Recommendations wanted as to an alternative for an Audi A3

Crazy_Jamie

The situation is this. I currently drive an Audi A3, the lease for which ends in June. I am very happy with the A3 and could certainly see myself hiring another one, but like any prudent member of this site I'm considering my options.

In terms of requirements I drive about 15,000 miles a year, often in longer trips rather than lots of short ones. The A3 has the combination of performance and comfort to the point that it actually becomes bearable to drive those sorts of distances. Importantly I also get good mileage out of it, though even so in a typical month I'll spend about £300 on fuel.

A new lease for an A3 would cost me about £300-£320 a month as far as I can tell. I was wondering if anyone could recommend a car that would be a decent alternative to an A3, but which would obviously give me the benefits of fuel efficiency and a degree of performance and comfort.

All suggestions gratefully received.

interstellaflyer

Have you looked at a VW Golf of similar spec, same car underneath but not having them 4 circles will make it cheaper, or the Seat Leon if you really want to bring the price down and slum it.

worried_jim

interstellaflyer wrote: »

Have you looked at a VW Golf of similar spec, same car underneath but not having them 4 circles will make it cheaper, or the Seat Leon if you really want to bring the price down and slum it.

Or the Skoda if you really really want to bring the price down and slum it.

interstellaflyer

worried_jim wrote: »

Or the Skoda if you really really want to bring the price down and slum it.

Yeah, forgot about the Fabia, good but a bit of an old mans car though, if you want cheap and sporty it's got to be the Leon.

Trebor16

What about the Skoda Octavia?

interstellaflyer

Trebor16 wrote: »

What about the Skoda Octavia?

Good choice but the OP wanted something similar to an A3, the Octavia is an A4/Passat underneath so a bigger car.

MX5huggy

Very happy with my Octavia 1.4 tsi petrol. Got more grunt than your average 1.4. With leasing you can really work out if diesel or petrol is cheaper, as you don't have to guess at deprecation in 3 years time.

One cousin is swapping an A4 2.0 Tdi for the A1 2.0 tdi to save on tax, won't save on fuel, will just go faster!

Crazy_Jamie

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I'm building up a bit of a shortlist with those recommendations to compare both spec and lease prices. To be fair, I don't need it to be exactly like the A3 providing it has the fuel efficiency and a level of comfort/performance. A car that is slightly bigger would be fine.

BadgerFace_2

The octavia is based on the Golf platform, not Passat. But, with leasing, a Golf will probably be cheaper due to higher residuals.

caeler

If you don't mind the lack of boot, I loved my Volvo c30 and now they do a 99co2 emission vehicle for great fuel ecconomy and cheap tax.

interstellaflyer

BadgerFace wrote: »

The octavia is based on the Golf platform, not Passat. But, with leasing, a Golf will probably be cheaper due to higher residuals.

I stand corrected, the Octavia used to be based on the A4/Passat platform but I guess that's changed since the introduction of the Superb.