2025 Audi A3 review

I distinctly remember the first A3. A Golf MkIV in drag before the MkIV was even available, it’s getting on 30 years ago when this three-door premium hatchback was born. The five-door followed later, and it wasn’t until about 10 years ago we got the first A3 sedan.

For 2025 and beyond, we have a mild refresh on our hands. This fourth-generation A3 initially launched in 2020, taking almost two years to reach our shores because of the various COVID-related challenges of the time.

Some tweaks to the styling could easily be decried as lazy, but Audi has always been one for slow evolution, and I don’t think many owners have complained about having a handsome if slightly safe-looking car. I’ll direct your attention to the broad criticism of BMW design over the last two decades.

There’s probably a little too much fussiness in the 2025 Audi A3’s new nose for my liking, with complex lighting graphics and a still-bulging grille that looks like it’s trying to contain a faulty laptop battery, but that’s partly to do with the now-standard S Line styling package. That S Line package also unlocks the 'Black Pack', which 80 per cent of buyers wanted in the old car but couldn’t have in the 35 TFSI.

Inside is more obviously different. Racy-looking heated sports front seats with integrated headrests and some new materials open the bidding and they’re terrific. For some reason only the driver’s front seat is electrically adjustable, but both are heated. Upholstery is a mix of grippy fabric and fake leather (it’s fine). If you fancy full fake leather, it’s an $1100 option.

There are also newly designed vents, a sleeker transmission selector, a larger 12.3-inch digital dash, tri-zone climate control, wireless phone charging, four more speakers to take the total to 10 and new lighting. It looks good in Audi’s tech-heavy tradition.

The rest of the specification is pretty much as before, with 18-inch alloys, auto headlights, 10.1-inch MMI system with Apple CarPlay, Android Auto (both wireless) and DAB+ as well as in-built sat nav. If you use Apple Maps on your A3, the navigation directions will also appear in the dash, which is nice. Or would be if Apple Maps wasn’t relatively terrible.

A comprehensive set of driver assists include forward AEB with intersection assist, adaptive cruise with stop-go, lane-keep assist, lane-centring assist, blind-spot monitoring, reverse cross-traffic alert, front and rear parking sensors, reversing camera and automated parking. It is missing rear AEB, which really should be standard at this level, but at least you’ll know there’s something coming even if the car won’t stop you. Around-view cameras will appear a bit later as the cars with that feature are just now under construction.

The six-airbag set-up has been retained, severely endangering a five-star safety rating under the current rules; however, its 2021 rating is retained for the time being.

Audi ConnectPlus comes free for three years, which offers all sorts of live info such as parking spaces and petrol prices, voice commands to find restaurants or conveniences and weather at your destination. You can also download the MyAudi app and use it to find your car, operate the locks and other fun features to scare the person you’ve lent the car to.

Prices have gone substantially north for the A3. I say prices, but there’s just the one specification in two body styles available at launch, the 35 TFSI Sportback and Sedan. The Sportback is up by $4200 to $54,800 and the Sedan $4700 to $57,800.

All up, Audi says the new A3 has $10,000 of additional value over the previous spec, with the price rises covering about 40 per cent of that notional extra value.

Audi Australia is adopting a wait-and-see approach for other variants. The 40 TFSI Quattro price got dangerously close to the S3’s so the discretion/valour calculus was made and the would-be mid-spec was left on the dock. It remains under consideration, but it’s more likely that we’ll see a plug-in hybrid if we see anything else at all. The RS3 will be here later in the year, perhaps Q4 all going well.

Metallic paint is a $1350 option with just one freebie, Arkona White. Ascari Blue is even more at $1850, and all told you have nine colours to choose from.

The $2000 Style Package adds more blacked-out exterior parts including mirrors, privacy glass and coloured ambient interior lighting. The 18-inch alloys are a slightly different design too. This is bound to be popular going by past experience, but it seems pricey to me.

