Cars Price 2015

Audi Q3 2.0 TDI 177 SE quattro

Background

The Range Rover Evoque may be this year’s most wanted premium SUV, but given the production delays that have hit it recently, one or two deposit holders could be forgiven for sizing up the alternatives. And now’s our chance to assess the chief among them: Audi’s new compact 4x4, the Q3.
The Q3 has a few questions to answer. Can Audi successfully imbue a relatively small, cheap SUV with the substance and luxuriousness that characterise the Q5 and Q7? Does a Q3 offer a meaningful improvement in practicality or capability over a lower, more conventional family option? And will its outsourced production make it any less convincing as a premium-brand German model?
In effect, fellow VW Group brand Seat has been making Audis since the A4-derived Exeo was launched in 2008. But the Exeo is a Seat. The Q3, on the other hand, wears Audi badging – but, like the Exeo, it’s made at Seat’s Martorell factory near Barcelona.
In today’s truly global car industry, that should be no reason for anyone to raise a dismissive eyebrow, but German luxury car fans just might.

Design
 
More crossover than traditional SUV, the Q3 is a chip off the Q7’s old block as far as styling is concerned. It’s fairly squat at the kerb – for a 4x4, at any rate. And although the Q3 still has plenty of visual presence, the added heft of this family 4x4 is disguised by the understated Teutonic lines of Audi’s current design lexicon. So the car appears unexpectedly small. It lacks a little impact next to a certain new Range Rover but, in reality, it’s intended for an entirely different customer, one who’ll appreciate its quietly handsome aesthetic because it’s so smart and discreet.

The Q3’s gently sloping D-pillars and tailgate are among its most interesting visual features and will appeal to those repelled by the idea of a boxy 4x4. Like Audi’s bigger SUVs, the car’s hatch is a wraparound closure with wide, undivided tail-lamps that – provided you go for S-line trim or tick the right option box on your SE-spec car – are lit by LEDs.

In its mechanical layout, however, the Q3 has more in common with a regular five-door hatchback. There’s no six-cylinder longways engine or Torsen-based quattro four-wheel drive system here. Instead, a four-cylinder engine is mounted transversely, with gearbox in line and the latest Haldex front-biased four-wheel drive system attached. Entry-level front-drive models will be available in the UK from December.
Suspension is via MacPherson struts up front and a multi-link set-up at the rear. Both are attached to the Q3’s body-in-white by subframes, rigidly mounted at the front and rubber bushed at the rear. Although its off-road capabilities are limited (there’s 170mm of ground clearance, or just 150mm if you have S-line sports suspension), the Q3 seems optimised for everyday use on the road.
A three-level crash structure at the front includes a lower tier of deformable metal designed to match the crumple zone of a lower vehicle and therefore prevent overriding in a head-on crash. The car also has the lowest coefficient of aerodynamic drag in its class, at just 0.32.

On the road

Four-cylinder diesel engines may have become the workhorses in most mainstream model ranges, but there’s nothing workmanlike about the way the best of the breed function. This 174bhp 2.0-litre unit can count itself among that company. With 280lb ft of torque on tap from 1750rpm, the motor is content to punt along in the low rev range that its economy-tuned standard dual-clutch transmission deems applicable to most situations. Gear ratios often come and go imperceptibly, and while there’s a voluble rattle at re-ignition from the automatic stop-start, the engine generally fades into the well-refined background.

Demand considerably more pace from it and the powerplant responds with quick-fire bursts of convincing thrust. Its maximum output is exhausted by 4200rpm, but with a free-revving character and seven ratios to get through, energetic headway is not difficult to access. The automatic gearbox can be slotted back into its accustomed ‘S’ mode for such moments or you can opt to shift for yourself via the wheel-mounted paddles. The dual-clutch ’box has a habit of holding on to gears a little more belligerently than is often required, but its performance bias is useful at roundabouts, where the standard ‘D’ mode has a tendency to leave the car in too high a gear for the usual positioning cut and thrust.

That’s a minor quibble. A more substantial one can be levelled at the new Efficiency mode, which, when selected, disengages the clutch each time the driver lifts off the throttle to preserve fuel by allowing the car to coast unencumbered by engine braking. It’s a good idea, and in practice others, including Volkswagen, have made it work well enough, but Audi has failed to perfect the system in the Q3. Because it’s not an automatic feature (that’s a clue to its failings), it only occurs to you to select it on the motorway, but as the revs fall away so, promptly, does the speed, meaning that power must quickly be reapplied – not so easy when the clutch takes several seconds to re-engage. That process makes for an ugly cadence to an otherwise seamless powertrain and, unsurprisingly, makes the Efficiency setting largely redundant.

