audi a3 1.8t

[taylor]

since the purcase of randoms mk1 vr6 didnt go quite to plan ive been left knowing i need a reliable modern car for everyday use, i just simply cant get away with driving a 20 year old car everyday

since i know the 1.8t lumps are very tunable id like one of them

the A3 really tickles my fancy but i have limited knowlage of them.

any good points /bad points?

ill have about 7k to spend on one should that get me a decent example and id really like some full on dub split rims,

any comments welcome.
cheers
Laura

[rdj_s3_quattro]

hi mate,

I have a S3 quattro 210, fantastic but very thirsty!!!

Dont know what the normal 1.8t is like on fuel economy but i'm lucky to get 25mpg driving sensibly!!!

Its ridiculously expensive to run (for me appx £50 a week and endless trips to petrol station which is a pain!!)

If it were me, I'd go for a high torque diesel!, in today's world there's no comparisson; diesel is MILES better! for both terms of mpg and torque for acceleration

Wish id got a diesel quattro and chipped it instead of S3! hopes this helps!

[djdinna]

I've got a stock A3 1.8T ('99) with 150 bhp. It's quite economical, giving me an average of just over 30 mpg (I'm told that I drive it hard). That's better than my old 1.4 Fiesta 16V (again, driven hard).

Apparently the best and first thing one needs to do to it is to get it remapped for about £480. This gives you 200 bhp, without much loss in reliability or petrol consumption (due to having more mid range torque - meaning less need to rev it so high).

[JohnnyM100]

The 1.8T engines have an excellent reputation for reliability & tuneability. I love mine.

For that sort of money I'd check 2 things; both of them on the history of previous maintenance:

When the cambelt was changed (450-600 GBP at an Audi dealer in the UK depending on where you live) & whether the water pump was changed at the same time.

Service interval on the cam belt was changed by VAG a few years ago and is now 80k miles OR 4 years. It makes sense to change the water pump at the same time as replacing the pump separately is about the same cost since it it difficult to get to and driven from the cambelt. so make sure both have been done on any that you are looking at.

Oil changes / Service interval - It depends whether the car is on an AVS or standard service. Certainly regular oil changes as per schedule are important, especially on the 1.8T as the turbo uses engine oil for lubrication. If the oil changes are late/missed, then the oil feed to the turbo can get clogged. No noeed to go into details about what happens to something spinning that fast without a good suply of decent oil.

[Jimbo1.8t]

i have the 150BHP engine and i can get about 36MPG and a mate at work has the 180BHP engine ( in a leon cupra) and he can get about 32MPG

[Bullough]

Hi 7k should get you a pretty decent a3 1.8t with quite low millage.
i took my 1999 a3 1.8t (150) to dub sport the other day and was quoted £339 for a remap taking it to 200bhp. Also if your looking for some good wheels the ones on my car (below) seem to be getting my car allot of looks and ive even had random people come to me saying nice wheels LMAO

[engineermk]

I ran a MK4 golf 1.8T for 5 years from new until last month.

For three years on the VW factory ECU tune it returned an ave of 28mpg, with superchips help it made 185BHP and returned 27mpg for the last 2 years.

Mine had followign problems with the engine:
- water temp sender failed in first year (repalced by VW)
- ignition coils failed at 60k
- oil pressure issues at 80k, probably due to big end wear (the reason I sold it) as placing the switch and clening the strainer didn't cure it.

It was a reliable car otherwise, never failed to start, never let me down.

[Nezmond]

Only driven mine for a couple of thousand miles but it does seem to be a strong engine, i do lot of motorway miles and average about 36mpg so its not bad at all!!

Paid 6k for mine, its an x reg with FASH and 28000 miles, so that should give a good indication of what you can get for £7k

[mrleeS3]

my pal recently got a nice V reg 1.8t quattro for just shy of £5k... quite nice.. black w/ white leather, reasonable mileage etc..

so your £7k should go far/way newer than that!

like said above, to get it up to 200+ bhp won't break the bank... & you'll probs still have enuff change to get your dub/split rims! [18's will go on no-fuss what-so-ever!]

try the autotrader site or something... theres usually quite a few on there..

[they're *slightly* less thirsty than s3's & only slightly less fun! go for it!]


**ps,... car looks sweeeet Bullough!

[gorellsn]

Hi

I did as you are thinking. I bought a 1998 (r) audi A3 1.8T a couple of years ago. Since buying the standard car I've made various changes to parts with the final change being rolling road tuned by Jabbasport. It came out with 206bhp and will out perform standard S3's.

If you are thinking of buying one and tuning one up I'd think about contacting them to ask how they would recommend you make changes.

I spent approx £1500 to get the additional horses, however I spoke to one of the guys at Jabbasport afterwards whp advised I could have changed the turbo to the one that comes on the S3 and have it rolling road tuned for slightly more than I spent. The outcome would have been about 250bhp+.

Hope this helps!

Simon