Post by ChrisM on Jun 15, 2022 21:26:14 GMT
I don’t suppose that many on here will be remotely interested in a review of an 8-year old obsolete 5-door supermini but here goes……
Following 4 months off the road after my younger daughter was involved in a cash-for-crash scam that resulted in her insurers writing off the car, I collected it from the bodyshop at the end of May and have been using it to make sure it’s been properly put back together before my daughter takes it back.
I’m quite amazed for it seems to be running as well as, if not better, than when I first test-drove it in 2017 when it was 3 years old, for sale at an Audi main dealer with just 8000 miles on the clock.
It is a limited edition powered by the 1.4 TFSI engine that develops 122 BHP and drives the front wheels via a 6-speed manual gearbox; the car runs on 18 inch (OE) Bridgestones, all of which I had replaced as part of the rebuild (as well as having the wheels refurbished – and I’m absolutely gutted that I managed to slightly kerb one of them in the local town centre car park just 2 weeks later).
It is very easy to get comfortable behind the wheel; there is a large fore-aft range on the front seats, plus a decent range of height adjustment too, and the steering wheel also has a large range of adjustment in-out and up-down whilst not obstructing the instrument panel which is clear, but the speedo is calibrated at the “even” speeds (20, 40, 60) and not those better for the UK (30, 50, 70). There is a small third stalk to operate the cruise control which took me some time to get used to and once learned is very easy to use, the set speed being prominently displayed in the panel between speedo and tacho. Judged against my satnav, the speedo is dead accurate too, a welcome change from all other cars that I have driven over the past decade or two. There’s enough room for me get my size 8 between centre console and clutch pedal to place it on the rest, without having to move it back and then hook it round the pedal, unlike in my 2016 Fiesta.
Interior quality is very good but not the best. The dash is slightly soft-touch, the top of the door cards isn’t soft but it’s it as bad as the “scratchy plastic” that you see on so many video reviews. The seats are part leather (or part fake leather, not sure which) and are comfortable enough, if not in the same league as Volvo’s. The steering wheel is round and leather-covered, quite small and beautiful to hold. There are no obvious large projections acting as thumb-grips or whatever but it is nicely contoured and just feels right in my hands; the steering itself is direct and feels a bit like a go-kart but there’s no real feel or feedback to let you know what’s going on at the road surface. Although it is slightly heavy at low speed, it lightens up considerably when on the move. This may be down to the over-wide and stupidly low profile tyres on this particular trim level. The ride is a bit stiff, but its not as uncomfortable as I first remembered it from 2017, and the handling is excellent, it really is quite a joy to drive, no doubt aided by the strong performance from the engine which is really keen to pull from about 1200rpm onwards. Although the gear lever seemed short and quite a stretch when I first drove the car, I’ve got used to it and my left hand falls naturally to it now. The gearlever is good to hold and the gearchange itself is good, short-throw action and lovely and precise. The six speeds seem fairly close-ratio, 40mph in top is about 1300rpm, a slight drop from about 1600rpm in 5th. However it’s not happy over the square speed bumps that inhabit the local roads; the whole car seems to rise and fall over them and I certainly don’t want to risk going over them in excess of 20mph to see if it dismisses them totally at “high” speed.
Engine noise is apparent when accelerating, a slightly uncouth growl, but when cruising or just bumbling along in traffic (or on the open road) it’s very quiet and relaxing, and the car seems very stable too, even on bumpy and poorly surfaced roads.
The infotainment system is somewhat dated, there’s no DAB which surprised me, but there is a single CD player and a slot for an SD card in addition to the one that holds the maps for the satnav system. Sound quality isn’t the best, I still can’t get the treble and bass adjusted to my liking for speech and music, voice control is limited, and on the one occasion I tried dialling out (whilst parked in a supermarket car park) it didn’t seem to pick up the phone book or contacts from my phone despite it being “bonded” to the car, and I had to speak out the numbers one by one. I may be missing something and the handbook isn’t a great deal of help. I can actually see why my daughter leaves the fold-up screen closed all the time because you can display what you need in the centre of the instrument panel between the speedo and tacho. Also the central display is of low-resolution graphics and it’s not a touch-screen, so you have to use a rotary controller and various push-buttons to navigate menus and make selections, cumbersome enough when the car is stationary and next-to-impossible some times when you are driving.
