Audi Q3 2019 Review – International

A funny thing happened on the way to next year’s second-generation Audi Q3: the Audi Q2.

The arrival of the smaller, ItalDesign-engineered Q2 in 2016 meant the Q3’s developers could make their next car bigger and more user-friendly and (let’s face it, it’s Audi’s way) more conservative looking than the chamfer-cut Q2.

It even owes its start date to the little brother, because it is slated to land in Australia next year towards the end of, errr, Q2, at about the same prices as the outgoing models.

And that’s what Audi has done. At 4485mm long, the new Q3 is 97mm longer than the old one, with a 77mm stretch in the wheelbase (now at 2680mm) delivering a far more spacious rear-seat experience than it did before.

That experience is made all the more accomplished by fitting the new Audi Q3 with a rear seat that can slide fore-and-aft by 150mm and a 40:20:40 split-fold rear seat that can recline in seven steps. It’s almost limo stuff at work in what was once Audi’s smallest SUV.

It continues behind the rear seats, too, with a minimum of 530 litres of luggage space that rises to 675 litres with the rear seats fully forward and the backrests fully upright.

It rises again to 1525 litres with the seats folded down and it even hides the parcel tray beneath the floor to make it easier to carry more cumbersome loads.

The biggest possible headache we can see inside the new Audi Q3 is the dumping of all rotary dials in favour of using the touch-screen infotainment system for everything.

Sure, it’s got swiping and favourite tiles, like a smartphone, but it’s a step that may have moved the technology in the otherwise easy and comfortable Q3 out of the comfort zone for an older group of buyers.

Especially as simple tasks like dimming the instrument cluster at night now take four to five touch-screen inputs to adjust.

Due here towards the middle of next year, it grabs a lot of the more aggressive front-end styling cues from the recently-launched Q8, including a darker grille and thinner standard LED headlights, while it has more aggression in its front-apron design, too.

More important than any of that, though, is that the new Audi Q3 is just plain good and it just plain works, and works intuitively (mostly) and easily.

The standout piece of the Q3 puzzle is the ride quality, the noise levels and the body control, all of which lend the SUV an air of calmness and luxury that belies its size and its place on the Audi ladder.

The handling is accomplished, rather than fun and lively, but the poise of the chassis in every situation just oozes calmness and dignity.

Audi has worked hard, it claims, on keeping the wind noise down, all the way to including an acoustic windscreen as standard equipment.

It feels at least a couple of hundred kilos heavier than the 45 TFSI’s 1620kg, such is its aplomb across rough and broken ground, and the rear-end of Q3’s bodywork is just flat-out imperturbable over bumps or when it’s being hustled through direction changes.

The feeling of calmness makes its way up from the clever suspension layout and into the cabin, where it quickly reassures anybody sitting there.

It could easily lull you into thinking that because it’s so calm, its responses must be terribly slow, but they’re not.

They can feel it, sure, because the default Comfort mode steering setup is light and totally lacking in connected feedback from the front end, but that improves in the Sport modes and, if you had a choice, the slightly heavier feel is how you’d want it all the time.

I mean, there’s a relaxed feel and then there’s Xanax. And the stock steering set-up is accurate but in the way that a mop being stirred in a bucket of water remains inside the bucket.

That’s probably a bit harsh because it’s a perfectly adequate way to live on a highway or when you need to fiddle your way around city traffic or tight carparks, so it has a role to fill, but it’s a role you’d want to be able to choose, rather than the default one.

A four-link rear suspension and a MacPherson-strut front-end don’t sound revolutionary, and they’re not. Instead, it’s effective and confident, whether it’s attached to the standard steering system (with a 14.8:1 turning ratio) or the optional progressive system that shrinks that down to 11.4:1.

Both systems use electromechanical steering management and while the progressive system is the better of the two, it might be worth waiting to see what Audi will charge for it.

The beauty of the progressive system comes to the fore at both extremes of its abilities, so diving into tight parking spots in town or whipping around corners at speed up in the mountains. The standard system serves the Q3 just as well on the in-between stuff, though.

The car’s character changes significantly when it’s upgraded from the stock suspension set-up to the S Line’s stiffer springs and a tighter damper tune, but people will buy this for its bigger wheels and tyres and lower ride look, rather than any handling benefit.

For that, you’ll need the suspension set-up with the damper-control system that reacts quickly to each road input and even adjusts for hard braking and acceleration. It’s this one that shows off the Q3 to its best effect, oozing over the worst road conditions with the dignity befitting a baby Q7.

The only piece of the puzzle that threatens the dignity of the new Audi Q3’s poise comes from under the bonnet.

We tested both the S Line (stiffer springs) 45 TFSI quattro with petrol power, and the 35 TDI diesel with a manual gearbox.

Oddly, the highly rated 2.0-litre TFSI petrol motor feels surprisingly harsh and thrashy in this guise, though it’s strong everywhere.

It’s perhaps less intrusive than I’ve made it sound in one sentence, but it’s a shock that an engine so accomplished should suddenly feel like it’s taken a step backwards in refinement to stay where it is in performance.

