Audi’s Q3 is so well built and its styling so evolutionary that you have to ask yourself why you’d buy a brand-new second-generation model starting at £34,640 on the road when you could have an example of its predecessor, a 2013-reg one-owner 2.0 TDI 140 SE quattro with a full main dealer service history, for nearly £27,000 less.
The answer might be because the used one hasn’t got the latest infotainment technology and isn’t as efficient, because it has done 85,000 miles and because it no longer smells so nice. Still, all that image and quality for just £8000…
You can pay as little as £6000 for a used Q3 or as much as £30,000 for an example of its hot spin-off, the RS Performance model. The sweet spot is around £12,000 for a 2016- reg Q3 2.0 TDI 150 SE with 60,000 miles. That’s a facelifted model, by the way. (Such cars date from spring 2015.)
Click here to buy your next used Q3 from Autocar
Scared of diesel? Another £1500 will get you a same-age and mileage 1.4 TFSI COD 150 SE. If you’re only tootling around lightly loaded, it’s fine, but the diesel has extra useful heft and even more of it in 181bhp form.
The Q3 was launched in 2011. It was one of a small number of premium, compact SUVs, the others including the BMW X1 and Range Rover Evoque. Next to the Evoque, the Q3 looked fairly bland but in a way that suggested effortless quality, an attribute that has served it well. It’s about the size of an A3 but the rear is more cramped, and although the boot appears big on paper at 460 litres, it not that usable a space, so test it out first.
From launch, engines were the traditional mix of diesels and petrols, and until the 1.4 TFSI’s arrival in 2014, all of them were 2.0 litres. The lower-powered petrols have always been front-wheel drive only but their diesel equivalents are a mix of that and quattro four-wheel drive. More powerful Q3s are all quattro. The four-wheel drive system aids traction on slippery roads but forget straying too far from your picnic spot: the Q3 has too much fancy body addenda to risk going far off road.
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If it has less space than an A3...
Then what is the point?
An A3 is better looking, more economical and bound to handle better.
Space
The mk3 A3 came out afterwards with a differnet chassis which was more space effiecient. It also depends on which measurements you talking about and the Q3 was only 70mm longer than the A3.
Retention
Went looking for one but a 3-4 year old 1.4 Sport model was fairly expensive compared something like a secondhand new model Tiguan or even, comparatively, the newer Q3 model. Maybe holds it's value because the new Q3 is that bit bigger which ruled it out for me