Audi S3 Sportback Review & Prices

The Audi S3 Sportback takes the classic hot hatch formula — a rapid and fun, but still practical family car — and stretches it out with lots of extra power and four-wheel drive. It takes the mundane everyday stuff and makes it more enjoyable — like getting an Olympic weightlifter to carry your shopping bags.

While the S3 Sportback looks, to the untrained eye, like a fairly ordinary A3 hatchback on the outside, in the cabin its sporty S3 nature is a little more to the fore thanks to gorgeous Nappa leather — quilted, like in a Bentley — on the seats. Those seats are also high-backed full bucket seats in the front, which clamp you in place like a leathery hug.

The dashboard is more or less as per the standard A3, in that you get a big infotainment screen and another digital screen for the instruments, but the S3 gets sportier instrument graphics, and a head-up display projected onto the windscreen. Don’t worry though — amid all the digital stuff, Audi has kept proper knobs and buttons for the climate control, which makes life a lot easier.

Up front, there’s plenty of space, and you’ll be very comfortable sitting in those massive bucket seats. In the back, there’s plenty of room too, even if taller people are trying to squeeze in, but don’t expect to get three-abreast in the back as that will be rather tight.

Equally, if you start to look around, there is some evidence of penny-pinching. There’s also some evidence that the S3 Sportback isn’t as practical as it should be. Because there are some big mechanical bits for the four-wheel drive system under the boot, it has shrunk compared to that of the regular A3 hatchback.

Audi badges all of its four-wheel drive systems as ‘quattro’ but this one isn’t the same system that you get with bigger all-wheel drive Audis. Just like the Volkswagen Golf R, which shares a chassis with this Audi, the S3 Sportback uses a series of complicated clutches to send power to the back wheels, so it’s not technically ‘proper’ all-wheel drive. It still helps when the road is slippery, though, and this S3 Sportback has been upgraded with a new torque-sensing differential between the back wheels.

That differential is seriously clever — it can work out which of the back wheels has the most grip at any one time, and send more power to that wheel, maximising traction and stability. It can also help the other end of the S3 Sportback — as you turn into a corner, the differential can speed-up the outside rear wheel, turning the nose tighter inwards. Clever stuff.

As well as the differential, Audi has given the S3 Sportback more power, boosting its 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine to 333hp. It sounds rumbly too, although nothing like as good as the 2.5-litre five-cylinder engine in the more expensive RS3.

The suspension is sportier than that of the standard A3, lowering the body by 15mm and being stiffer and more responsive. If you want adaptive suspension, though, you’ll have to spend extra to upgrade to the pricier Vorsprung edition.

You don’t necessarily need the trick suspension, though. With the S3 Sportback, Audi has created a car that’s genuinely sporty to drive, but which copes really well with the bumps and lumps of everyday driving. Sure, it’s firm but it’s not going to rattle your fillings loose nor make your passengers wish they’d gotten the bus.

The S3 Sportback also has Audi’s ‘Progressive Steering’ which means it needs just two turns to go from full lock one way to the other, but it’s not too nervous when you just need a small input. Combine that with the four-wheel drive, the power, the clever diff, and the well-judged suspension and you have a car that’s an utter riot on a twisty road.

It won’t cause a riot at the petrol stations, though. Sure, the S3 Sportback gets really thirsty if you’re using all the power, but drive it gently and you can coax it past the 40mpg mark.

Not that you’ll want to drive it gently. The S3 Sportback isn’t a total tearaway — it’s too refined and everyday-useable for that — but it’s a really well-balanced high-performance car, that’s hugely fun on a good road, but which is equally capable of doing all those mundane family tasks.

