2023 Audi RS3 Review // Trick And Treat

ah Autumn descends upon the deciduous forests of Southern Canada the abundance of colorful leaves might just attract the fabled car enthusiasts and there they are shy of six feet and under 200 pounds they're barely and something has their attention it appears to be the new Audi RS3 a car that would usually fill them with murderous desire but they know that Canada doesn't get the new RS3 so it cannot be doubt fills the air and tensions remain low [Music] short of proof it's likely they'll move on [Music] oh [Music] it has come to stick but alas wits prevail foreign and I'm James and this is the new Audi RS3 and we're in Canada and that's weird because Canada doesn't get the new RS3 but thanks to unitronic a performance software and Hardware manufacturer based out of Montreal we have their development car for a brief Canadian visit and before they slap it full of shiny new parts into tune they were nice enough to drive it down so we can test it out and since we don't get this car up in maple syrup land it's a bit of a tease so here's hoping that we don't like it [Applause] we do car reviews track tests and quite a lot of messing about so subscribe hit the Bell [Music] okay now the RS3 little pocket rocket little gun from Men In Black launch Patrol hey cricket doesn't smash your head back into the seats but once it gets on it that's some serious power 401 horsepower now that's a seven horsepower bump from last year and 369 pound-feet of torque which is a 15 pound foot bump of torque they've just tweaked it same engine just tweaked but all of that combined is enough for this to have just hit a 3.7 second naught to 60. Audi clean 3.6 that's pretty close and we consistently within 100th of a second today hit 3.7 on a 13 degree sunny autumn day in Ontario that's what the new Audi RS3 can do it is quick and by the way the A3 give or take a few horsepower gets 200 horsepower the S3 gets 300 horsepower and the RS3 gets give or take 400 horsepower the difference is those two get puny little four-cylinder engines and if you haven't been living under a rock you'll know that this gets the only new inline five cylinder engine on the market so it's got tones it's got volume this has got the sport exhaust as well the five cylinder creates an unmistakable tone you know sometimes we'll be reviewing a car and you'll hear us say yeah the four cylinder sounds like a four cylinder you know or a six cylinder yeah like it's got that sort of V6 note to it people get excited about the five cylinder because not only does it feel like there's multiple notes happening at the same time [Music] there's a baritone to it paired with a seven-speed transmission not only is it sonorous but it's fully in your control it is a musical instrument but at your fingertips just behaves because as Rowdy as this is It's Your Rowdy thing downshifts are great upshifts it but the shifts are aggressive there is a joy and an animatedness to this it makes me wonder what this would be like if it was naturally aspirated and given the chance to really let out its pipes but put your foot down and suddenly you are grateful for the turbochargers again because I mean even something like an m340i doesn't touch this on node to 60 and that is a fast car Thomas and I often use the n340i as the measure of speed at the 60 70 000 range but maybe we should be using the RS3 God it sounds good [Music] it is a little rocket but that was never the rs3's problem it was already one of the best sounding cars on the road that moved really quickly what we're more interested in is until you get to the six figure range normally cars that are very good at something fall down somewhere else there's something you have to forgive Mazda MX-5 terrible practicality so much fun you forgive it the Ford Bronco awful Highway noise and terrible fuel economy so good at Bronco things so you forgive it an English man walking towards the camera while talking to you and making cliched hand movements you forgive him because the trees are so beautiful so where does the RS3 fall down what's its thing that we have to forgive [Music] basically the RS3 has always been great until you hit a corner then it just feels like a golf and this one is exactly the same as that except now the golf in question is the new golf r which handles fantastically and that's because both this and the Golf R have that new trick differential in the rear and what that does is that even though only 50 of the torque can go to the rear axle a hundred percent of that torque can be forced to one of the rear wheels as the computer sees fit and that can kind of push the rear out of line and make the car drift in fact the Golf R has a drift mode in this it isn't called Drift mode it's called torque rear which does kind of the same stuff that the drift mode does it's not a very exciting name though is it but I feel if I asked an Audi engineer why it's called torque mirror he would say to me like let's talk to severe I don't see what the problem is see so I select torque rear I push that and then I have to activate it even though it's not meant for public roads and it kind of does the same drift mode stuff that the Golf R does but it's different it almost feels like it's tightening the line for