2025 Audi A3 Reviews, Pricing & Specs

Classic Audi styling cues blend to create the A3’s tidy and attractive design. From the single frame grille and roofline arc to the swollen fenders and tapered taillights, the A3 sedan is easy to identify as an Audi with no more than a glance. It has character, but remains conservative enough to fly under the radar.

In Canada, the 2025 Audi A3 comes with a choice of Audi’s three standard trims—base, Progressiv, and Technik—along with nine paint colours (including two blues and a red, green, and yellow), and 17-inch, 18-inch, or 19-inch wheels. Black, black-brown, or black-grey interiors are available. Prices ranged from $43,400 to $50,950 at the time of writing, not including the $2,850 destination charge or other fees.

Our fully loaded test car arrived with the U.S. equivalent of Technik trim, Daytona Grey Pearl paint, and black exterior accents featuring 18-inch wheels.

The interior features a high-tech design, gloss black trim, genuine wood inlay, and metallic accents. There’s plenty of fancy detailing and quality materials to ensure you don’t mistake the A3 for anything but a small luxury car.

Switchgear is straightforward and thoughtfully executed, but navigating through the views and menus on the digital instrument cluster can be somewhat distracting. You can tune the radio or adjust the stereo volume using the steering wheel controls or with a brilliant touch-sensing round pad on the centre console. However, on multiple occasions we selected Drive instead of Reverse due to the initially counterintuitive transmission controls.

The 2025 Audi A3 is equipped with a turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine that’s slightly more powerful than before. It still makes 201 horsepower, but torque increased by 15 pound-feet to 236 lb-ft. A seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission delivers power to the standard quattro AWD system, which provides extra traction during inclement weather.

If the manufacturer-estimated six-second 0-100 km/h time isn’t quick enough for you, Audi offers a couple of upgrades. They include the 328-hp Audi S3 which, starting from $55,000 Canadian before fees, will shave 1.6 seconds off that time. For maximum performance, you can blow more than 75 grand on the Audi RS 3, which has an exclusive 394-hp 2.5-litre five-cylinder engine delivering zero-to-100 km/h acceleration in 3.8 seconds.

Those sport- and performance-tuned versions of the A3 are impressive, but in real-world driving on narrow mountain roads, the standard engine is remarkably satisfying. You can choose between Comfort, Auto, Dynamic, and Individual driving modes, and while we used Auto most of the time, we selected Dynamic for a canyon-carving blast.

The A3 is a real pleasure to drive with enthusiasm in Dynamic mode. The S-tronic dual-clutch transmission shifts expertly enough to render the steering wheel paddles decorative instead of functional. But there’s more to the A3 than a sweet-revving and refined powertrain. Due to its compact size, you can conserve velocity in curves by using more of the available lane and less of the brakes.

Additionally, the S-Line Sport Package’s sport suspension instantly quells unwanted body motion and is sufficiently compliant to absorb road surface irregularities and react softly when necessary. The steering is perfect, the P225/40R18 Pirelli P Zero all-season tires provide remarkably good grip, and the brakes are effective and fade-free. However, by the time we arrived at the beach, the front pads were emitting smoke.

On the highway, the A3 can suffer from excessive road noise on imperfect surfaces. With a full load of passengers, we would have appreciated a little more mid-range power for passing slower vehicles. Around town, it feels solid and structurally sound. The transmission is well behaved, though in Auto mode, following a slight delay in response to accelerator input, the car can surge forward more rapidly than expected when the torque kicks in. This, in turn, appears to make some of your fellow motorists think you want a race.

The A3 is rated by Natural Resources Canada at 8.5 litres per 100 kilometres combined. Our enthusiastic testing produced a result of 9.9 L/100 km on our standard evaluation loop.

The Audi A3 is a small car. Narrow and short, it technically seats five passengers, but even with children in the rear bench seat, it’s a snug fit for three people, and the trunk’s 309 litres of cargo capacity is small even for this class.

Nevertheless, the A3 makes the most of its space. We used it for family duty in the suburbs, taking teenagers to school, running local errands, and driving into the city. Nobody complained about comfort, and while a road trip may have proved daunting, the trunk accommodated what we needed it to.

Heated, power-adjustable front seats wrapped in leather are standard in every A3. Between them is a padded armrest that slides forward and adjusts for height. While exiting the car can be awkward due to the roof pillar, and we wished for seat ventilation on warm days, front seat comfort is excellent.

