2020 Audi Q3 review

2020 Audi Q3 review now there’s nothing new about family SUVs today on the roads they’re about as

common as the rain in England but back in 2011 the Audi q3 was one of the first

to take those slightly smaller compact SUV dimensions and pair it with a

premium off-road aesthetic and surprise surprise it was a massive hit now this

is the second generation Audi q3 and it’s larger more versatile and has a

more tech laden interior than the model it replaces and it counts among its

rivals other posh family SUVs like the Jaguar a pace Volvo XC 40 and the BMW x1

2020 Audi Q3 review

but what is it and is it any good well that’s what we’re going to find out in

this video and if you want to buy a new car like

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subscribe button lots of things have changed since 2011

obviously the English weather hasn’t but in our DS line-up they’ve added the q2

SUV since the first q3 was around so with this new q3 they want to make sure

they completely differentiate between the two models and what are the main

ways they can do that is in the stylin so you can see in the new q3 it’s very

different to the old one it has a more chiseled look it’s got these prominent

lines down the side it’s got really strong haunches at the back and perhaps

the biggest change of all is at the front it borrows the octagonal grille

from the q8 which is out ease new flagship SUV and it gets these slimmer

LED headlights are standard as well so another way that

Aldys tried to make the q3 different from the q2 is by simply making it

bigger so this second-generation q3 now is 97 millimeters longer than the

previous q3 and the distance between the front and rear wheels which basically

means how much room there is inside for passengers that is now 78 millimeters

longer as well so hopefully it has a nice spacious interior now inside

everything typically feels brilliantly screwed together and it’s a really

high-quality cabin there’s plenty of soft touch materials on the dashboard

there and on the door as well and actually this metal effect trim around

the infotainment system looks really nice it’s very easy for something like

that to look a bit cheap and nasty but here it’s executed very well however if

you look a bit lower down on the dash there are a few scratchy and cheaper

feeling plastics like down here around the centre console now that isn’t

necessarily too bad but it’s something you’d expect to find on a Volkswagen

rather than a posh Aldi and it does just mean that a Volvo XC 40 wins the battle

of perceived interior quality against the q3 but now let’s take a look at some

of the other new interior features the q3 is another car that offers a voice

command system for the driver now it’s not like a BMW or a Mercedes where you

have the hey Mercedes thing and then it suddenly springs into action with the q3

you have to press a button how boring is that so you have to press this button on

the steering wheel navigate to London and it does the rest this car doesn’t

have it but you can now specify Alcantara on the doors

and instrument panel surround you can even get it in orange there are four

seat upholstery options from cloth to faux leather and alcantara combo in s

loin we’ve got a cloth and leather combo the center console is angled ten degrees

towards the driver to make things within easy reach

however the infotainment system is still a bit low down on the dash so it’s easy

to reach but a bit more difficult to look at while you’re driving even

entry-level models get a 10.1 inch touchscreen as standard running out E’s

latest MMI technology Howdy’s fantastic virtual cockpit is standard turning the

digital display into a fully configurable screen it’s ten point to

five inches as standard but you can upgrade to this bigger twelve point

three inch version there are a few different sound systems available a six

speaker setup is standard but this model has got the optional 10 speaker LD sound

system with 180 watts you can even upgrade to a Bang & Olufsen

system which gets a whopping 680 watts it’s a pricey option but comes as

standard with four sprung we know minimalism is popular but this blank

area next to the volume control looks a bit odd maybe out he could have put some

infotainment shortcut buttons down here instead the door handles are a dogleg

shape which looks interesting but means they sometimes slip out of your hand

now what about the space that’s on offer in the q3 well up front there is loads

of room plenty of legroom plenty of headroom and there’s a good range of

adjustment in the steering wheel and the seat the only negative is that you have

to pay extra for adjustable lumbar support on everything apart from top

spec for sprung trim but still the seats that you get are very comfortable and

you have a really high set seating position so visibility and the view out

of the road ahead is very good you also get rear parking sensors as

standard although bit stingy you have to pay extra for a reversing camera and you