me even in Long sweeping Corners not Corners where I want to drift it's almost like it turns more than I requested with the steering wheel like it's trying to initiate a drift but it does if you'll really get on it in the corner push the rear of the line and do a little skid thank you the RS3 never used to do that this car's always been full of tricks to get around the fact that it fundamentally understeers and this still has the staggered setup Tire where it's literally wider tires in the front than it is in the rear I will say though that all of these things together now do work and there really isn't much understeer this is now a more engaging car on the front end feels doesn't feel like a BMW but it definitely feels better than it did the steering though is still very very Audi you're going to get a lot of load in the tires to actually feel anything in the steering otherwise it's kind of numb but very Audi precise and I'm in the performance mode now so not the drift torque rear mode just everything in the sportiest setting but I can turn all of that off put it into Comfort mode and this calms down into pretty much just to golf the exhaust is quiet the ride is good steering its light an easy car to drive except it's not completely like the golf in a few very crucial areas okay okay so now wait oh yeah RS3 how I love it cheesy no it's so good okay it's cheesy but I love it yeah there's a certain level of theater yeah you're spending 60 Grand yeah that you want of course I would take that over the Mercedes emblem that glows from Factory any day I would take diphtheria over a Mercedes badge awful um but that thing you know for Audi to do that there must have been high at the office someone being like we should have fun with this they're like whoa yeah yeah yeah this whoa yeah this this is not the Volkswagen office you are that's actually not a bad idea yeah this is this coming from the same brand that refused to put a drift mode in the RS what six the RS6 when when when BMW did it when Mercedes did they were like we're not doing that we want yeah it's all about that yeah I think you said they must be fun at parties yeah what's your exact question and then they come out with that well maybe the RS3 team's different and they are fun at parties I guess they are and they've got a fun Sports everybody wants to jam out with the RS3 team exactly this is what I'm picturing the Audi offices and I think that's why it's got such an appeal such a wide appeal like we were discussing this off camera this is possibly the most Crush shop thing ever someone from a 911 is going for something a bit more practical yes I saw a thread a guy with a RAV4 Prime was upset that he didn't consider this someone from a cave is that just because the RAV4 Prime is marked up a lot of people are overpaying yes this is only tens of dollars more than a RAV4 Prime well this is probably getting more it's gonna get marked up in the states as well yeah but yeah I think it is crashed up with everything everything someone who has a Civic Type R that wants to grow up a little bit although with that RS3 now yeah and it's so unique as a result and it's so unique because of the inline five it's listen it's a really special car and dare I say after driving it and the whole thing worth the money assuming you can get it for that price but you probably can't it's come it's come a short way from the previous RS3 in the best way It suffers from missing bumper syndrome the same the same as the uh the Elantra end where is it it's it's just well this has got the black Optics there's a few little packages you can get for this car and they're all a bit cosmetic for the most part so this has the black Optics package so it turns the the Rings black the badge black the roof black and the I think the wing mirror house is about the wheels go black um but that they've they haven't gone for the carbon fiber package on this one which turns a lot of stuff comp fiber as well that's expensive and there's also like a 5500 package that gets you ceramic brakes in the front sport Brakes in the back and 180 mile an hour top speed do you need that like unless you live in Germany and you have an Autobahn that's an easy 5500 to save I think yeah yeah but this is spec in uh Kimora Gray the way I remember it is it's the the Marvel Gamora it's Kimora but that would be green no that's gorillami green gourami green which they have for this car which is actually Kyle it's just the characters to me now right yeah but you can also get in like python yellow Tango red this is almost a subdued color for this car but I think it works very well you can get this in Breakers listen I want to say that I think this is a good looking car but I actually like the previous gen better I think no I I I so okay I get that the previous gem is more of a sleeper it didn't look that different to an S3 and you were like whoa that's cool how did that just do that at the light yeah this has gone muscular I I kind of like it that's what it's got 1.3 inch wider track than the previous gen whoa and compared to the S3 it sits just under half an inch lower yeah compared to an A3 it's almost a I think it's a full inch lower see I I had to check again because I sent it on camera but I had to check yeah that the tires