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The Audi S3 Sportback pretty well splits the difference between its two biggest competitors — the new BMW M135i hatchback is around £1,000 cheaper than the Audi, while the Mercedes-AMG A35 hatchback is about £1,500 more expensive. Neither is quite as powerful as the Audi, though, which is worth bearing in mind. Equally, a Volkswagen Golf R — which uses all of the same mechanical bits as the S3 Sportback — is around £2,000 cheaper, although obviously comes with a less desirable badge. However, the S3 Sportback can get very expensive. If you upgrade to the Vorsprung version, the one which does come with adaptive suspension, then you’re getting close to £50,000 and that’s uncomfortably near the price of a BMW M340i, a car which is considerably bigger and faster than the S3.

The Audi A3 Sportback is exceptionally good fun to drive, and has a good balance between comfort and sporty handling. The adaptive suspension upgrade is expensive, though

In town

If you’ve gone for the pricey Vorsprung version of the Audi S3 Sportback, then you’ll be able to put the suspension into Comfort mode around town, which definitely helps when it comes to dealing with bumps, speed ramps, and potholes.

That said, it may not be worth the considerable cost of the upgrade — the standard S3 Sportback’s suspension is certainly on the firm side, but it’s not so hard that it makes urban commuting a chore.

The Progressive Steering – which increases lock more quickly the more you turn at low speeds – helps in town by allowing you to quickly swing the nose from lock to lock, while the standard-fit automated parking assistance is a boon for squeezing into tight spaces at the kerbside.

On the motorway

Driven gently, the S3 Sportback is actually capable of some surprising fuel economy figures, which can nudge past the 40mpg mark if you’re very careful. Equally, for all its bombastic performance, it’s a comfortable car on a long journey with low road and wind noise levels, and tremendous comfort from those high-backed front seats.

There are also electronic driver aids such as radar-guided cruise control, and a lane-change assistant which help take the sting out of long journeys, but they’re an option for the basic Black Edition model, and not a cheap option at that. Considering that radar cruise comes as standard on even a basic Toyota Corolla, that smacks of penny-pinching by Audi.

On a twisty road

The Audi S3 Sportback totally up-ends the old assumption that a fast Audi would always be rapid in a straight line, but no fun in the corners. The S3 Sportback is loads of fun in corners, helped by that clever rear differential, which makes it feel far more agile than its predecessor.

The Progressive Steering helps too, as does the responsiveness of the 333hp engine, while even on the standard suspension the S3 Sportback does a great job of managing the competing needs of comfort and precision. Audi has even updated the automatic gearbox so that, in Dynamic mode, it won’t change up until you tell it to with the steering wheel paddles.

The S3 Sportback is still a practical family car, but the performance add-ons have made the boot shrink

The front of the S3 Sportback’s cabin is plenty roomy enough. There’s an excellent driving position thanks to those great front seats, and there’s storage in the centre console — under the armrest, in two large cup holders, and in front of the gear selector, where there’s also a pair of USB-C sockets. The door pockets are also generously large.

Space in the back seats

As long as there’s no need to try and squeeze someone into the centre rear seat, the back of the S3 Sportback has more than enough space for most. Headroom and legroom are plentiful, even for people of more than six-foot heights.

There are, as in the front, large door bins and storage nets on the backs of the front seats.

However, the back isn’t perfect. Fold down the rear seat armrest and there’s a pair of cup holders, which used to be covered-up in the old version, but which are now left open and which easily snag your elbow. That seems like yet more penny-pinching by Audi, as does the scratchy plastic trim on the back doors. For anyone in the back who’s of shorter stature, the front seats will also be rather too tall and bulky to easily peer around.

Fitting a child seat is no trouble with the ISOFIX mounting points falling easily to hand, though bulky seats might force the person in front to move quite close to the dashboard to make space.

Boot space

A standard Audi A3 Sportback has a 380-litre boot, which isn’t class-leading but is perfectly adequate to normal family needs. However, the S3 Sportback isn’t as useful — because of the need to stash that clever rear differential under the boot, along with bits and pieces for the sports exhaust, the S3 Sportback’s boot shrinks to 325 litres, which is enough to make the S3 Sportback more frustrating when it comes to shopping and luggage than it ought to be.