can also pay extra to get a 360 degree camera and some self parking features

too but now what about the storage that’s on offer up front well we’ll give

you a quick tour starting with the door bins down here they’re a pretty decent

size you can fit a small or even a larger bottle down there no problem at

all with some other bits and pieces then on the centre console at the back you

have this storage compartment down there again good size

further up you have this place somewhere perhaps for the key but with this car

it’s not keyless entry and not keyless start so I’m not sure when you’d

actually want to leave the key there but still maybe the house keys the house

keys can go there that’s it and then next to it you’ve got the two cupholders

as well and in front of that in front the gearstick you’ve got a space for

your wallet and your phone and you can also pay extra to turn this into a place

for wireless charging the good thing about these storage areas as well is

that the bottom of them is non-slip so if you put your phone and your wallet

there it won’t slide around and fall all over the place if you’re going around a

corner there’s two USB ports here as well they’re a little bit awkward to

access with the gearstick they’re in park but it’s not the end of the world

the glove box is also a fairly decent size a little bit shallow but quite deep

so storage overall upfront is impressive and practical now we were telling you

earlier that the q3 is bigger than the car that it replaces so that means in

the inside you get more space and actually this is now one of the most

spacious cars in the class the high roofline means that there’s plenty of

headroom you also get loads of legroom but one of the most impressive features

of the q3 in the rear is that you can adjust the angle of the backrest so if

you go to the seat base there’s a lever that you can tug here and that pushes

the backrest forwards and I’ll show you that the most forwards it can go is

there which obviously is unnatural and not particularly comfortable but if you

are strange and you want to sit like this then you

have that option available and you can put it anywhere from this position all

the way to the back there which is much more normal and more comfortable what

else is there to tell you about the back well you have isofix mounts on the outer

