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Proud new owner of a Brilliant Black 2.0L Quattro A3, and absolutely love the car so far, however...
The stock 2.0L exhaust is even more underwhelming than I expected. A catback exhaust has been listed on Magnaflow's website and their certified dealer websites for a while now, but without any sale prices or way to purchase them. Emailing some of the dealer websites got me this:
Magnaflow 15352:
Stainless Cat-Back System for 2015 A3 QUATTRO L4 2.0L Turbocharged
Regular Price: $963.30
Sale Price: $888.57
It is a sister website to the Coolexhaust.com found on Magnflow's website and they nicely made the product available for us via the link above.
I'll most likely buy it later this week and post a video of the before & after results. Do you guys think it will be worth the money?
Note: They replaced the resonator with a straight pipe
Did you ever purchase and install? I'm really thinking about getting this as I too, think the exhaust note is... non-existent. Was reading that someone installed the S3 OEM exhaust and hooking up the electronic flaps, but this seems to be an easier option, however not being too obnoxious in loudness.
Considering your stock exhaust works perfectly fine and is equiped with a valved setup and is held to higher quality standards than garbage magnaflow.
You would be paying a ton of money to replace something that already works great if not better. And you will sound a lot more annoying to other people when you drive around.
I wouldn't say Magnaflow is garbage, I've had on a number of my previous and usually like the tone they create and they are cheaper than alot of the other systems out there. OP has an A3 like me and this is literally the only option we have at the moment.
The A3's are valved, but closer to the Turbo, nothing after that.
The current sound of the A3 is nill/boring/expected. I'm looking to beef up the sound some, something like the OEM but maybe a tiny bit louder during WOT.
Yeah, I have an A3 also, but it's a convertible. I had Magnaflow on my BMW 650i and thought it was fine. Didn't make my BMW sound like a Mustang GT which is kind of what I wanted, but a nice sound nonetheless.
Yeah, I have an A3 also, but it's a convertible. I had Magnaflow on my BMW 650i and thought it was fine. Didn't make my BMW sound like a Mustang GT which is kind of what I wanted, but a nice sound nonetheless.
What do the valves do on an A3?
Not exactly sure. Found them while playing around with the vagcom cable. I'd suspect they are for better low end torque (closed). When I had them left open via vcd coding, no changes in sound or performance that I could tell. Put them back to stock.
But there is physically no valve to control in the stock exhaust system, don't spread misinformation.
I have an A3 Convertible and I had the magnaflow exhaust installed:
Pro's of Magnaflow:
1)Cheapest exhaust available, I had a local cheap custom exhaust shop look at my car, they told me by the time they got done, replicating the magnaflow setup (dual tips, central muffler, resonator delete), they wouldn't be able to build it for less than 800. They did tell me they'd be able to delete the resonator for a straight pipe, but I kind of wanted the bigger tips and deeper bass sound of a magnaflow setup.
I bought it on sale from BFI when they had their 10% off everything waterfest sale. Total Price SHIPPED was 880 or so. The same exhaust shop only charged me $50 to install (45 minute job). Note: the shop had to cut 1" off my downpipe for the magnaflow setup to properly route around the differential, which makes sense later, now that I remember that the cabriolet has a 1" shorter wheelbase than the sedan. Not a hard job for any exhaust shop to fix, but going back to stock will not be a simple bolt-on affair.
2) Quiet at highway cruise speed (50-65mph low throttle). No drone.
3) Tips looks nice, fit the rear valence well, entire setup looks clean and more "show" than the stock setup
Con/Neutral depending on your perspective.
1) Deep base: Magnaflow setups are some of the deepest sounding exhausts in almost every application I've seen, and it certainly applies to the A3. At idle as well as low throttle, the car is much louder. In fact, at low throttle the car makes MORE noise/deep bass drone at 1600rpm than it will cruising at 2000-2400rpm IE: The car will actually get quieter the faster you drive, since this car likes to keep the RPM very low in drive mode. And ironically will be quieter cruising sometimes in sport mode than it would be in drive mode.
2) Not much louder than stock S3. It *IS* significantly louder than the stock A3 system, it is louder than the stock S3... but for people that want to wake their neighbors and/or want a racekar, well the magnaflow is not a good setup for you. It's *almost* too loud imo for a convertible, but if I had the extra insulation from having a sedan, it might be too quiet for some. So I'd call it perfect for me.
If you want to see what an exhaust valve looks like, you can look at Magnaflow's install sheet for their S3 setup (which reuses the stock valve unlike many aftermarket systems which have their own valves)...
I'm almost sold on the Magnaflow. But I read your comment about going back to stock and that gave me pause. I don't know why I'd want to do that, but my car is a lease and I don't know how much I'd get dinged if I turned it in with the Magnaflow on it.
Are there shorter downpipes available that I could have installed with the exhaust?
Also, the link you provided is for an S3 exhaust. Is that what you put on?
I'm almost sold on the Magnaflow. But I read your comment about going back to stock and that gave me pause. I don't know why I'd want to do that, but my car is a lease and I don't know how much I'd get dinged if I turned it in with the Magnaflow on it.
Are there shorter downpipes available that I could have installed with the exhaust?
Also, the link you provided is for an S3 exhaust. Is that what you put on?
No, I have their A3 exhaust... I just linked that to show what the control valves look like, and how they are absent on the A3.
Here is a video I found on youtube. Not my car, but sounds more or less identical.
And yes, don't modify a lease (unless you plan on returning it to stock). If you tried to turn it in with a modified exhaust, they would likely charge you an insane fee, probably 2 grand to "return the car to stock condition" whereas if you just hang on to your stock exhaust (I'm assuming you have a garage or something you could store it), you can get any exhaust shop to put it back on for 100 bucks or so.
07-30-2014, 03:42 PM
2.0T Magnaflow Exhaust
