Raidin

Initial impressions and driving dynamics
As a background, I've not driven too many high end or high performance cars in my time. I started out late in life for various reasons. I have so far driven a Nissan 350Z, an Infiniti EX35 and FX35 (both based on the Z car platform), tried a friend's M3 and 86, along with my last cars, a 2014 modded Mustang GT and a 2016 ND Miata soft top, and a Lamborghini Gallardo in the wet on a small autocross course. Finally, I also own a 2014 Lexus CT 200h F Sport as my work car alongside my RS3, which is a taught, capable, and competent handler with low center of gravity and great weight distribution.

The RS3's driving feel is definitely different than any of those cars, with the exception of the Lamborghini. That car was glued down hard, even in the rain, and drove very similarly to my RS3. The closest one after that would be my Lexus, which is the most competent driver I've ever driven alongside the Gallardo. Solid, planted, incredibly predictable. The RS3 feels exactly the same, but slightly less solid and predictable. It's more lively, more willing to react quickly, a bit touchy. It also feels lighter than the Lexus, even though it's heavier.

The suspension is tuned for sport driving in every mode. Even in Comfort you can tell this is not a luxury car (Audi claims even the Comfort setting is RS-tuned). But even so, it's far more compliant than my Lexus (CTs have firmer-tuned sport suspensions in F Sport trim, FYI). The fact that the RS3's suspension in my car is variable based on the magnetic adjustments is the cause. While the car is firm, it flies over bad pavement with no drama. You definitely know you've driven over bad pavement, but it's just enough not to jar you, which my Lexus will do. The suspension behavior and ride quality were definitely the first things I noticed. You can feel everything, but the chassis is never upset and you always feel you're in control.

Then comes the power. Delivery is delayed in anything but Dynamic with Sport mode active. You can definitely feel the turbo lag. You have to otherwise drop gears yourself before touching the throttle if you don't want to notice it. When you do, the acceleration is rapid! The car won't pin you to your seat, it's actually quite drama-free, outside of the exhaust sound. This is where I compare it to my Mustang, which was very dramatic when flooring it. The Mustang would squat under hard acceleration and dive under braking. Even with a firm suspension kit. The RS3, however, never feels like that. You don't notice any squat or dive, even though from the outside the car can be seen doing it slightly. Another plus to the magnetic suspension setup. You have to be very careful as the controlled nature of this car's acceleration will distract you from the fact that you just hit 80 or 100 MPH after a few seconds of enjoying blasting down the road.

I do have to admit that hard braking will be obnoxious if you're turning or changing lanes at the same time. The weight of the nose really shows when you do it. My Mustang had the same problem. But while my Mustang squirreled around under hard braking, and made it feel like it's about to dance left and right uncontrollably, the RS3 just feels like it's nose-heavy, but remains predictable to your inputs and responds perfectly. You can feel it struggling, but you don't have to correct for anything with steering.

I've tried a few times to power into and out of turns, many 90 degree ones. While I have not floored it doing that yet, I did one time do it hard enough that I felt the initial impression of understeer, then I immediately felt a sensation that many have described before: the sensation that the car just clicked into a rail in the road and is now locked into the turn, almost as if someone tied a rope to the front of the car and is pulling you hard into the turn. It was pretty damn cool really.

The exhaust is one of the best features of the car, as most of you are aware. Sadly, it doesn't sound the same from inside as it does outside. But! It sounds really good and loud enough when you're on it. I found that lowering the windows actually covers some of the subtleties of the sound with wind noise. With the windows up, you can hear all the trick sounds the car makes. Up****s, downshifts, high-rpm sounds that make you feel you're driving a V10 Lamborghini. You never get tired of it, and you keep looking for openings in traffic to push it. One of the best parts I've found is that if you leave the car in Individual mode, where you can tune the car to be soft in terms of steering and suspension, but leave the engine/transmission and quattro in Dynamic, and drive around with the transmission in Drive instead of Sport mode, you can still get all the noise when you are hard on the throttle, even without flooring it all the way. Makes commuting in traffic a lot of fun!


