2021 Audi Q3 Review // The best value premium SUV

We've got the Audi Q3 and I have been waiting so long to drive this. I think you're going to like it. What we're going to do in this review is unbox it and find out if it is really the best value for your luxury utility dollar. Let's get in and take it for a drive. So what do we have to put it in Andrea? We have to put it in S for subscribe and if you could hit the notification button that helps us so much it really supports the channel. And also if you want to follow along on Instagram andreas is motormouth underscore andrea and mine is motormouth underscore auto. This video is brought to you by Car Cost Canada. Get the dealer's cost, list of rebates, plus discounted interest rates. Use the promo code motormouth to become an expert member and get extra searches. The link is in the description below. Now before we get into the meat of this review we have to give a big shout out to Audi downtown Vancouver here in Vancouver for letting us have this Q3 for the day. You know what Andrea used to travel all the time with Audi all over the world to their launches but because of COVID now we can't do that. In fact I went to Balzano Italy for the launch of the Q3 and you can click on the card right here to watch that. You know Zach you've been telling me for a long time this Q3 has the best value in this class and I have been just dying to get my hands on this and you know what you're right. You know what you've also been doing? You've been doing a whole lot of research for a few days digging through all the numbers, all the prices, the fuel economy, the horsepower, all of that and when you stack all of that up yeah this looks like kind of the winner in this category. So let's unbox that a little bit. First horsepower. Horsepower we've got 228 horsepower, 258 pound-feet of torque and a two-liter four-cylinder turbocharged engine with an eight-speed automatic transmission. And the biggest thing for me it runs on regular gas. It's the only one in this class that runs on regular gas and that is a major bonus. I did the math on this for our American friends who watch this Andrea. Yeah. So where we live premium gas is about 20 cents per liter. Oh my god this seat is so hot. You did it to me again. I'm dying here. I like a hot seat. All right what was I saying? So it's 20 cents a liter premium to get premium gas. I figured that out for US gallons that's about 75 cents a gallon more. Yeah. For premium gas. You know I'm sure there's Americans who are spitting up their coffee right now like holy crap you pay a lot for fuel. We do. We do. Especially here in Vancouver. Yeah and that's why having a vehicle that's premium but doesn't run on premium gas that's a win. It's a win. But it's not a turd. It's not a turd at all. You know we always talk about horsepower and torque and working together and one number might be lower or higher than the other but this works really well together. This engine is great. It has plenty of power. I'm really enjoying the handling and performance of this Q3. Okay Andrea. I got a lot of ribbing because we were driving. What car were we driving? And I said just by what? Just by the GTI. Oh are we going back to VW again? Well guess what's under the hood of this? The GTI engine. Yeah. That's why it runs on regular gas. Huge fan of the GTI. The engine is shared with Audi in this car. It's built on a common MQB platform. A Volkswagen derived platform. So this has quite a bit of Volkswagen DNA in it. Yeah. But that's okay. They take that and they gussy it up and turn it into an Audi and I think the results are good. Really good. Let's talk a little bit about the interior. I think the fit and finish of this is quite nice. It's simple, clean and modern. Absolutely. I think it looks really sharp. It comes with an 8.8 inch standard MMI touchscreen but you know what I like about this? Some might say oh well that screen seems a bit small. There is an optional 10.1 inch screen that you can get on the Technic package. The top trim yeah. Top trim but what I love about this is look how Audi has elongated it. It might be a smaller screen but there's black accents on either side and I think it looks just brilliant. So you you make it look bigger even though it's small. Smart. There is a 10.25 inch digital instrument cluster which is standard but on the Technic package which is the top trim you can get a 12.3 inch option. What I like about this though is even if you get the base model it looks like you've got the digital cockpit. You don't have analog gauges there anymore. They're projected onto the screen. What you don't get is the ability to put the map in there. Yeah. And I totally okay with that. Now you do see a little bit of Volkswagen DNA with some of the switch gear in here but I'm okay with that because we're going to get to the price a little bit later on and that's the whole theme of this video is I think this just knocks it out of the park when it comes to value. You love a nice steering wheel right? I'm a big fan of a nice steering wheel. A sporty one. A thick one. These sorts of things make a big difference to me. This one's got it and it's also got the shifter that I like as well. I'm a big fan of the Mercedes-Benz GLA. Love the interior but what I don't love is the stick shifter. So I'm really happy with my traditional little console shifter right? Shifter. Okay now size. This market is red hot. So