Am I crazy for thinking about an A3?????
 

A bit of chronology. I had an '02 S6 that I liked, but I wasn't a big fan of the dismal fuel economy (18mpg driving like a grandma) so I added a '06 GTI for longer nice weather stretches and kept the S6 for my weekend driver and bad weather billy goat (my job requires me to be mobile 24/7 - often before the plows come out - so the S6 with proper tires was perfect) but hated the torque steer and the spinning front tires on wet roads (you get spoiled by quattro)but I liked the 30+ mpg.

In late '07 the dealer made me an offer to trade both cars in on an R32. I really like that car (much better that the GTI overall with the haldex advantages) but miss the 4 doors - since I've had the R32 we used my wife's Civic Hybrid if we had more than two people in the car but we just traded it in on a 2 door Civic non-hybrid (side note - my wife loved the hybrid and hated giving it up, but the technology isn't there yet. After a new catalytic converter at 90k miles [$1200] and an upocoming second converter and a new battery looming in the near future [$5000 for both] we decided to ditch the hybrid at 193k miles)

Aside from the torque steer and wet weather behavior of the GTI, I liked the car. some of the added refinements of the R are nice too (auto lights, bigger brakes, rain sensing wipers) and the A3 would add BT and semi proper iPod integration.

A few questions:

Are the brakes on the 3.2 and 2.0 (both with sport packages) the same?

Do the '09 A3s have auto lights and homelink in any package?

Have the sunroof issues (rattles, broken shades) been resolved on the newer versions.

Any overall impressions on the 2.0 quattro?

Magnetic ride - yeah or nay?

Am I crazy for even considering this? I have the bits for OEM BT and homelink sitting in my garage but haven't gotten around to putting them in yet - I'm currently running the Parrot but don't like the visible mike - all my mods are usually Euro OEM and will never involve cutting wiring.

Oh.....
 

...I also much prefer this forum over VWVortex - we think that the A4 forum is a bit uncivilized - spend some time over time and this place is etiquette city....

Answers:
 

Are the brakes on the 3.2 and 2.0 (both with sport packages) the same?

AFAIK, yes they are.

Do the '09 A3s have auto lights and homelink in any package?

Auto lights, yes with the Convenience Package on the 2.0T; Standard on the 3.2.

Homelink, not available since '06.

Have the sunroof issues (rattles, broken shades) been resolved on the newer versions.

Latches are made from metal now instead of plastic.

Confirmed answers
 

what Mike said, plus:

Are the brakes on the 3.2 and 2.0 (both with sport packages) the same?

yes.

Do the '09 A3s have auto lights and homelink in any package?

yes, what Mike said, regarding Homelink, DIY!! (see link)<ul><li><a href="http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=4121855">DIY Homelink</a></li></ul>

Thanks guys...
 

...now it looks like the only A3 with nav is a 3.2....

Do we have any dealers here that'll help find a car?

Is the sunshade latch a serviceable part or does the whole shade need replacing
 

If the latch breaks? My [2nd] latch broke and I need to get it fixed. The parts guy said I need a whole new shade but he's also the same guy who said he needed my VIN to check stock on a set of wiper blades.

That, and a sub-threaded format is much superior to a linear forum format like Vortex.

Thank you for that link! There are no stock buttons that work, that I could find.
 

And I have a pretty recent version ETKA.

I did a similar garage door hack on my A8 (it's up on Audipages; click the A8 line in my sig) and on the 986 we used to have. The 987 has Homelink, so I didn't have to do it, to it.

I am pretty sure you can still get nav with the 2.0T

The latch is part of the front "pull" assembly that can be replaced
 

by pulling it out of the channels and sliding it off of the shade. Originally, Audi made them pull the headliner and replace the entire shade but now it's much quicker to slide it off.