Interior
I found the interior to be really nicely done. Exactly what I like from Audi; simple, elegant, classy, and straight-forward. I especially like the lighting at night when you adjust it to be about halfway to max brightness. All the inlays are lit from underneath along the whole thing, the speakers are lit along the upper edge.

The seats are comfortable for long drives for the most part. I regularly drive the car for 1.5 hour trips, but there were two times where I did drive it for about 4 hours. I found myself adjusting myself a bit while sitting, but not much. I probably had the seat in the firm, upright position for sport driving.

I also don't like the steering wheel feel as far as holding it in the 9 and 3 position. Lexus has that part nailed with their new wheel. The grips at 9 and 3 are large and comfortable on F and F Sport Lexus'. The tiny grips on the RS3 were just like the Miata I had. I don't like keeping my hands there for too long. Also, above the dash screen, there's a tiny section where you see some of the warning lights and turn signal indicators. You have to raise the wheel just enough so you're not blocking that area, which makes the wheel a bit higher than I would like it.

I'm not a big fan of the manual seats or steering column adjustment, but they are easy to use simple to get to your best seating and steering position.

Notes
Things I like:

• Rear leg room is surprisingly good for this car.
• Trunk space is also really good.
• According to Audi, the RS Design package deletes the rear 12V outlet and gives you two charge-only USB port, and moves the 12V outlet to the trunk. I confirmed this on an A3, but it seems like you still get a trunk outlet without that package. Might be an RS3 thing.
• Visibility is very good in forward direction. You don't see the good in the lowest seating position, which is intentionally done on high-end performance cars for best road visibility.
• The adaptive cruise is the best I've yet tried (I've tried Lexus's first generation and Infiniti's first generation as well). It is so subtle in operation that it feels like a human driver is driving. No sudden jerks or braking. You get 5 distance settings while most cars give you 3.
• You can adjust your cruise control speed even if you're not using cruise! That way you can hit Resume when you're ready and you don't have to adjust the speed afterwards. You can plan ahead! =P
• The car doesn't have headlights that swivel to the side as you turn, but it does have a light that reflects 90 degrees to the sides which comes on as you turn. You can force it on all the time with the bad weather light button.
• The rear fog light is a button just below the bad weather light button, which means you can't accidentally turn it on like a lot of folks I see doing driving around at night (because a lot of German cars put both the front and rear fog switches next to each other on the column.) Not here! We don't even get front fog lights.
• There is a button on the steering wheel dedicated to repeating the last spoken nav note, in case you missed it while distracted by something on the road.
• You can activate the rear view camera and parking display with a button at low speeds or stopped WITHOUT having to go into Reverse.
• Passenger-side mirror will auto lower when reversing if it's set to the passenger-side adjustment position on the ****.
• On top of dual cup holders in the center armrest in the rear, you also get a flat storage area fit for a cellphone.
• If you engage the parking brake, select Drive, then attempt to drive away, it will auto-disengage it for you.
• While you get a single Audi beep when locking or unlocking the car, you can make it beep twice when unlocking in the dealer settings (the ones you can access with apps like Carista using an OBD2 device).
• The center armrest in the front can move backwards and forwards, and can lock itself halfway down for some reason (which you unlock by lifting it up then all the way down, like a toggle switch.)

Things I don't like:

• The cupholders can't be used for large drinks because the climate controls jut out right above them. You'll be ordering small and medium drinks from drive-thrus from now on.
• I can hear the brakes actuating automatically when using the adaptive cruise in traffic when everything is quiet enough.
• The stalk for the cruise control is the opposite in location and usage than my Lexus. I've flashed my high beams often at people when I was just trying to hit Resume on the cruise control.
• If you allow the adaptive cruise to stop the car for you, it will tailgate the car in front of you. This is really bad since if you get rear-ended, you're almost certain to hit the car ahead of you. (The good news is that if you stop the car yourself at a distance you want, then hit Resume, the car will stay where it is and won't inch up.)
• The MMI system needs a little refinement and will reveal bugs from time to time.
• In-car navigation is still as bad as every other car I've ever tried one in. Many locations are not listed.
• The hotkey button on the steering wheel won't always work. Holding it down and re-assigning the shortcut will often fix it.
• The rear view camera and parking sensor display used to appear as overlays on top of whatever you had on your screen beforehand. After a software update that I needed, you just get a black background with the camera and parking sensor displays smushed together. It was so beautiful before...
• Speaking of the rear camera, it's a narrow-view, with everything distorted. Be careful backing up. (I wish they would overlay the parking sensors on the camera with 50% transparency or something.)
• You can't turn off Traction Control while driving. You can, just not while cruise is active.
• If you use Google Maps under Android Auto for navigation, you can't use the map view in the gauge cluster. You just get a large compass display instead.
• If you switch Google Maps to Google Earth view, you have to wait for it to load. It only loads on demand. If you look towards the bottom right of the display where all the info is, you will see the word Google with a white bar above it that gets larger. That's the loading bar. And yes, sometimes it will stall and you have to start it over by switching back to Maps then again back to Earth view.
• The trunk won't pop open all the way sometimes (maybe when it's cold?) You have to push it up all the way to clear your head if you plan to lean in for something.
• The center armrest in the front is a perfect spot to store your phone while it's plugged in. Too bad you can't fit a large phone with a plug coming out of it unless you angle it. Big oversight.
• When using auto climate control, the car never shows if you're in recirculation or not. The light is always off. I'm not sure if the car ever automatically selects it for you.
• The rear view mirror has an outline that is not included in the auto-dimming area. If you don't have it set a certain way, you will constantly get flashes of high beams as your car goes up and down as you travel over bumps in the road if you're being followed by someone with the high beams on.
• If you have auto high beams active, and want to turn it off, you literally have to switch to manual high beams on before turning them off. The auto high beams are not that great. I've watched them turn on and off, over and over, which makes me look like I'm trying to signal people who are approaching on the other side of the road.

tigerhonaker

Raidin,

Thank-You for the extensive review.

Terry

Fixeroh

This is an awesome detailed review! Wow. A lot of effort and thought went into your write up. Thanks. I agree with pretty much everything where I can. I ordered the dynamic plus package so have the CC brake package and the fixed suspension on my 2018 RS3. Had the mag suspension in my previous 2015 S3 however. Always had it in dynamic mode however. Also do not have the high end tech package so no adaptive cruise control, etc. Didn't want it. Wife drives a 2018 Q7. Q7 has all the tech features except virtual cockpit. I really don't like the lane assist and adaptive cruise control much at all. Tend to turn that off when I drive. They do work well however. Hate the traffic sign reader that drops your speed if you move to a slower speed area too. Love my RS3 in every way however. Not owned many high end cars in my life but feel I deserve this car at this point in my life. My first new car was an '85 Audi Coupe GT Turbo Quattro while I stationed in Germany with the USAF. Loved that car. Spent 15 years in Germany with the USAF. Was able to enjoy the autobahn system daily as well as lovely, twisty country roads. Tough to find fun roads for the RS3 in central Ohio but the car is the only thing that puts a smile on my face every day.

Thanks again for the great review and pointing out some things I don't even think about regarding the car. One thing I really agree with is the damn cup holder. Granted it's a sporty car and you don't need to have the big gulp drink size all the time but the positioning is frustrating. Oh, and an ECU tune will change your outlook on the car as well. I'm currently running a Stage 1 tune (93 octane) from APR. No hardware required but I'm looking at a new intake. Went to Stage 2+ with my S3. Was solid and an absolute blast. Whatever tuning firm you may choose, it makes a worthwhile difference. Enjoy your car!

tigerhonaker

Fixeroh,

Looking forward to a review/coverage on that Stage #1 tune your running from APR ???
And of course once you go further with the stage #2 ...........
If you do decide to do a separate Thread I think a lot of us would enjoy seeing and reading all about it and what you think ???
Especially if you do a (Comparison) between the Stock RS3 versus the New APR Stage #1 & APR stage #2.

