"Best" dealership for an R420

[monkeyhanger]

I wonder how much it will cost once properly specced.

An RS3 with decent options hits £50k and I don't think the R400 will be significantly cheaper. Hell, a Christmas Tree specced R is near £40k anyway.

£50k for an RS3 hatch? That's really crazy.
£50k for a Golf hatch? That's madness.
No thanks to both the above. I will look elsewhere.

I bet you won't need half as many options on the R400 as you'll need for a spartan RS3. It may still want £5k spent on it to be truly "loaded" though.

[am1w]

I wonder how much it will cost once properly specced.

An RS3 with decent options hits £50k and I don't think the R400 will be significantly cheaper. Hell, a Christmas Tree specced R is near £40k anyway.

£50k for an RS3 hatch? That's really crazy.
£50k for a Golf hatch? That's madness.
No thanks to both the above. I will look elsewhere.

I bet you won't need half as many options on the R400 as you'll need for a spartan RS3. It may still want £5k spent on it to be truly "loaded" though.

I must admit I really like the Audi Sportbacks S3 and RS3. They look expensive, unlike the VW Golfs. If I was choosing now, I'd go Audi and not VW.

[sixlargebeers]

am1W - I have gone down the S3 Sportback route.  I lurked on here for months since deciding on a change from my SLK and a GTI PP or R was firmly on the cards until I looked a bit more closely at a colleague's S3 in the office car park.  One thing led to another and I drove one last weekend and loved it.  Wife is driving one tomorrow and if she gives it the thumbs up then I will start the proper negotiations.....oh and the Audi-Sport.Net forum is great - almost as good as this one 

[am1w]

am1W - I have gone down the S3 Sportback route.  I lurked on here for months since deciding on a change from my SLK and a GTI PP or R was firmly on the cards until I looked a bit more closely at a colleague's S3 in the office car park.  One thing led to another and I drove one last weekend and loved it.  Wife is driving one tomorrow and if she gives it the thumbs up then I will start the proper negotiations.....oh and the Audi-Sport.Net forum is great - almost as good as this one 

Thanks for the thumbs up re the S3 Sportback. I drove one 3 days ago and really loved it. Sitting inside it was a wonderful experience and driving one was even better. For me, it drives just as well as the R.

However, I am stuck with my R as I am on 3 year Business Lease. Even though I love my R which I think is a great car and enjoy driving it, it is not quite the right car for me. It just feels a bit 'cheap' in comparison to the Audi. Lots on here will be up in arms for me saying this. But, hey, this is a free country and one has a right to express one's opinion, however unpopular it might be.

ETTO.

[Booth11]

Thanks for the thumbs up re the S3 Sportback. I drove one 3 days ago and really loved it. Sitting inside it was a wonderful experience and driving one was even better. For me, it drives just as well as the R.

However, I am stuck with my R as I am on 3 year Business Lease. Even though I love my R which I think is a great car and enjoy driving it, it is not quite the right car for me. It just feels a bit 'cheap' in comparison to the Audi. Lots on here will be up in arms for me saying this. But, hey, this is a free country and one has a right to express one's opinion, however unpopular it might be.

ETTO.

Asker, why would anyone be up in arms?  I don't think anyone on here is such an out and out fanboy as to wish to see someone stuck with a car they don't like.  Jimble has been through quite a few models of late in this quest and will hopefully be soon back in the car he feels is right for him - a GTI.

It's a great shame your R isn't quite living up to your expectations, and perhaps the build quality is not of a standard you have been accustomed to with previous cars.  It is still early days in your ownership though.

Is there any way you could make an early swap without incurring significant fininacial penalty?

[monkeyhanger]

Asker: You'll just have to slum it with us peasants that didn't spend an extra 2% buying an S3. 

Audi Salespeople really put me off - I haven't met one that wasn't a complete slime-bag.

[sixlargebeers]

Know what you mean MH - I have heard some pretty off-putting stories about Audi dealerships north of the border.  My limited experience so far (arranging a test drive) has been just about OK (apart from the sales guy assigned to do my test drive being involved in a new car handover when I arrived at the appoined time -go figure).  We shall see.