Surprisingly, the rear seat accommodates average-height adults without any issues, and you can double stack six-footers front and rear. Those with long legs must take care with their knees and shins due to the rigid front seatbacks and storage netting, but otherwise, the A3’s rear-seat legroom is accommodating for short trips. Our test car had rear climate controls, a centre armrest, and a short but supportive bottom seat cushion.

Storage space is reasonable, too. You can hide items in the glove compartment or the cubby in the lower left portion of the dashboard, while open trays on the centre console and bins in the door panels swallow the types of items you’d carry during a typical commute.

We previously mentioned the A3’s tiny trunk, but the good news is that two full-size suitcases fit side by side, leaving room on top for flat items and space around them to stash others. You can pack it full, too, thanks to the enclosed trunk lid hinges. A hook drops down to hold shopping bags, and there’s a small amount of storage space under the cargo floor on either side of the spare tire.

Audi equips the A3 with a 10.25-inch digital instrumentation panel and a 10.1-inch touchscreen infotainment system with wireless Apple CarPlay, wireless Android Auto, access to Audi Connect services, and a six-speaker sound system. It’s basic tech, but it gets the job done.

Audiophiles will have no choice but to upgrade to the impressive Sonos premium sound system, which is optional with the Progressiv trim and standard with Technik. You also get SiriusXM 360L satellite radio, providing subscription-based access to a diverse range of music. The Technik trim adds a larger and more sophisticated 12.3-inch Audi Virtual Cockpit Plus digital instrumentation display and a navigation system.

During our evaluation, connectivity between an iPhone 16 and the Audi Multimedia Interface (MMI) was intermittent, and not just because we drove in and out of cell coverage. Occasionally, we would return to the A3, and it did not recognize the phone. Additionally, on a hot day when the sun shone on the MMI display, it nearly burned our fingertips while navigating the touch-sensitive menu icons.

The voice-recognition system was almost flawless, quickly and accurately responding to all but one of our testing prompts. When requesting directions to a restaurant on a specific street, the system could not help us, even after we added the city name to the query.

Audi equips every 2025 A3 with a basic set of driver-assistance features. The Pre Sense Front system groups forward collision warning with automatic emergency braking, while Lane-departure warning, rear cross-traffic alert, a vehicle exit warning system, and Audi Side Assist blind-spot monitoring are also standard.

Progressiv trim adds Adaptive Cruise Assist with adaptive cruise control. With the Advanced Driver Assistance Package, available with Progressiv and Technik trims, you can use adaptive cruise control with or without Lane Guidance, and Adaptive Cruise Assist includes a Predictive Control setting that automatically adjusts the car’s speed for upcoming curves. You can turn this on or off, or set it up with a speed tolerance to reduce driver irritation.

Adaptive Cruise Assist is excellent, and while it’s a hands-on system, you barely need to hold the steering wheel to avoid warnings to take control. Most of the curves along a winding coastal road were no trouble for it, and on a rural two-lane farm road where we came upon a car parked with its back end almost in the path, the A3 calmly ignored the potential trigger.

At all times, the tech can “see” far enough down the road that it reacts to changing traffic situations early and smoothly, even when using the closest following distance setting. And, when it must hand back control to the driver, the directive is polite and calm rather than shrill and demanding. It was truly a pleasure to use Adaptive Cruise Assist in a variety of highway driving situations.

That said, the A3’s lane-departure warning system regularly issued false alerts. Fortunately, they take the form of a subtle vibration through the steering wheel. Frequently, they were in response to lanes widening from one to two or narrowing from two to one, or to pavement scars from old construction zones. However, sometimes they were simply wrong.

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) had not released safety ratings for the 2025 Audi A3 at the time of writing. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) gave the A3 its top rating in a small overlap front crash test but had not released any other current results.

Small luxury cars are uncommon, but not unheard of, and the 2025 Audi A3’s sole competitor in Canada is the Acura Integra. The Audi’s base price is slightly higher, but it’s more refined and has more features than the Acura to justify the premium.

Audi’s four-year/80,000-kilometre warranty is typical of the segment, although Acura provides a slightly longer warranty for major components of five years or 100,000 kilometres.

The Audi A3 won’t win any value awards, but it’s a delightful daily driver, boasting a stylish design, comfortable front seats, accessible and helpful technology, and an engaging driving experience.