two rear seats and in the middle you can pull this down and use it as an armrest

or you can discover the extremely over-engineered but fancy cupholders

there in the middle as well so it’s a very impressive rear however it’s worth

pointing out that a Volvo XC forty offers a little bit more legroom and

it’s a slightly wider interior as well other great features in the back of the

q3 the door pockets are a really good size and also you have this weird kind

of storage tray at the bottom of the seat base here which is really helpful

looks a bit weird never seen it on any other cars before but it means

put your phone down there close the door and he won’t lose it and it won’t roll

around the three seat rear bench can be moved forwards and backwards by 150

millimeters as standard this caters for your preferred balance of passenger and

luggage capacity when the rear seats are set fully forwards there’s still space

for children in the rear seats but adults will find it a bit of a squeeze

the seats also split in a 40/20/40 configuration which gives it one up in

the practicality stakes over the Volvo XC forty which only comes with a 60/40

split even with those rear seats slid back as far as I’ll go the Audi q3 still

offers more boot space than the Jaguar a pace Volvo XC 40 and BMW x1 and if you

move those seats forwards which I’ll do now for one of them then with all those

seats further forward you get 675 litres of space which is massive and bigger

than most of the cars in the class above and actually it’s only the Volkswagen

Tiguan which is bigger that offers a bit more space in the Audi q3 then if you

drop all of the rear seats and get rid of this parcel shelf you’ll be able to

fit a mountain bike in without his front wheel with no problem at all other good

feature to the boot there’s hardly any load lip at the front you have some

handy tethering hooks at the back on either side there’s also some storage

pockets either side of the entry as well with a helpful

12 volt socket down here there’s not really any specific underfloor storage

but you can see there’s room for a spare wheel if you’ve opted for one or for a

subwoofer if music is more important than wheels and at the back you’ve got a

couple of helpful storage compartments and a storage net thrown in as well the

q3 has a relatively high starting price but it should hold onto its value well

and that means PCP rates and leasing options are competitive and the q3 is

slightly cheaper to buy and run over three years than an equivalent Volvo XC

forty that’s whether you’re buying privately or as a company car fuel

economy and co2 emissions are also pretty competitive against its rivals

the entry-level q3 sport comes with so much equipment that it’s hard to justify

spending any extra on higher trim levels howdy finished a relatively

disappointing 20th out of 31 manufacturers in our latest reliability

survey but that was still enough to put it above Jaguar and Mercedes every Audi

also gets a three year two thousand mile warranty which matches

what you can get with Skoda and Volkswagens but pulls a little bit short

of Mercedes and BMW both of them offer three year warranties with unlimited

miles the q3 comes with automatic emergency braking as standard other

safety features like Lane Keeping assistance and adaptive cruise control

are optional according to Euro endcap testing the Volvo XC 40 protects adults

and children a little better than the q3 should you find yourself in a collision

still the q3 did manage the second best euro and kept crash test rating of 2018

so sorry about the weather but this is England and spring so what else did you

expect anyway let me tell you about the Audi q3 on the road and it’s available

with four engines in the lineup so that’s three petrol and one diesel the

range kicks off with the 1.5 liter petrol that we’re driving today

it’s badged 35 TFSI in Audis confusing naming structure but what you need to

know about it is that it’s actually got enough pace around town and on faster

roads it’s fine as well it’s a little bit underpowered if you’re going for an

overtake on a motorway but otherwise it’s generally pretty good unacceptable

performance however the thing that lets sit down and indeed the thing that lets

many of the other engines down is the automatic gearbox that goes with it so

it’s the optional 7-speed dual-clutch automatic that we’re using today and

it’s just a bit slow a bit laggy and not very responsive and it’s a

disappointment because it’s not even any better than the previous automatic

gearbox on the q3 in fact it’s a little bit worse the other thing that’s

disappointing is you can get a standard 6-speed manual gearbox but again that’s

got quite a vague action so isn’t actually much better so I’ll just show

you how slow the automatic gearbox actually can be we’re going along at

about 30 miles an hour we’re in comfort so we’re not in sport which you could

put it in but we’ll just show you where in comfort and if I put my foot down

there’s a real huge delay between anything happening and then again the

shifts are quite slow laborious the core kind of moves forwards and back as its

shifting its weight when it shifts as well so and the the pace off from the

engine just isn’t that great either but obviously you’re not gonna be buying

this car to be doing drag races so if you’re just going a gentle pace and not

asking for huge bus acceleration then you won’t get too frustrated with the

thirty-five TFSI despite these quibbles we still recommend the 35 TFSI over the

larger two liter petrol badged 40 and 45 TFSI both are exclusively available with

Quattro four-wheel drive which obviously hits fuel economy their boost in

performance doesn’t really make things more relaxing either both engines need

plenty of revs before the extra power is noticeable and they’re mandatory

automatic gearbox seems even more prone to lag but the 2-liter diesel which is

badge 35 TDI is actually a great fit for the car it pulls really well even from

below 2,000 rpm and if you’re going to be carrying around a lot of passengers

and a lot of luggage then it’s the best engine for the job really and in the

lineup it’s the one that offers the best blend of performance and efficiency

there are three suspension options to choose from entry-level sport spec cars

get standard steel springs while s-line models get a stiffened lowered version

of the same setup of the standard setups available we’ve only tried s lines so

far and we can tell you that it’s okay but it’s not as comfortable as a Volvo

XC forties equivalent our design suspension and you can hear over this

rutted Road my voice is kind of going up and down and the bumps aren’t too bad so

really the bride’s a bit on the firm side even if you have it

Comfort you can get adaptive dampers but they’re optional on all trims apart from

top spec for sprung but they’re certainly worth considering because if

you have them fitted then body control is very very good and it certainly feels

more agile than an action 40 it also gets helpful progressive steering setup

from Aldi and what that means is that it gets faster the more you turn the

steering wheel so it basically means if you’re going around a tight corner you

don’t need to be moving your arms around loads and it just makes things slightly

more relaxed and it’s still very accurate to the 2 liter petrol engine is

the smoother petrol option the 1.5 litre is gruff even at idle and when you’re

accelerating gently the diesel is noisier than any of the petrels when

revved but it’s generally quite subdued compared with equivalents in the x1

Mercedes GLA and Volvo XC 40 it’s pretty quiet in the interior too but the XC 40

provides an even more calming travelling environment at motorway speeds so then

the Audi q3 is a pretty compelling package it has a hugely practical and

high-tech interior and it’s decent to drive however the engines and gearbox

certainly are a bit rough around the edges and the ride isn’t quite so good

as a Volvo XC 40 so it’s not quite a class leader but it’s still a great

family SUV and if you want to buy one don’t forget go to work all calm and we

can help you find the best price for a new q3 or any other new car and please

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car reviews like this and group tests and first looks in the future