the fastest growing category worldwide are small utilities and that's what this is. This one is bigger. It's wider. It's longer than the outgoing model. It feels quite spacious to me. I think I would be quite happy with this. Yeah it's got lots of room in the back. I'm six feet tall. The rear seats recline and also they slide fore and aft if you want to get more cargo into the back. Power liftgate. All the stuff you kind of want in a premium vehicle. What about this big thing here? Oh the panoramic sunroof. Guess what? It comes standard along with heated front seats. Now you don't get the heated steering wheel. You can get it in the Technic package, the top trim or you can pay $200 for it. We said this about the GLA. They charge $250 right? GLA is $250. Why do they charge you $200 for this or $250 for the Mercedes-Benz for a heated steering wheel in Canada? It's cold here. You get standard heated front seats right? Yeah. Throw the freaking steering wheel heating in there as well. Could you imagine if you had standard features, panoramic sunroof, heated steering wheel, heated front seats. I'm done. But this doesn't live in a vacuum. It does have competition. For your consideration, four categories and four vehicles for you to consider. Our first category is main competitor. We chose the Mercedes-Benz GLA coming in at $42,500 and 221 horsepower. The domestic alternative is the Cadillac XT4. Their all-wheel drive version starts at $39,298 and it has 237 horsepower. Our third category, most fuel efficient, goes to the Mercedes-Benz GLA. 9.8 liters per 100 kilometers in the city and 7.1 on the highway. If you're looking for a green alternative, the Lexus UX250 Hybrid. It starts at $40,000 and has 181 net horsepower. So there's four vehicles for your consideration. You're probably wondering why we didn't mention the BMW X1. It just didn't make the categories but it's obviously a competitor to this. It gets 228 horsepower and it comes in at $42,500. You know what, it's also older. We picked the GLA as the direct competitor. That came out this year and this came out this year so that seemed like the logical choice. Now Andrea, one thing Audi's done that I kind of like is this black optics package which blacks out the grille and the trim and that's what this has. Yeah, it makes it look sportier. You can also get 20-inch wheels. They've got a price point of $800. This one which we're test driving has the progressive trim and it has 19-inch wheels. I can't believe that Audi only charges $800 more to get 20-inch wheels. That is a deal. And they also, the nice thing that Audi does, I notice when it's on their website, is they offer a wheel and tire package for winter tires included in your purchase. I mean, I don't understand why more brands don't do that. I think they're a little bit expensive. I think they're just over $3,000 but you're getting original equipment wheels and original equipment tires. Just put it in the lease payment. That's exactly how it's going to be purchased. All right, it's time for coffee. Time now for questions, coffee, and cars. Your questions from Instagram. Is it worthy of the Audi badge or are you better off saving some money and getting a top trim Hyundai or Mazda? It is definitely worthy of the Audi badge. This is a really nice vehicle. But I'm going to use Mazda as an example because you made some really good points. And the CX-30, you could pick one up fully loaded for $34,000 or you could go to the CX-5 signature with the bigger engine, 320 pound-feet of torque and you can pick that up for $42,000. But it depends what you want. Do you want luxury or non-luxury? It doesn't have the Audi badge on the steering wheel or on the front and your neighbors won't care that you've got a signature. They'll just know you're driving a Mazda. Hey, you know what? It all comes down to badge appeal. That's why these things sell. Yeah, for sure. Badge appeal. Badge appeal. Is a Haldex coupling system really a quattro? Well, Haldex is a Swedish company that actually specializes in all-wheel drive systems. Yeah, and they use it and they sell it to many different companies. It's a front-wheel bias system and this is based on the MQB platform shared with Volkswagen and you would look at it basically like a Golf R system is what you're using here. So quattro is just a marketing term, okay? The original quattro was a rally car and there's no connection between that system and what's used in a modern Audi today. It's just marketing. Just marketing and other brands also have their own thing like Volkswagen. Yeah, they use 4Motion. Mercedes-Benz uses 4Matic. They all use this system. Yes. Does it still experience some sluggish jerky gear shifting from first to second gear? The previous model had that tendency. Not at all. No, this is a Tiptronic, not an S-Tronic, which means it's a torque converted transmission, not a dual clutch, makes it smoother. Is the higher performance variant of the Audi Q3, for example, the RS Q3 coming to Canada? No. That's a hard no. So for you car enthusiasts who want extra power, no. Is that it? That's it. Okay, if you want to get a question in, make sure you follow Andrea on Instagram. It's MotorMouth underscore Andrea. She puts questions out every single week and now it's time for Nightlife. So we already know that the small SUV market is red hot, right? So when Audi needed to introduce the very first Q3, they looked to