As for 2% more than the R, I reckon that's about right.  I'll be happy with 10% discount, which I know from speaking to one or two brokers is do-able.  Asker - would 10% off ease your financial pain if you made the early swap as Booth suggests ??

[am1w]

I have to think long and hard about what my next step is going to be. At present I am going to be away a lot of the time and don't really have the time or energy to start a process which might or might not allow me to change the car.

I love the way the R drives, love its looks and enjoy its many qualities, but it feels 'cheap' (and it is in my case due to the low monthlies) when I compare it to an S3 Sportback and to our BMW. A 2% increase in price is nothing and easily doable over an R, but the deal I got makes the difference between a reasonably specced S3 Sportback and my R much, much more: a difference of over £112 incl VAT per month, a 34% increase! It is for this reason I might just bite the bullet and stick with a brilliant but slightly flawed car which I got at a very low monthly cost and this tempers some of my irritations with the car. Perhaps I am expecting too much and am excessively fussy.

Anyway, worse things happen at sea!

[monkeyhanger]

I could've gone for the S3 when things were starting to get strung out on the R order (the GFV changes that made me decide for sure that I was going to pay for the R outright rather than see payments increase by £97 a month, the BW jumping 14 weeks around the time I added Prets), but I couldn't forgive the estate-like external looks enough to buy it for the interior. The dearth of standard equipment put me off too - I would have to spend close to £3k on it to get the stuff that is standard on the MK7 that I wouldn't be without.

Anything about the Audi that feels more premium is just a very thin veneer. If VW were allowed the free rein to spend another £100 on the car and charge £300 more accordingly, you would have your better door cards and half leather. Audi quality over and above the other VAG marques is all about perception (but they're good at it). Fancier door cards, slightly softer plastics, nicer switches (above Skoda and Seat), and half leather seats don't cost a lot, but add a lot to the RRP. Built to the same techniques and QA standards, painted the same, the functional parts being the same under the veneer. Surely the negligible price difference between the R and the S3 is the giveaway that they're built to the same standard. I'm sure there'll be a well hidden Achilles heel somewhere on the S3 that makes you think they cut a corner and ask yourself why the hell did they do it?

Just amazed that for the one area of the wing highlighted, VW didn't do something to make it more rigid - a clip or block behind it perhaps, for the sake of 2g weight and a couple of Euro cents per car, they probably thought no-one would notice, and if I hadn't been sealing the car and requiring some elbow grease to get the residue off then I wouldn't have noticed either.

From my experience, most Audi salesmen don't deserve your money.

[Mr Savage]

The Audi RS3 hasn't received the best of write ups so far. Apparantly still very understeer happy and quite dull to drive. I was all up for buying one until the reviews came out for it.

Saying the R420 is overpriced is also a bit silly. Yes it's expensive but for the car you get it's never going to be cheap. It all depends where you look at it from. When you think it's effectively still a Volkswagen Golf then £40,000 does seem expensive for a family hatchback but when you think it's a car capable of completing the 0-62MPH sprint in just 3.9 seconds, a top speed of 174MPH and still plenty of room for 5 passengers and a boot then i'd say that it's actually pretty good value for money.

People will say that you can buy other sports cars for that kind of money but anyone who drives will know that running costs make a big difference still. You might say "you don't buy a car like this to worry about the running costs" but trust me you still do and should. Come back with that comment after owning a Nissan GTR and having to service it every 6 months and almost continuously having to replace the huge, expensive tyres that it burns through so quickly. No matter which way you look at it you're still going to notice that cost. Unless you're a millionaire in which case you probably have a Mclarren P1 or Bugatti Veyron.

Find me another car you can buy for less than £40,000 brand new that's capable of a sub 4 second sprint, with reasonable insurance, road tax and mpg and then we can call the R420 overpriced. Until then I don't think we can.

If you still think it's overpriced then that's fine. Noone's forcing you to buy one. There are plenty of other options. But I can tell you now that the order books will be full.