Terry

Up-Date:
I just went back and found where you had already commented to the buddy I have in San Antonio, TX. about the APR tune.
No sense in you having to post twice buddy.
__________________

uniqueMR

Very nice review. Thanks much

tigerhonaker

Raidin,



I have been trying to figure a specific optional package out on the RS3.
What I really wish to confirm is ............
That there is No-Front-Camera it is simply a Front-Radar-Sensor for distance ???
Lastly, let's say we are pulling up in our garage will that system give us a WARNING Audible Sound of some sort and if so do you know is that adjustable ???
On my 2017 Golf R I have a very, I think similar front sensor and it does give you an audible warning and also shows I think a visual warning also, I think.
I'm referring to it WARNING us before we Hit the Wall we are coming up to.
Hope I'm making sense on this just trying to get some concrete information from someone that owns a new RS3 like you do.
So, buddy, if you don't mind give me/us as much DETAIL as you can on it's actual function. please.

Driver assistance package
$1,500
Package includes:

• Audi adaptive cruise control with stop & go
• Audi active lane assist
• High beam assistant
• Front radar with camera distance sensor

Eran Levi

Are you sure about that? I'm almost sure I did it a few times. Will check that tomorrow again.
I assume that what you mean is to press and hold the traction off/on button for a few seconds, right?

Raidin

Terry,

It sounds like what you're talking about is the parking sensor. The car indeed has front and rear parking sensors (the 4 little circles in each bumper), and do display a visual aid on-screen when they detect something along with beeping that speeds up as you get closer to an object. The sound volume is adjustable, and you can also adjust how low the radio/media volume is lowered when the parking sensors chime in.

The Pre Sense Basic system is for imminent collisions. According to the manual, it uses the radar sensor. Maybe the camera is used when you don't have the driver's assistance pack? I remember seeing that Pre Sense Basic is on all Audis? Anyway, the idea is that at above 20 MPH, the system will warn you if you get approach a vehicle that's stationary or moving much slower than you. It has the ability to tighten the seat belts, brake the car, and even roll up your windows and close your moonroof if it thinks you're gonna hit a car.

The weird thing is, there is also a distance warning system that's separate from Pre Sense. This system I think just warns you visually if you're approaching a vehicle too quickly, using the same display for distance that the radar cruise control does (it changes to red and flashes). Both systems have their own adjustability. Distance warning can be set to warn at 3.0 seconds from impact to 0.6 seconds, in 0.2 second increments. Pre Sense can simply be set to Early, Medium, or Late.

As far as I've been able to tell, there is no camera down near the radar sensor. I do know there's a camera above the rear view mirror that the Active Lane Assist system uses.








When you want to activate Launch Control, you press the traction control button to turn it off, then you go with the rest of the steps. If you try to press it while driving, the light comes on and turn off immediately. I think I tried pressing and holding it for a long time and nothing happened.

nate

There's a couple replies to this but I don't think they really sum up what's going on. There are three sets of sensors on the front of the car:

1) Ultrasonic parking sensors, which are only active when the rear-view camera is on. These are the little quarter-sized circles on the front and rear bumper, and they only judge distances to objects. The sound pitch and volume for this is adjustable in settings, but the distance warnings are not adjustable (since this is just for parking, it only works within maybe 4 feet of the vehicle anyway).

2) There is a radar system in the center-bottom of the grill. This is for ACC (Adaptive Cruise Control) and part of "Audi Pre-Sense" for warning about impending collisions.

3) There is a front-facing camera in the rear view mirror assembly. This is used for active lane assist and identifies lane boundaries (which can't be "seen" with radar) and I think this is part of the high-beam assist as well, which basically looks for headlights in oncoming vehicles to adjust the high beams (here is where I *really* wish Audi had put Matrix LED headlights on as an option)


I would highly recommend this package, especially if you drive in traffic -- I commute in my S3 (and will in my RS3) and the ACC system is really great for traffic jams. Looking forward to the "stop & go" upgrade (not preset on the 2016 S3) since it's supposed to be a lot better in stop & go traffic.

Lane assist is interesting, keeps you from wandering out of your lane, though I wish it would track in the middle of the lane better, at least on my S3 it basically wanders to the edge of the lane and "bounces" off, and if you leave your hands off the wheel for too long it pops up a nice warning saying that you need to continue steering the vehicle

tigerhonaker

Raidin & Nate,

Well in my case I ordered all those optional-packages.
Thanks guys for the information it is appreciated.

Terry