For the A3, the driveline is identical to what went before. The 1.5-litre four drums up 110kW between 5000 and 6000rpm and a very handy 250Nm between 1500 and 3500rpm. The mild-hybrid system offers a little extra punch through the belt alternator starter system (9kW/50Nm) and supports high-speed coasting and earlier cut-off points for the stop-start. It’s not a proper hybrid and can’t run under its own steam like, say, a Toyota, but is mainly there to reduce fuel usage.

The claimed 0–100km/h time is a respectably swift 8.1 seconds, but you won’t be troubling equivalently priced hot hatches and sedans from Korea. Power reaches the road via the front wheels only.

Audi says you’ll cover 100km with just 5.3 litres of fuel in both sedan and hatch, with the 50-litre fuel tank providing a theoretical 940km range. I wouldn’t normally mention real-world fuel economy in a launch situation, but the readout in the car was a very respectable 6.3L/100km from what had been a brisk day on the road, about two-thirds of it on twisting B-roads.

The front seats are superbly comfortable and rear-seat passengers in either body style have roughly the same deal for leg and foot room as both run on the same 2630mm wheelbase. The sedan’s roof cuts into head room, however, so what you gain in boot space you give up in head space. If you’re carrying taller folks regularly in the back, it’s a problem. If not, you’re fine.

Back-seat passengers get quite shapely outboard seats, an armrest with two cupholders, bottle holders in the doors (as in the front), map pockets and two USB-C ports. The third climate zone is a thumbwheel control, but you can decide on the temperature as you please.

Luggage space in the Sportback is a reasonable 380 litres – quite a bit more than most similarly sized hatchbacks – and the Sedan offers 425L. If you drop the rear seats in the Sportback, you get 1200L. There is no comparable figure for the Sedan.

The materials throughout are lovely, and I personally prefer the mixed materials of the standard upholstery. The artificial leather is nice enough, but not so much I’d spend the extra $1100. The Style Package, as you might imagine, is a purely subjective buy and adds nothing to the comfort or performance of the A3, and I’m not certain it’s good value.

Riding around in the A3 is a mostly calm experience. A welcome edge to the damping hints at a bit of potential, even with not particularly sporty Nexen rubber on the 18s. The steering is very light and definitely nicest around town with a bit of extra weight as speed increases.

Freeway running is very quiet as the engine drops a couple of cylinders where it makes sense. The most you’ll hear is a distant rush around the mirrors and some light tyre rumble. The 10-speaker stereo covers all of that up, and it’s the kind of car you could cheerfully cover many miles.

The front seats take a lot of credit for that, holding you in place (especially in the part-fabric version) and keeping you supported.

When the roads start to snake and the surface deteriorates, there’s more fun than you might expect on offer. The extra weight in the steering delivers a little more feel and you can really chuck it around. That edge I mentioned before means the body stays reasonably flat, even in very enthusiastic cornering.

I had more fun on the twisting section of the launch drive than you might reasonably expect. The only downside was smelly brakes after a quick, long downhill run that few owners are likely to experience. I’d happily class the A3 as a warm hatch, which given all the visual aggro of the S Line pack and optional Black Pack works out pretty well in my head.

The 2025 A3 is a bit more of the same but with some worthwhile, if expensive, updates. Audi says the bits are what customers ask for, borne out by the sales figures and dealer frustrations with product matrices over the past few years.

The relentless northward direction of prices is hardly a surprise given the entire industry – with the exception of China-made EVs – has been piling on the price rises. It also brings the A3 roughly in line with the BMW 1 Series and 2 Series Gran Coupe, the Sportback and Sedan’s most obvious rivals.

It is still a 60-grand proposition on the road, but as Audi told me, the A3 has soldiered on as one of the big sellers of the range when it could so easily have got lost in the endless SUV surge. It remains an excellent proposition with a solid specification, surprisingly handy chassis and powertrain, and understated vibe.