2025 Audi A3 Sedan review: This car made me drive 757 km for nasi kandar
As an entry-level premium car, the Audi A3 still sits at that happy intersection of style, quality and performance
SEEING the new Audi A3 Sedan brought back some nice memories. About a dozen years ago, I bombed down an autobahn in an S3 (the A3 on steroids), and somehow managed to see 270 kmh on the speedometer. Its speed limiter must have gone fuzzy that day.
That drive cemented something for me: I’ve always had a thing for small, speedy sedans. There’s something irresistibly cheeky about a car that looks compact and sensible, but packs enough power to make you think twice about whether you really need to keep saving up for that Porsche.
So when I laid eyes on the latest A3, it sparked a familiar longing for the open road. After a bit of fast talking with Jasmine Toh, the corporate communications maven at Audi Singapore, I somehow had her blessing to take the brand-new Audi into Malaysia. It felt like the perfect chance to make a new memory in an old favourite.
My flimsy excuse was that I would be testing its fuel efficiency. Audi says the A3’s mild-hybrid engine should cover 725 km on a single 45-litre tank. Not quite enough for a jaunt to Kuala Lumpur and back, but I had a more important mission in mind: satisfy a craving for nasi kandar at a place I know in Cyberjaya, which serves up the kind of meal that makes you forget you’ve been driving for hours. Thoughts of ikan goreng, crisped to perfection and sitting on rice deluged by spicy chaos, had me drooling before I left Tuas.
The A3 itself is decidedly less piquant. For now, you can only buy a 1.5-litre version in Singapore. Its engine cranks out a modest 116 horsepower, so it won’t get anywhere near 270 kmh. The good news? It slips under the Category A Certificate Of Entitlement bar, so it’s not meant to be speedy, but affordable.
And it’s meant to look sharp. The A3 has had a makeover that keeps things fresh while preserving the car’s attitude. The grille is flatter and wider now, and flanked by larger air intakes that give it a more hunkered-down stance. It looks lower, sportier, and more purposeful. You can even jazz up the look with up to four different selectable designs for the daytime running lights, which is a whimsical feature for a sensible sedan.
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Inside, the little sedan retains its premium feel. Between the centre console’s relentlessly logical layout and an optional ambient lighting package that turns the cabin into a light show if you want it to, it feels every bit the scaled-down Audi it’s supposed to be.
The touchscreen isn’t big, but the physical switches are laid out with typical Teutonic logic, and they click with the sort of satisfying tactility that suggests Audi decided to outsource the controls to Swiss watchmakers. Even adjusting the air-conditioner feels like fine-tuning a precision instrument. In fact, very little about the interior feels like it was done on the cheap. If anything, it’s still the poshest cabin among its German peers, and a suitably comfortable place for a long journey.
The A3 certainly didn’t disgrace itself on the North-South Highway. Despite having the sort of power output you’d normally associate with a lawnmower, it was perfectly happy to cruise at speeds that felt entirely appropriate for the cut-and-thrust traffic of Malaysian expressways. It might even have summoned bursts of speed that would have done me proud on an autobahn.
More to the point, it was refined enough that after nearly 10 hours behind the wheel, I didn’t feel like I needed a chiropractor.
In fact, what’s best about the A3’s facelift is that it’s preserved the qualities that make it the best of the big three German premium brands’ small sedans. It has the nicest, highest quality cabin, the best balance between ride quality and fluid handling, and it has the smoothest drivetrain. Compared to this, the Mercedes A-Class Sedan and BMW 2 Series Gran Coupe feel like exercises in pfennig-pinching.
In the end, I couldn’t make it back from KL on the same tank, but the little A3 reminded me that as much as electric cars are perfect for cities, there’s nothing like a reasonably efficient, fun-to-drive and plush little sedan to satisfy a bit of wanderlust (not to mention a craving for spicy food).
By day’s end, I’d covered 757 km and spent nine hours and 38 minutes behind the wheel, and felt ready to do it all over again. Perhaps the real reason I set off in the first place was because, having driven a string of electric vehicles lately, I simply wanted to make the kind of trip that might not be possible (or at least as convenient) in the post-combustion world. Cars like the A3 are all about the simple pleasure of heading north, chasing a craving, and making new memories along the way.
Audi A3 Sedan S line 30 TFSI S tronic Engine 1,498 cc, in-line four turbocharged Power 116 hp from 5,000 to 6,000 rpm Torque 220 Nm from 1,500 to 3,000 rpm Gearbox 7-speed twin-clutch automatic 0-100 kmh 9.9 seconds Top speed 210 kmh Fuel efficiency 6.2 L/100 km Agent Audi Singapore Price S$201,999 with Certificate Of Entitlement Available Now
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