Prospective owner..

Audi A3 E-tron Forum

Help Support Audi A3 E-tron Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Extoyota

New member
Joined
Feb 1, 2021
Messages
2
Hello everyone! I'm not actually an e-Tron owner yet but I am seriously thinking of it. I have read a fair bit about them but I have a couple of questions I hope actual owners can answer rather than the inaccurate information written in reviews etc.

I can't afford new A3 so I would like lowish mileage (under 45k) car. From reading about them this forum I would definitely like the virtual dashboard which I thinks starts in 2017. The problem is I wouldn't mind having the zero road tax too (because I am a frugal/mean person when it comes to parting with the readies unnecessarily! :mrgreen: I have a feeling I have an impossible task to find such a thing or I have left only a 3 month 'window' where my ideal car hides. I might be persuaded to buy a slightly later car if there is a good reason why it would be worth paying the road tax every year.

I'm a retired mechanic but I have never even worked on a hybrid! I do though still have VCDS (used to be called Vag-Com) diagnostics which I will need to upgrade to talk to an e-Tron. If I do buy I will be happy to share any information I discover with anyone else who has VCDS. :)
 
Yeah the virtual cockpit is a must, IMO, partially because it's great, but also because it prevents the car looking too dated if you sell it on in a few years. Sadly I didn't notice that getting a model with this put me over the limit for 3 more years of rather brutal road tax (I bought my 2017 model in mid-2019). You'd think the UK government would want to encourage greener vehicles rather than cranking up the tax if they were above £40k new.
 
Yes, since I posted that I've been looking at the Seat Leon with the same 1.4 powertrain (and the virtual dash). Not quite an Audi but a bit cheaper and a least there are a couple of colours that don't look quite so funereal!

But I have given up on the virtual dash now in favour of the old model now since I discovered that almost all diagnostics or adaptions to the new model car will be blocked to anyone using VCDS or similar diagnostics. No doubt you will be able to pay thousands per year for licenced access but that won't be cost effective for me since I'm retired. I spent 46 years working in the motor trade myself so I'm not really a dealer guy! It appears that I couldn't even be able use VCDS to check for fault codes, fit rear brake pads or enable/disable any options at all. I understand that there are some good reasons why Audi would want to do this but I am not convinced that it is not mostly to do with keeping lucrative work in-house. :evil:
 
Back
Top