Volkswagen and said, can we use that Tiguan platform and make it into a Q3, which is what they did. But it wasn't really that good, was it? No, not enough power. Yeah, it only had 200 horsepower. It was an old platform, an old engine, old transmission. A little bit loud. And they used it for a lot of years. So here we are with a brand new one and they did the exact same thing. They went right back to Volkswagen and they said, hmm, can we get the Tiguan again and do it? Yeah, exactly what they did. But there's a big difference between that first gen and this one. So you know the Tiguan, right? I do. We get in North America, the long wheelbase version and in Europe they have a short wheelbase version, which they don't bring into the marketplace. And that's a big complaint. And guess what this is? Short wheelbase. Yeah, so they've used the MQB platform, the short wheelbase Tiguan that we don't get in North America. And then they said, we need a more powerful engine because what's the big complaint about the Tiguan? Power. Yeah, it doesn't have much power. So they went to Volkswagen and said, oh, GTI engine. That's what's in this. And by the way, Andrea, it runs on regular gas. I know, I think you mentioned that before. And so you've got the short wheelbase Tiguan platform, the GTI engine, then they turn it into an Audi and I think they've done a great job. Look what you've got. Yeah, it all comes together to make it a compelling package. And speaking of Tiguan, how much is the Tiguan fully loaded? So you can get a fully loaded one for over $40,000. Or you can get this base model starting at, time for price pause, there were three different trims and I got to hand it to Audi. They've made it really simple. Comfort $39,250. The progressive $42,750. And the top package Technic comes in at $46,350. Now, Zach and I actually went online and we kind of broke down what we would want. And we got the black optics package, which is $500. We went with the Technic. And I'll tell you why in a sec. And we also went with the 20 inch wheels for $800, which is like a no brainer. A good deal. And you can, by the way, you can get the 20 inch wheels with all seasons or with summer tires if you want. Right. And so it came in under $50,000. So why did we go with the Technic package? Because the price difference from the base model to the fully loaded one is $7,000. You get the bigger screen, you get the bigger instrument cluster, you get all of the features in the car and then you just add the optics package and what have you. I think there's a lot of value in that. Absolutely. The one that we're test driving is the progressive and it has the 19 inch wheels, but you know what? If you are making the stretch to purchase a luxury entry level vehicle, it's still $39,250. And even if you get the black optics package for $500 and you do decide to get the 20 inch wheels, it's not a whole lot more, is it? No, it's not a whole lot more than we mentioned. The Tiguan fully loaded. Yeah. All right. So let's touch on what you get actually with the key standard features. Here they are. 8.8 inch color display, including MMI touch, a 10.25 inch digital instrument cluster, automatic stop start, heated front seats, leather wrapped steering wheel, ambient lighting in white, a panoramic sunroof, LED headlamps and tail lamps and 18 inch wheels. So it's not a stripped down vehicle in any way, even at that base price. And by the way, there is a navigation package. I wouldn't get it because you do get Android and Apple as standard equipment in all of these. However, if you want the wireless feature, they only offer it with Apple and wireless on the top trim. That's right. Now, Andrea, there's going to be some people saying they're just gushing. They're just car sales people. Why don't you sell me a blender while you're at it? And my answer to that is we drive 50 plus cars a year, probably closer to 80 different cars a year. And when you get in and out of all of these different cars and then you get in one that stands out, it really stands out. And this one stands out for good reason. It does. And it gets me really excited about this vehicle. I've been waiting a long time to drive this new Q3 and it does not disappoint. I'm a big fan of the Mercedes-Benz GLA. I love the interior. I love the handling of it. And if I were to pick a non-luxury brand, I would go with the Mazda CX-5, another fabulous vehicle. Now we're going to get into the fuel economy. Did I mention this runs on regular gas? You did. I think we know it's regular gas. All right, what are the numbers? 12.3 litres per 100 kilometres in the city, 8.6 litres on the highway and a combined 10.6 litres per 100 kilometres. And the US miles per gallon are on the bottom. And a big thanks to Audi Downtown Vancouver for lending us this Q3. It's a great opportunity for us to be able to review a vehicle that we cannot access right now. What surprised me the most about this Q3 is value. It has a great starting price and it comes with loads of standard features. And it runs on regular gas, which appeals to my Scottish sensibilities. It's frugal. Who would have thought frugal and luxury SUV in the same sentence? Go figure. This video is brought to you by CarCost Canada. Get the dealer's cost, list of rebates, plus discounted interest rates. Use the promo code MOTORMOUTH to become an expert member and get extra searches. The link is in the description below.