Audi A3 1.8 Sport Review

Overall Rating

Audi quality,strong engine and shell.Feels solid,sports seats and suspension. 144bhp tuneable.Can embarrass some of it's older and bigger brothers ie: Audi coupe 2.0 8v 2.0 16v a4 1.9 tdi 130 Golf mk4 gti 2.0 115(what's that engine about???)

Engine not very tuneable, turbo models overshadow it.just over £700 to gain 19bhp.No remote central locking. Optional from new or must upgrade elsewhere.Expensive Audi servicing.always looked down on by turbo model.

I owned an Audi A3 1.8 sport for over a year. The car has 25bhp less than the turbo version to this engine,and is around 2 seconds slower to 60 and aound 10mph slower top speed.So that's a big diference.It is also down to the driver, but the 1.8 t 150 is just simply a faster car. This didn't stop me from proving that I couldn't make mine as fast. I started modifying the look of my A3. To start with, I put a RS front bumper,sideskirts,colour coded the rear bumper ,RS rear spoiler,18inch black alloys,lowered 35mm,tints,RS3 badges. This then attracted everyone to try and race me.Wether I pulled up behind them and they looked in their mirror and saw some Audi RS and didn't know what it was, so had to get away from it as quickly as possible.(Do people try that with RS4s or RS6s?) It never mattered their age, or what car they had. Boyracer, business man, famliy man ,old man, women. So I started tryin to get more bhp and acceleration from my A3. I got the car superchiped,got a full powerflow exhaust system with decat pipe. Replaced the paper airfilter with a pipercross one. Upgraded the sparkplugs and sparkleads. Replaced the car with Mobil 1 oil, and used only bp Optimax or other hi octaine fuels. The car was much faster and tested 144bhp on the rolling road. Considering how much I spent to gain that bhp compared to if I had a turbo model I would have gained 5 to 6 times that bhp.But when you have kitted up a car so much you don't think about that.I could embarrass a few cars now and even the 150bhp model couldn't really show me up. I would stick right next to one. The modifications made a huge diference especially with acceleration. The car had no flat spots anymore and would rev more freely and felt stronger. It's a shame this engine can't be remaped instead of just superchiped, then you could gain more bhp.I wouldn't suggest that you buy a 1.8 sport non turbo and try tuning it up like I did unless you were in the position that I was in and had the looks and wanted some performance to match. You are better off buying the 1.8 t model as its even better to start with in terms of performance. If you wanted to gain more bhp, for £300 you can get a remap and see180-190bhp depending on the year of th A3. The 1.8 sport does its job,it's not fast,but it isn't slow - and on a motorway its brilliant even with standard 125bhp.