VW Golf R v Audi S3 - review & 0-60mph, 1/4-mile and brake comparison!

which is best the new volkswagen golf r or the new audi s3 well in this video we're going to find out i'm going to talk you through their exterior design show you their interiors compare their practicality try out their tech take them for a who around our track and of course launch them to see which is quickest from naught to 60 miles an hour it's going to be vanda buying a new car then head to car wow and my team will help you find your next car at a fair price car wow your one one-stop car buying comparison site let's start off this comparison by comparing the cars prices and this is going to surprise you you see in the first time in history i think the audi s3 is actually less expensive than the gold fight starts at just under 38 000 pounds whereas this golf starts at just over 39 000 pounds that's based on list price though you see the average car wow discount on a golf r is about 3 700 pounds whereas on the s3 it's 2 700 pounds so grand more off on the golf so it all comes out in the wash they're pretty much the same price when you're buying through a car white trusted dealer so it's not really helping with the comparison is it let's move on looks like we're starting off with a level playing field so we're going to try and differentiate these cars starting with their design here at the front i know this is a subjective thing but really the audi is the better looking car it's a fact because the new mark 8 golf just has that kind of like mono brow like migraine look to it's just like oh i've got banging headache where's that just looks cooler it's true it does don't care what you say stop commenting it's better it's a different story around the back prefer the flatter square shape of the golf's arse rather than the more voluptuous rear end of the audi as i can't forgive our do for these fakey venti bits either here from the side though it's the audi that looks the best it's just got a bit more going on seems posh whereas the golf is a touch ordinary and so overall i think the audi s3 is the better looking of the two cars the audi definitely feels the most luxurious here on the inside as well just the materials the fact you've got leather seats as standard they're really nice actually these sport seats the steering wheel feels expensive as well the design is just more interesting more modern feeling i like the huge screens that you get really really crisp display for the digital dials and thank god normal buttons for the climate control just so much easier to use than some fiddly touchscreen or what have you it's a nice car to sit in this there is only one thing that i find a bit odd i don't know why they did it it's this odd stitching in the dash there like someone like vandalized it and then i went a bit so that up quickly the journalists will never know inside the golf art isn't horrible but it feels like a car from the class below and that's no more evident than in the seats look at these seats compared to the ones in the aod and the material it's like out some budget car not something that costs like almost 40 grand then there's materials which are a bit [Music] a little bit cheaper feeling not terrible but just not as nice as in the audi steering wheel is the same really it's nice enough but it just has that kind of like cheapy feel to it and plastic bits on it i'm not sure what they're doing here with these big gear selector pedals they sort of remind me of batman's wings or maybe one of his tools or something he'd whip that off and throw it at somebody another thing i'm not too keen on is the way you have to control like the volume of the slider switch and the temperature with these slider switches here go away and now i've got the blooming fan blowing away how do i stop that now stop it oh just makes you want to punch it the screens are sharp but the graphics are just more childish than in the audi you can cycle through different views in fact there's more than in the od but i do hate the way you use these touch sensitive buttons on the steering wheel they're also annoying as hell there's lots of blue ambient lighting though which is quite nice as though you left the bluetooth on your stereo or something like that it's just glowing away in the background definitely prefer the interior of the audi here in the back of the golf r the box is square shape means good head room good knee room you've also got a big back window which gives you a good view out you don't get such a good view forward because of these seat backs the way you've got the integrated headrest and check this out i mean how cheap is that bit of plastic there to be fair i just cheaped out a little bit with the materials here in the back of the s3 as well look scratchy scratchy wasn't like that in the previous s3 in fact i think that all vw group cars now are a little less quality feeling than their predecessors i'm not sure if that's to do with the fact that they've had to pay such huge fines for dieselgate or because they're investing so much in electric car technology as well they're having to cut some costs somewhere anyway that's the only bit that feels cheap in the back of here these leather seats are lovely much nicer than the ones in the back of the golf and even though you also have integrated hairdressers like in the golf r they're just a bit narrower so you do get a better view out which is a good job because the rear window isn't so big and it just seems a little bit more claustrophobic in here than in the back of the golf but still look headlines fine mirroring's fine well the s3's passenger space is identical to the normal a3s there is a compromise when it comes to the boot you see because of the all-wheel drive system the rear differential or something the boot capacity is 65 liters less than the standard car at 325 liters when you do lift up at the fourth floor you're greeted to that and even any carpet thought this was an audi maybe that's the um dieselgate fines taking the toll again the golf r's boot is also slightly smaller than the standard cars but i only buy seven liters at 374 liters so it's a bit more practical underneath here it seems to have a similar amount of space to the tree so i don't know where the extra liters in the golf are well it does have that the audi doesn't have carpet they bothered to carpet this one thank you volkswagen like that the way that stays at what that the idea is that feature too both cars also have the same all-wheel drive system which apparently can send a hundred percent of the power to the rear wheels like that as soon as the fronts start to lose traction however while they both also have a front electronically controlled limited slip differential the golf goes one better by having one at the rear and it can talk vector to send power to the rear wheel with the most grip you can even get this car with a drift mode if you pay volkswagen extra two thousand pounds for the performance pack which also includes some slightly larger wheels by one inch so 19s instead of these 18s and a special nurburgring mode for the stability control and stuff for going as quick as you can around the norwich life it's useful the out is also a little bit lacking in the old brakes department you see it has 340 millimeter disc whereas the golf has 370 millimeter front disc so this caliper there it's only got one piston in it and the golf has two though i'm not sure that's gonna affect the braking performance when i do the brake test in a bit because don't forget this car has larger wheels with a slightly larger contact patch because of its bigger tyres now let's talk about engines because once again it's the same but ever so slightly different so to get into the point of the golf oh you have to use your own muscle power to lift the bonnet up right with the audi