If you want a fast hatch that can lug loads, consider a Skoda Octavia vRS. On the upside, the boot floor is adjustable so you can eliminate the load lip that’s apparent when the floor is on its lowest setting, and that adjustability means that there’s somewhere to stash the luggage cover when you don’t need it. The rear seat splits in three, in 40:20:40 formation, and it folds almost entirely flat, so even though the boot is pretty small, the S3 Sportback is still more useful and versatile overall than the S3 Saloon.

The S3 Sportback’s cabin doesn’t look as modern as some of the competition, but Audi has given it some nice upgrades

The current generation of the Audi A3 and S3 hasn’t been around for all that long — only since 2020 — but the cabin is starting to show some grey hairs. That said, Audi has given the S3 Sportback’s cabin some nice upgrades.

It has the same twin-screen layout as the regular A3, so you get a big screen in the centre of the dash for infotainment, and another behind the wheel for instruments. In the S3 Sportback, those are backed-up by a head-up display projected onto the windscreen.

That big main screen works well enough, and it’s definitely helped by the fact that Audi has retained proper knobs and buttons — praise be! — for the air conditioning system. The only major gripe is that all of the on-screen menus look a bit dark and monochrome. The instrument panel is clear and bright though, and you can set it up to show a full sat-nav map, while this S3 Sportback gets specific, sportier-looking displays than those of the standard A3, displays which mimic the look of the famous R8 supercar.

One neat trick is that, through the touchscreen, you can fiddle with the headlights and brake lights. Thanks to their OLED light technology, you can change the shapes of the daytime running lights, which adds a bit of personalisation to the car.

What really lifts the cabin, though, are the high-backed bucket seats which come with Nappa leather trim, quilted like you’d find in a Bentley. The three-spoke steering wheel can be swapped out for one with a flat-bottom, but the standard properly-round version is the better choice. For this generation of the S3 Sportback, Audi has swapped out the rather hard and shiny carbon-fibre trim on the dash in favour of soft Alcantara fake suede, which is great for wiping your fingers on if you’ve been eating crisps. Ahem.

One update we’re less keen on is the little lozenge-shaped selector for the seven-speed S-Tronic automatic gearbox (no, you can’t have an S3 with a manual, alas). This used to be a bigger toggle-switch style selector, which was a better choice than the new one, which doesn’t actually save any more space, but at least you do get a red surround for the start-top button, which gives it a slightly more sporty air.

The lowest CO2 emissions for the S3 Sportback are 193g/km — noticeably higher than those of the S3 Saloon — which means a very high first-year road tax bill, and on top of that because the S3 Sportback costs more than £40,000, you’ll have to pay the extra annual levy in years two to six. If you're a company car user-chooser, the S3 Sportback will set you back at least £286 per month.

At least the S3’s fuel economy isn’t too bad. The official figure of 33.2mpg will be purely fictional if you’re using all of the performance, but if you can talk yourself into taking it easy, then close to, or maybe even more than, 40mpg is possible.

The S3 Sportback hasn’t been individually tested for safety by Euro NCAP, but the standard A3 has, and that came away with a very good five-star score. That included an 89% score for adult occupant protection, an 81% score for child occupants, 68% for vulnerable road user protection, and 73% for its electronic safety systems. There are two ISOFIX points for child car seats in the back, and having anchors for ISOFIX in the front passenger seat is a no-cost option.

There’s a standard alarm and immobiliser, but a car such as the S3 Sportback should probably also be fitted with a remote tracking device for proper peace of mind.

Audi hasn’t done well in the most recent Driver Power reliability survey, finishing close to the bottom of the charts, behind even the likes of Vauxhall, SEAT, and Skoda. However, the mechanical package of the S3 Sportback should be pretty solid, as the same turbocharged engine and four-wheel drive system are used in a whole host of other models, and they’re well-proven at this stage.