in the front are actually wider than the 265s versus 245. they've done everything they could to get rid of understeer and you know like they have for the most part right it's weird though it's almost like an admission that fundamentally the car is flawed yeah I know yeah yeah it's just constant Band-Aids this car is just covered in Band-Aids basically but and that's an expensive Band-Aid for 60 000 starting I mean if you wrap a wound for long enough it will heal right the biggest issue the R3 had in my mind beyond the understeer which for daily driving wasn't a deal breaker right it was that that money it still looked like a base A3 inside and on the previous generation that meant it was very simple and I think it's come a long way now let's take a look okay okay looks like a modern art gallery yeah well so we briefly touched on the S3 when we did the drag race against the m240i and the golf yes and it's basically the same I think these seats are a little bit more bolstered they say RS on them they say RS the wheel says RS on it and it's fully perforated everywhere um but this is really nice and and like it's really nice for a couple reasons one this is the the absolute correct use of a touch screen in a car it's not too lent on the touch screen it's not like annoying to use it's a very simple interface and it gives you a double click is this what you mean by integration this is what I mean it's built in it doesn't look like an iPad start to the dash and I still have physical buttons for all the relevant stuff right fan down up it's easy yeah right and they click they click no I know it's very easy to go on with um but the proportion still upset me because there is a hatch of this and it exists oh like a hatch would be so much better honestly like Canadians are worse off because we don't get it at all yeah but like the rear seats same as the S3 I have one fingers width of Headroom and Harrison who's six foot six does not fit this doesn't fit period right it's dumb it's just done why not make it a I don't know steering wheel is great I love the click of the paddle shifters tactile is the word we use a lot tactile no it's honestly good the seats are comfortable it's it's got a little stubby shifter again yeah that seems to be I have a feeling that so here's my theory okay here it comes all the big shifters yep you know you go home and you put your hand around your shifter and you feel a little bit underwhelmed right this makes people men feel like kings right I think that's what's going on here later on you're like whoa alternatively alternatively because obviously anyone could buy this car yes the ladies go home and they're gentlemen feel like kids the king there is something going on over in Germany yeah that's right yeah so someone's feeling a little bit insecure changing the narrative yeah so if that's what the selfie shifter achieves this is all you need yeah Size Doesn't Matter when it comes to shifters James um okay I don't have much more to say about this other than the fact that I think they've done an excellent job combining design with functionality like the design of these handles they're at a perfect angle for your fingers they're really easy to use in there in an obvious spot but they look really cool right everything is integrated in a logical way but also looks great this is I think a master class in modern German car interior obviously it gets nicer than this but I think that material that's what the RS3 represents it's the beginning of everything like you can't complain about anything The Bangles and systems good yeah you can rock out to music you can drive fast you can carve a cannon you can take the whole family yeah it looks pretty good doing it it makes a great sound doing it and yeah I mean and you pay for it and you pay for it but well so much money I'm sure there's markup but yeah starting at 60 000 us considering the Golf R in the states is like 44 and a half or 45 Grand US go for Mexico yeah this is a 15 000 premium wanna go far yep um and I guess it like it's true competitor would be the cla-45 which is another front wheel drive based 4matic thing where's my volume knob I just realized I was about to say it's perfect it only ever use this okay fine having owned an Audi that is all you ever use okay fine it's a knob it's yeah as long as you can like physically move it yes there's one down here too yeah that's a bit like an iPad original iPod yeah but yeah should we do a conclusion yeah okay foreign RS3 more capable and better than it's ever been if your hunger for an automatic all-wheel drive tactile button-filled stubby sedan with five cylinders remains High it should probably remain top of your list seeing as it's the only one and until you add a unitronic at home flash tune before you can get your hands on some of their parts to make your RS3 or any other VW or Audi product have more Zing then you'll just have to be content with 3.7 seconds to 60 and the stock Bellow of a spicy five cylinder not too shabby thanks for watching 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Channel: Throttle House

Views: 1,306,153

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Id: jvHEn4Q7ONk

Length: 18min 48sec (1128 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 23 2022