The boot is tiny, the shoulder bag that I take to work seems to half-fill it, although I did squeeze a 32-pack of toilet rolls in from the supermarket although it had to go on its side as it wouldn’t fit in upright….. maybe if I had dropped the adjustable boot floor to its lower position it would have been better – but then you loose the ability to hide valuables out of sight – and the boot floor covers the battery, jack and can of gunge – no spare wheel here unfortunately (so it is curious that you do get a jack to enable you to rotate the tyres/wheels as per info in the handbook).
Good and bad features/quirks? Open the tailgate when it’s been raining and rainwater falls into the boot on both sides. You can set the car to lock the doors automatically as you first drive away. When you turn the engine off and remove the ignition key, they unlock. You have the option for the remote unlocking to open only the driver’s door or all doors and tailgate – you can select this from the menus on the central display. The cutout in the headlining to make it easy to unfold the sunvisor is “inboard” so as a right-handed person it is difficult to lower the driver’s sunvisor – you need to use your left hand and place it in the recess to the left-hand side of the sunvisor (first world problem). If you don’t have auto lights set and drive somewhere dim (e.g. under the shade of trees or in a tunnel) the instrument lighting does out so you can’t see the speed or engine revs – a reminder that you should turn the lights on (very clever) whereas with auto lights on, the instrument lighting stays on (and I presume that the car turns the lights on)
The car was supposed to be Audi’s answer to the BMW Mini. Really? It’s far too plain and ordinary and doesn’t want to make you smile when you open the driver’s door; the rear is cramped and although there are 3 seat belts unlike in the 3-door version which is strictly a 4-seater, you really wouldn’t want to travel very far if seated in the back seats. It’s not very space-efficient but neither is the Mini, which is definitely a different kettle of fish anyway.
So, overall, a fun car to drive with plenty of poke but refined and comfortable for long journeys so long as only the front seats are occupied. Being narrow makes it easy to keep speed up on winding country roads, and easy to fit into car park spaces and the domestic garage. And after 8 years the state of the interior fittings and the paintwork shows where the money goes; they have stood the test of time very well and a decent wash and polish really brings out the best in the finish. It was also a pleasant surprise to brim it again earlier in the week and find that I’ve been getting 46.4mpg from it, from 320 miles of mixed driving from 35-mile motorway journeys to urban trips to the shops and back and getting stuck in the occasional traffic jam. I’m impressed.
Following 4 months off the road after my younger daughter was involved in a cash-for-crash scam that resulted in her insurers writing off the car, I collected it from the bodyshop at the end of May and have been using it to make sure it’s been properly put back together before my daughter takes it back.
I’m quite amazed for it seems to be running as well as, if not better, than when I first test-drove it in 2017 when it was 3 years old, for sale at an Audi main dealer with just 8000 miles on the clock.
It is a limited edition powered by the 1.4 TFSI engine that develops 122 BHP and drives the front wheels via a 6-speed manual gearbox; the car runs on 18 inch (OE) Bridgestones, all of which I had replaced as part of the rebuild (as well as having the wheels refurbished – and I’m absolutely gutted that I managed to slightly kerb one of them in the local town centre car park just 2 weeks later).
It is very easy to get comfortable behind the wheel; there is a large fore-aft range on the front seats, plus a decent range of height adjustment too, and the steering wheel also has a large range of adjustment in-out and up-down whilst not obstructing the instrument panel which is clear, but the speedo is calibrated at the “even” speeds (20, 40, 60) and not those better for the UK (30, 50, 70). There is a small third stalk to operate the cruise control which took me some time to get used to and once learned is very easy to use, the set speed being prominently displayed in the panel between speedo and tacho. Judged against my satnav, the speedo is dead accurate too, a welcome change from all other cars that I have driven over the past decade or two. There’s enough room for me get my size 8 between centre console and clutch pedal to place it on the rest, without having to move it back and then hook it round the pedal, unlike in my 2016 Fiesta.