There have been times in the car industry where this has happened, usually when a car’s engineering has shifted up a gear and the engine’s cradle area has been stiffened, but Audi swears this isn’t so here.

The 1984cc inline four has all the on-paper gear to make it a star (which, frankly, it has been in the past), with the ability to deactivate two cylinders to save fuel, variable valve timing and lift, a twin-scroll turbocharger and plenty of power.

It has 169kW of power from 5000rpm to 6700 revs, and that’s backed up by 350Nm of torque from 1500rpm to 4400 revs. All that really means is that the 45 TFSI has an incredibly broad spread of performance and you can ask it to jump forward at any speed, in any gear, and it will simply haul.

It will reach 100km/h in 6.3 seconds, which is pretty impressive in its own right, and stretch up to 233km/h, and it’s strong and flexible and really, really good at getting out of corners or overtaking on the highway.

What it’s not as good at in the Q3 is doing it all calmly and quietly, with a surprising amount of harshness whenever it’s stirred into action.

Audi couples it to a seven-speed dual-clutch auto that can be caught out sometimes at low revs and low speed, changing with some jerkiness about five percent of the time.

It improves considerably with more speed and more driving enthusiasm, but low-speed, light-throttle situations remain its bugbear.

The pick of the two powertrains nestled beneath the sculpted bonnet of the 35 TDI quattro, even though our test car had the six-speed manual transmission it surely won’t receive in Australia.

This is, actually, a pretty nice motor to drive behind, with 110kW of power from 3500rpm to 4000 and all 340 of its Sir Isaac Newtons are twisting from 1750rpm to 3000rpm.

It can be left to lug hard in big gears and, as we found in some cruel testing, it won’t ever shudder or shake – instead it will just stall. But that was uphill in the Alps from 30km/h in sixth gear, so it should be OK in the ‘burbs.

It’s smoother than the petrol four, even if it’s not as sophisticated. Its low-end strength means it can be left at the less ‘spinny’ end of the rev range to give it fewer vibrations and less noise And it’s honest, sounds good and it’s nice.

The wheels that deliver all of this have, naturally, jumped in size again to 17 inches as standard, 18 inches for the S Line models and 19 or 20 inches as options. The 19s run 235/50 or 255/45 rubber, while the 20s run 255/40 tyres, though there’s no spare tyre (a space-saver is available on request).

The stock 35 TDI we drove ran on humble 215/65 R17 rubber, which sure didn’t hurt its ride quality.

It’s a calm place to be inside, too. The exception – and it’s an increasingly annoying one in light of where Mercedes-Benz has taken things with its double-wide screens – is the split-level screen displays.

Sure the 10.25-inch digital instrument cluster works beautifully and it’s easy to operate via the steering wheel-mounted buttons and knobs, but it looks increasingly old-fashioned and a little ill-though-through not to have the 10.1-inch infotainment screen at the same eye height. There’s the option of a larger 12.3-inch screen for the centre, too.

Instead, Audi hasn’t managed to drop the in-dash ventilation tubing below the infotainment screen, so it’s the flipside of the Benz. The one upside to this is that it’s easier to reach for touch-screen operation. Also, they’ve killed off the option of old-school analogue dials, because the digital instrument cluster is now standard.

The interior is vastly improved, too, with more connectivity than ever before, with data transferred to and fro the car through an LTE Advanced-standard system that also hosts the car’s wifi hotspot.

It has pulled in tech like joining onto the swarm intelligence of the Audi road-going fleet to help it with things like finding traffic jams or carparks.

The driver-assistance systems have leapt forward to include a highway semi-autonomous system that actually works very well, allowing the driver to release the steering wheel for short burst while the car remains deftly centred in the lane.

It brakes, steers and accelerates by itself and, while the technology on board isn’t as sophisticated as it is with the A6/A7/A8, it’s pretty darn good within the class.

The seats are comfortable – all except the middle pew in the rear, as with most modern machinery – and the driving position is close to perfect.

Other than being irked by the split-level screens (and that might just be me), the rest of the interior package is convincing and comfortable. It’s as though Audi’s goal was to make life as calming and undemanding as possible here, too.

There’s a clear link to the Q5’s interior, with the touch-screen in the middle and a high-gloss look everywhere around it.

The centre console is twisted around 10 degrees to focus on the driver and the dash itself is quite short, giving it even more interior space, and it feels wider than it is.

How much does the 2019 Audi Q3 45 TFSI quattro cost?
Price: TBC
Available: Mid-2019
Engine: 2.0-litre turbo-petrol four-cylinder
Output: 169kW/350Nm
Transmission: Seven-speed dual-clutch automatic, all-wheel drive
Fuel: TBC
CO2: TBC
Safety rating: TBC

How much does the 2019 Audi Q3 35 TDI quattro cost?
Price: TBC
Available: Mid-2019
Engine: 2.0-litre turbo-diesel four-cylinder
Output: 110kW/3400Nm
Transmission: Six-speed manual, all-wheel drive
Fuel: TBC
CO2: TBC
Safety rating: TBC