The Q3 drives more like a conventional hatchback than a mud-plugging SUV. Excellent body control and rigidity ensure that the penalty for the car’s high-sided nature is minimal, and it responds with obliging agility to most demands made of it.

For customers coming to the Q3 from smaller, lighter cars – a significant proportion, according to Audi – the resemblance will likely be welcome. Anyone expecting a capability to venture far from the road will be less happy. However, the Haldex four-wheel drive should be sufficient to help you through any gentle winter flurries and over the occasional grassy slope.

Arguably more important than the ‘quattro’ badge are Audi’s optional Drive Select system and the adaptive dampers, which should be thought of as must-have items. Drive Select allows the driver to choose between Auto, Comfort, Dynamic and Efficiency modes, which adjust the throttle response, transmission, steering and suspension settings. In its default Auto mode, the Q3 will surf its firm set-up in reasonably contented fashion, but most UK buyers will want to invest in the system (and uprated dampers) to access Comfort, which further dulls the sharp edges of abrasive local roads.

Even so equipped, the car is not class-leading in its ride quality. While it refuses to crash over suspect surfacing, the Q3 can struggle to completely settle without gently relaying every foible its tyres find to the driver. It’s a distraction the driver could do without as he or she is likely to be busy negotiating the fog of uncertainty that characterises the car’s steering.

Misjudged inputs and unintelligible feedback are unwanted repercussions of the brisk progress that the Q3 is otherwise quite capable of.


Living

Fit and finish have long been Audi strengths, but the firm has added an impressively fine-tuned sense of aesthetics to its interiors in recent years. The Q3 typifies its effort to meld function and premium feel in a clean-cut, purposeful environment.

The dashboard is set high and bulges indulgently towards the occupants. Soft-touch trim and brushed buttons feature throughout much of the handsome matt black centre console. In daylight, it’s all pleasantly appealing, but at night the peerless use of subdued LED spotlighting bathes the cabin in a mesmerising glow.
There are missteps – the clickable climate controls are not gratifying to use, for example – but most are so immaterial that they serve only to highlight what a first-rate effort the overall effect is.

You sit high, with a traditional SUV vantage point, and the car feels sufficiently compact to pass as an overgrown A1 rather than A3. Nevertheless, up front, the overall impression is one of satisfyingly snug surroundings rather than an unnecessarily cramped cabin.

That perception alters in the rear. Moderate-sized adults should be able to fold themselves into the allotted space adequately enough, but tall passengers might feel short-changed by both the legroom and the lack of headroom caused by an even-lower-than-it-looks rear roofline.

However, young, affluent families are a natural target and parents may conclude that, with good access, there’s an appropriate amount of room for little ones. They’re likely to be content with 460 litres of boot space, too. Tip the rear seats forward and there’s 1365 litres – 250 more than in an A3 Sportback.

An entry point on the right side of £25k makes the Q3 seem like excellent value. But it’s less well priced when you look at what BMW asks for an X1, which can be landed with four driven wheels and a diesel engine for less than £26k, compared with this Q3’s £28,460. The Q3 is also a slightly less capable and appealing vehicle if you can’t afford the right options. You don’t even get cruise control as standard equipment, for instance.

Fuel efficiency proved good, if not quite class-leading; 45.7mpg is a good result for any SUV on our touring economy test, but not as good as the 52mpg we recorded in an X1.

Verdict

The compact SUV market seems ready-made for Audi’s covetable brand. The trend-conscious customer base is likely to prove highly receptive to the super-slick product positioning that has become a cornerstone of Audi’s success.
The well-honed Q3 effortlessly perpetuates a seamless experience of attainable upmarket packaging. But, separated from its aspirational starch, the new model is commendably competent rather than seriously impressive. Objectively, it earns few significant demerits, but there is a familiar sterility to the way the Q3 drives and that denies it a more generous score.
That it refuses to sparkle under a dynamic spotlight will hardly matter to most of its intended buyers, though. For better or for worse, desirability now comes vacuum-packed as standard with the LED lights, business-class interior and four-ringed badge.