OverviewWhat is it?There are times when Audi, to great fanfare, brings out an all-new car and you look at it or even drive it and go “ new, huh, really?” This is not one of those times.The second generation Q3’s body is bigger by 10cm, better-proportioned and a lot roomier than before. It had to grow really, just to open up a gap between it and the Q2, which arrived late in the old Q3’s life and rendered it largely redundant.Besides, since the first Q3 launched, the whole ‘compact premium crossover class’ has become very much a thing, and has coalesced around a fairly fixed size band and mechanical layout. See the BMW X1, Volvo XC40, Jaguar E-Pace. Incoming, and funnelled into the same template, are the Lexus UX and second generations of the Range Rover Evoque and Mercedes GLA. Hardly any of those existed when the first Q3 was born.For the new Q3, another variation of Audi’s scary-goth LED eye make-up sits outboard of a socking great eight-sided grille frame and more angular front ‘intakes’ (most are actually blanks). The body’s metalwork is fashioned into a set of sharp creases, amped up further by a dose of Ur-Quattro in the front and rear wings. It’s German, so of course the base wheels, in this case 18s, look weedy and you’ll want to step up an inch.Inside, the infotainment moves to a touchscreen.
No more dials for the driver: every model has the ‘Virtual Cockpit’ TFT screen.Under the body, another sea-change. To absolutely nobody’s surprise, it now uses the VW Group’s MQB platform. It’s the same wheelbase as the VW Tiguan.
Top Gear asked the project chief if there were any fundamental chassis differences between the two. He was candid. Well the wheels.”That said, the Audi feels surprisingly more nimble than the VW, on account of its different set-up: springs, dampers, bushes and so on. And also because you sit 4cm lower in the Audi.It launches with more petrol engines than diesel. In fact just one diesel, the familiar 2.0 TDI with 150bhp. The petrols are the 1.5-litre 150bhp and a 2.0 with power of 190 or 230bhp.All the 2.0-litre ones have quattro. But many Q3s will be used entirely for gentle suburban bimbling, as opposed to actual sport-utiliting (look, it’s a word ’cos we say it’s a word).
Basically, note the amount any tire is underinflated if you must drive over a mile. 3gp mp4 sub indo.web. I J 0 i is if ' 3Q;.l'(above) Bulging sidewalls are characteristic of radial tires.
So, for obvious reasons the base petrol engine comes with front-drive.They use Audi’s new engine-output badges. So the lower-power engines are called 35 TDI and 35 TFSI, and the 190bhp petrol is 40 TFSI, and the 230bhp petrol is 45 TFSI. Audi provided us with a page-long document laying out this new scheme. But nowhere did it say how they came up with those numbers, or more saliently, why.