look at this much posh up got gastro and look red bits on the engine cover wonderful but it doesn't really matter when you realize they both have two liter capacity four cylinder single turbo each but this engine puts out 310 horsepower and 400 newton meters of torque whereas this one puts out 320 horsepower and 420 newton meters of torque in terms of weight 1551 kilograms 1575 kilograms how will that affect their acceleration or we're going to find out because i'm going to launch them i'm going to launch the audi what are you going to do there's a weird gear change what do we get note 16 4.5 seconds it's not too bad all right now i'm going to compare the braking performance from 70 miles an hour i'm going to do a full emergency stop here we go press so hard actually hurt the soles of my feet let's see what we did it stopped in just 43 meters that's really good okay let's see what this audi s3 is like to drive i've got in sports mode and i'm changing gears myself though if i rev it i'm in manual mode sure did it no it's just off the red line but it won't let me it automatically changes up you can't hit the limiter and take full control gear shifts are pretty rapid though down or up and this car feels really short-footed so you can drive this thing extremely quickly s3s of old always had like a slightly wooden inner feeling to them a bit boring you didn't feel much from them whereas this is much better and it doesn't have grip and hook up it is impressive how this thing handles they've got it well sorted any idiot can drive this car quickly but it doesn't mean it's not fun and the engine is strong yeah if you're just cruising around it can give decent economy the long-term economy on this guy is like 33 miles per gallon that's all right that is now about the kind sports mode so it adds weight to the steering sharpness throttle response makes the gearbox a little bit more kind of racy i can put it into comfort mode which slackens things off what this card doesn't have though is adaptive dampers so you can only have adapted dampers on the s3 if you go for the range topping for spring mode then it's 44 000 pounds to be fair the suspension is fairly decent in this yes it's lower and stiffer than normal a3 so it's not as comfy but for a sporty edged car it's not horrendous you know you hit a pothole or something like around town you will get a bit of a jolt over speed times it's fine and over imperfections it's not too fidgety and the steering it's got that good balance between lightness and hefty going quicker it's a very well sorted car it's less in your face as a hot hatch and the ambience of the cabin and general comfort that you get from in terms of the sound proofing just makes you forget that it's actually a performance car until of course you put your foot down and then off you go it is an impressive package of this a lot of motoring journalists are going well it's a boring hot hatch you know it's only good in a straight line do you know what howdy knows what it's doing and it knows the kind of audience that this car has people who want to be sat in something that feels premium that's comfortable that has the right badge on the grill yeah when you want to you plant your right foot and it gives you all the performance you need legally i mean sure you lift off mid corner it's not going to adjust its line like something like a ford focus st or a renault sport megane but this is a different car someone who's going oh she'll have a ford focus st probably isn't going to be looking at an audi s3 more like the other way around someone who's afraid s3 isn't going oh she'll have a ford focus sd because when they brought it home to their partner they'd be like what have we got a ford what's happened okay now i've jumped into the golf so the first thing i notice is that it feels less sporty on the inside better visibility but less cocoon less special more blue another thing i notice is that it's slightly noisier uses the same tyres bridgestone pretenses this one's actually riding on 18-inch alloy worlds whereas the audi was 19s yet this has more road noise you get better insulation in the audi however the golf fights back with the fact that it is actually more comfortable so over bumps it's dealing with them just a little bit better part of the reason for that will be the fact that it's got 18 inches instead of 19-inch alloys so more tire sidewall but also because this car is fitted with the optional adaptive dampers which you can add to the goal for around 800 pounds you'd have to go all the way up to the most expensive model and it does help i mean comfort mode and it's really good you would have no idea you were sat in the sporty model if it wasn't for all the blue so for cruising around impressive gearbox that's quite relaxed only occasionally does it sometimes clunk but it's the same gearbox that you get in the audis so that'll do the same thing anyway as for the economy getting like 27 miles per gallon which is less than the od even though it should be about the same because basically the same engine so i'm going to put it into sports mode i'm going to press the alt button on the steering wheel going to r we're in r do you know what it feels a little bit more hot hatchy a bit more maybe immature than the aud it still feels totally planted when you go around corners but then when you accelerate out of them that's noticeable when you floor it you can feel that rear diff doing its thing driving the car through the turn just seems a little bit more playful a little bit more fun this the audi is fine it does the job but you just feel more connected to this audi is supposed to be the premium sporting brand but i'm telling you i prefer this golf r and if you want to go on a track date i'd rather be in this more agile more responsive they're really that's your thing you might find something like mercedes mga45s even more fun although unfortunately even more expensive guys do you want to see my full in-depth video review of that car put a link up there click on that you can go watch that video it's even better than the last one i quite like the last golf r still had like a slightly neutral edge to it but this one just feels more crazy we've got the dynamics more aggressive this time mr watson i hope you're enjoying the gold files as we have created for all the monitoring journalists and the engineers together it's just the coffee wanted anyway let's launch it now like with the audi to launch golfer you need to have the stability in sports mode especially in time i'm in gear all ready to go i'm ready to go launch time 4.5 to be that hooked up better than the audi and change gear better oh my god i don't know what to say 4.05 seconds to 60. that is incredible that is utterly nuts well destroyed the audi there well the ad was sort of struggling for traction and short shifting this just hooked and just revved out wow that's what it's like at breaking finally then do a break test once again from 70 miles an hour let's see the golf can be the s3 here as well right stop that what did it do in i can't see 45 meters ah almost so the golf goes better the audi stops better so then what's my final verdict well in an ideal world i'd have an audi s3 that drove like a volkswagen golf r they could actually make that possible but they don't for some reason and because they don't and i'm a car journalist and i'm into how cars drive i would go with the golf r because it's just that little bit more fun and that's white wins this test i hope you all enjoyed the video if you did please give it a like if you want to watch some more videos which i've carefully chosen for you to watch click on the windows there i'll point but then i have to fall on the floor uh oh and if click on the box there you can go to car white so much you can save on a new car i don't want to do this

