quattro model: a 150hp 2.0-litre TDI diesel, a 150hp 1.5-litre TFSI petrol and the 272hp e-Hybrid PHEV. All are front-wheel drive and equipped with S tronic dual-clutch transmissions of varying ratio counts. And all were seriously underwhelming.
A choppy ride, unusually high levels of tyre noise in the back of the passenger compartment, and old-school-Audi inert handling rendered all three of these SUVs as completely 'meh'. In fact, the two 150hp models felt not very premium at all.
Then we concluded two days' worth of driving in this 2.0 TFSI quattro. And it felt like a completely different car. No joke; its overall dynamics, in terms of ride comfort, rolling refinement, mega traction (understandable, as it's AWD) and general level of kinematic polish was so transformative an experience that when we got back to base, we had to grill a chassis engineer on precisely what suspension differences were involved to deliver such startlingly opposing experiences behind the wheel as the Q3 range served up.
His answer? The quattro has firmer spring rates and a retuned control map for the Dynamic Chassis Control adaptive dampers. And that's it. All Q3s have multilink rear ends, even the FWD models. Wow. We genuinely weren't expecting that, given how much better the 265 quattro demonstrably is than all its stablemates.
Value
The Q3 family begins at a smidge beyond £38,000 for a 1.5 TFSI in SUV format, and peaks near the 50-grand-ish starting point of a Q5. Sportbacks command about £1,500 model-for-model over the regular Q3, while trims will be SE, S line and then a limited-time, bells-and-whistles Edition 1. All are generously equipped.
The problem is, here we are recommending you drop £52,450 on a 2.0-litre 265hp quattro to get anything like the plush experience you'd expect of an Audi. So while the Q3 might appear to be competitively priced compared to its Teutonic rivals, is that really the case if the entry slopes of its model range could safely be avoided? Hmm.
Verdict
Look, no previous generation of the Q3 has ever been exciting, the
bonkers RS Q3 being the exception to that rule. But when you drove a previous-generation
35 TFSI, say, it always felt like a truly classy Ingolstadt operator.
The truth of the new Mk3 is that it genuinely feels remarkably underbaked in most of its more affordable specifications, while this 265hp quattro stands apart as easily the best car in the line-up. So that overall rating of four stars at the top of this piece? That'd be degraded by
at least half-a-star for the e-Hybrid and 1.5 TFSI, and maybe even a full point for the 2.0 TDI. And that, in our opinion, makes the new Q3 a very mixed bag, if we're honest.
