• Strong fuel economy
• Diesel still makes a lot of sense
• Not the most competitive for company car drivers

What are the running costs?

Strong fuel economy is a must-have for a car of this ilk. And the A3 delivers. Ultimate fuel gauge watchers will want the 35 TDI diesel. It’ll cover up to 58.9mpg on the Sport version with CO2 for this engine as low as 125g/km.

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The lowest powered petrol, the 30 TFSI, can cover up to 52.3mpg with the manual gearbox and produce as little as 123/gkm. The more powerful 35 TFSI is only slightly worse when it comes to claimed fuel economy. Over more than 10,000 miles, we averaged 45mg with our A3 long-termer equipped with the 35 TFSI engine, and we frequently would do more than 500 miles on a full tank.

If you want a plug-in hybrid to reduce your running costs, you’ll need the Audi A3 Sportback for that.

Servicing and warranty

Premium-priced cars also tend to cost more to service, insure and buy parts for. Servicing plans are available for up to four years, front-loading your costs or building them into your monthly payments. Definitely worth investing in to avoid inflationary rises.

Audi’s standard warranty, at three years or 60,000 miles is less-than-generous compared with rivals, but on a par with its premium German counterparts. But you can extend the warranty to four years/75,000 miles or five years/90,000 miles for extra money. But none come close to Kia, MG or Toyota’s offerings.

Reliability

• Shares a platform with VW Golf
• Largely an update of the existing car
• Tech used across the VW Group

Given that this is, in reality, a heavy update of the outgoing car you shouldn’t have too much to worry about in terms of the fundamental structure or tech in this A3.

The engines are improved versions of what came before too, and used across the VW Group, although the mild-hybrid tech isn’t as well tested (by customers at least) as the rest of the range. The only issue we had with our A3 over our seven-month loan was a stray engine light coming on, but which had no impact on the car’s performance, and was sorted by a quick trip to an Audi dealer to give the car a software update.