Channel: carwow

Views: 852,143

Rating: 4.920464 out of 5

Keywords: carwow, mat watson, car review, car review 2021, new car review, volkswagen, vw, volkswagon golf, vw golf, volkswagen golf r, vw golf r, golf r, mk8 golf r, golf r mk8, vw golf r review, volkswagen golf r review, golf r review, new golf r, new audi, new audi s3, audi s3, audi s3 review, audi s3 review 2021, volkswagen golf r review 2021, golf r 2021, audi s3 2021, best hot hatch, best hot hatch 2021, best hatchback, best hot hatchback 2021, hot hatchback group test

Id: sfqRshK7z3k

Length: 15min 58sec (958 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 07 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/brnvictim]

This thumbnail makes it look like it's for 12 year olds

[u/renawld]

Damn that Golf is FAST. Looks are definitely growing on me too; maybe because that S3 has an abundance of fake vents?

[u/ArkiTechMK]

Honestly, the more I see it, the more I feel like the performance upgrade isn't worth the interior downgrade from the Mk7. It's not just the infotainment either - those seats look worse than the cloth seats found in the Mk6 GTI...

[u/V12MPG]

I don’t want to touch that play button.

[u/YesIamaDinosaur]

I wonder if the S3 is detuned in comparison to the R, where an aftermarket tune will equal them out.

That R is seriously quick stock. God damn

[u/ygguana]

Drift mode you say? Fun! In the absence of a new RS in the US, and the WRX hatch nowhere to be found, the R is the last AWD hot hatch. Looks like the R would be a good option for someone looking for something RS-like. Hopefully they bring the manual to the US!

[u/stogie_t]

Golf R is all the rage in my country RSA. People would sooner buy one than a house or other important things. Not my favourite but I can see why so many love it.