First Drive Review
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Commit to sweating and twitching, and 60 mpg is possible.
Third. We completed third. To launch the TDI version of its new A3 sedan, Audi arranged a fuel-mileage challenge. The goal? Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Coronado, California, on a single tank of diesel. That’s a distance of 834 miles. We mollified ourselves with the age-old “well, at least we’re on the podium” chestnut. But technical editor Eric Tingwall chided us by way of Twitter, “Let me channel Sherman here: If you didn’t win, you lost. Sherman would’ve won.” If the mild-mannered, affable Tingwall is publicly wagging a finger of shame at you, it’s undesirable. And he’s proper. Tech director Don Sherman would’ve won.
We’d suffered 759 miles across New Mexico, Arizona, and most of the width of California. So when the nice man from Audi suggested that we wouldn’t make it—having hit zero fuel about halfway up the summit on Interstate 8—we stupidly believed him. That belief price us what might’ve been a win. Perhaps in the interest of preserving their fuel-injection pumps, Ingolstadt’s representatives had informed us that the A3 TDI had only half a gallon of fuel left after the fuel-range readout hit miles. This proved not to be the case: Far more foolhardy souls pressed on and covered the remaining distance to the coast, getting hit zero on the gauge at about the same time we did.
On the other hand, flush with diesel and free of charge from the constraints of competition, we took the opportunity to finally open the taps on the torquey diesel sedan, the most recent variant of the MQB-boned A3 to hit our shores. We also turned on the air conditioning. The vehicle nonetheless equipped with our apparently ineffective—but hopefully intimidating—Walmart-concern cardboard-box rear-fender fairings, we launched our modest front-drive Audi down some San Diego County back roads.
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The TDI’s gas-fired Quattro counterpart lately aced a comparison test in which it was pitted against Mercedes-Benz’s CLA250 4MATIC and the BMW 2-series, and if the FWD diesel car—all-wheel drive isn’t available—doesn’t offer the revvy tenacity of the Quattro model, it at least gives some visceral pleasures of its own. Equipped with the identical 150-hp, 236-lb-ft variant of the EA288 diesel located in the new Volkswagen Golf TDI, the Audi is hardly a slouch, particularly when it comes to midrange power delivery.
Audi’s standard 6-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission provides smooth, rapid, and trus2rthy gearchanges. It seems to default to lower gears even in manual mode, which was a issue when we had been gunning for efficiency above all else—that may possibly be the initial time we’ve complained about a transmission for wanting to hold a lower gear—but we found ourselves without having a gripe during the mountain-road blasts.
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When cornering, the front finish turns in and plants itself with authority, offering a lot of grip. We know this to be the complete truth due to the fact, during the mpg-focused portion of our drive, we avoided employing the accelerator and brakes to set up for corners in the interest of energy conservation. Maximum efficiency demands kinetic dynamism, so we followed a steer-and-pray approach. The sticky Continental tires held our chosen lines with an admirable doggedness.
Inside, we identified the A3 to be generally Audi-pleasant, despite the fact that the vast swath of soft-touch material spanning the dash demands to be of a higher grade to effectively execute the bold, sparse look the automaker has pursued with this auto. The seats have been comfortable for the extended haul, and even though some have complained about the B-pillars’ intrusion into peripheral sightlines, we didn’t uncover it to be an problem throughout a journey with lots of furtive side glances to verify for more quickly-moving visitors.
As for the efficiency competitors, it was calculated that we achieved 60.1 mpg more than 759 miles. This was in utter hair-shirt mode, employing twitchy-foot throttle strategies although monitoring the quick returns on the in-dash efficiency display, operating far below the speed limit, using the aerodynamic largesse of huge-rig wakes, cursing every single rise in the road, and generally suffering for every mile. Without having engaging in any of that occasionally ill-advised folderol, you’d very easily discover your self returning figures somewhere in the low-to-mid 40s on the highway. And if you wanted to thrash a canyon at the finish of the day? The A3 TDI would be completely happy to oblige.
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