Interior quality is very good but not the best. The dash is slightly soft-touch, the top of the door cards isn’t soft but it’s it as bad as the “scratchy plastic” that you see on so many video reviews. The seats are part leather (or part fake leather, not sure which) and are comfortable enough, if not in the same league as Volvo’s. The steering wheel is round and leather-covered, quite small and beautiful to hold. There are no obvious large projections acting as thumb-grips or whatever but it is nicely contoured and just feels right in my hands; the steering itself is direct and feels a bit like a go-kart but there’s no real feel or feedback to let you know what’s going on at the road surface. Although it is slightly heavy at low speed, it lightens up considerably when on the move. This may be down to the over-wide and stupidly low profile tyres on this particular trim level. The ride is a bit stiff, but its not as uncomfortable as I first remembered it from 2017, and the handling is excellent, it really is quite a joy to drive, no doubt aided by the strong performance from the engine which is really keen to pull from about 1200rpm onwards. Although the gear lever seemed short and quite a stretch when I first drove the car, I’ve got used to it and my left hand falls naturally to it now. The gearlever is good to hold and the gearchange itself is good, short-throw action and lovely and precise. The six speeds seem fairly close-ratio, 40mph in top is about 1300rpm, a slight drop from about 1600rpm in 5th. However it’s not happy over the square speed bumps that inhabit the local roads; the whole car seems to rise and fall over them and I certainly don’t want to risk going over them in excess of 20mph to see if it dismisses them totally at “high” speed.
Engine noise is apparent when accelerating, a slightly uncouth growl, but when cruising or just bumbling along in traffic (or on the open road) it’s very quiet and relaxing, and the car seems very stable too, even on bumpy and poorly surfaced roads.
The infotainment system is somewhat dated, there’s no DAB which surprised me, but there is a single CD player and a slot for an SD card in addition to the one that holds the maps for the satnav system. Sound quality isn’t the best, I still can’t get the treble and bass adjusted to my liking for speech and music, voice control is limited, and on the one occasion I tried dialling out (whilst parked in a supermarket car park) it didn’t seem to pick up the phone book or contacts from my phone despite it being “bonded” to the car, and I had to speak out the numbers one by one. I may be missing something and the handbook isn’t a great deal of help. I can actually see why my daughter leaves the fold-up screen closed all the time because you can display what you need in the centre of the instrument panel between the speedo and tacho. Also the central display is of low-resolution graphics and it’s not a touch-screen, so you have to use a rotary controller and various push-buttons to navigate menus and make selections, cumbersome enough when the car is stationary and next-to-impossible some times when you are driving.
The boot is tiny, the shoulder bag that I take to work seems to half-fill it, although I did squeeze a 32-pack of toilet rolls in from the supermarket although it had to go on its side as it wouldn’t fit in upright….. maybe if I had dropped the adjustable boot floor to its lower position it would have been better – but then you loose the ability to hide valuables out of sight – and the boot floor covers the battery, jack and can of gunge – no spare wheel here unfortunately (so it is curious that you do get a jack to enable you to rotate the tyres/wheels as per info in the handbook).
Good and bad features/quirks? Open the tailgate when it’s been raining and rainwater falls into the boot on both sides. You can set the car to lock the doors automatically as you first drive away. When you turn the engine off and remove the ignition key, they unlock. You have the option for the remote unlocking to open only the driver’s door or all doors and tailgate – you can select this from the menus on the central display. The cutout in the headlining to make it easy to unfold the sunvisor is “inboard” so as a right-handed person it is difficult to lower the driver’s sunvisor – you need to use your left hand and place it in the recess to the left-hand side of the sunvisor (first world problem). If you don’t have auto lights set and drive somewhere dim (e.g. under the shade of trees or in a tunnel) the instrument lighting does out so you can’t see the speed or engine revs – a reminder that you should turn the lights on (very clever) whereas with auto lights on, the instrument lighting stays on (and I presume that the car turns the lights on)
The car was supposed to be Audi’s answer to the BMW Mini. Really? It’s far too plain and ordinary and doesn’t want to make you smile when you open the driver’s door; the rear is cramped and although there are 3 seat belts unlike in the 3-door version which is strictly a 4-seater, you really wouldn’t want to travel very far if seated in the back seats. It’s not very space-efficient but neither is the Mini, which is definitely a different kettle of fish anyway.
So, overall, a fun car to drive with plenty of poke but refined and comfortable for long journeys so long as only the front seats are occupied. Being narrow makes it easy to keep speed up on winding country roads, and easy to fit into car park spaces and the domestic garage. And after 8 years the state of the interior fittings and the paintwork shows where the money goes; they have stood the test of time very well and a decent wash and polish really brings out the best in the finish. It was also a pleasant surprise to brim it again earlier in the week and find that I’ve been getting 46.4mpg from it, from 320 miles of mixed driving from 35-mile motorway journeys to urban trips to the shops and back and getting stuck in the occasional traffic jam. I’m impressed.
