It’s early days for me as my RS3 has only done 750 miles but I understand what you’re saying about fuel consumption. The official figure is 31mpg. I’ve seen 32mpg+ on an open 20 mile run, but on my overall commuting round trip it’s more like 24-25mpg. I travel about 15 miles each way, with about 7 miles of those in urban conditions. Going into town in the morning I get about 27-28mpg, coming out it’s more like 23mpg (I assume the hit is caused by cold running in slow traffic). For comparison, my last car, a Corrado VR6, had an official figure of 29mpg but returned an average of about 27mpg on the same route. Now the Corrado’s consumption improved as the engine loosened up so that may still happen to the RS3. If it doesn’t, I’ll have to conclude that manufacturers nowadays manage to get away with more unrealistic official figures than those compiled 18 years ago.


I’m not seriously surprised by the actual consumption given the power that’s on tap, but the discrepancy with that official 31mpg is a bit more than I’d anticipated . One thing I’ve noticed is that the car seems to drink fuel a fair bit faster than my Corrado when standing in a queue . It does relatively well cruising on the open road but is punished in congested traffic. I wonder if a Start-Stop technology might have made a difference if it could have been applied to this engine.

Having said all that, it is an amazing vehicle and the saving grace for me is that my anticipated annual mileage is only about 7000 miles. That, I tell myself, is no worse in fuel costs than somebody with a 50mpg car doing 12000 a year (which usually implies a more benign profile of A-roads and motorways than mine). Given the awesome capabilities I'm getting for my money, the thought helps me sleep soundly at night