Audi A3 3-door (8V), 8V
A Golf Mk7 in a tailored suit, quieter inside and priced accordingly, sharing every engine and every fault.
Overview
The 8V is the hatchback Audi A3, built 2012–2020 and facelifted in 2016. 3 standard engines are documented here, each with its own issue list, inspection sequence and price band. Asking prices across the standard range run €7,550–€22,950, and 0 of the 3 carry a risk level of 4 or 5; the facelift cars sit at a premium over otherwise identical pre-facelift ones. The 1.6 TDI CLHA is both the cheapest way in, from €10,000, and the lowest-risk engine of the range, which makes it the obvious starting point. Prices are illustrative placeholders rather than a sourced market sample. See the methodology.
Audi A3 hatchback (8V) · photo Audi A3 8V diesel 1968cc registered September 2013 by Charles01 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
| Body style | hatchback | Production | 2012–2020 |
| Platform siblings | 8V Sportback hatchback | Facelift (LCI) | 2016 |
Engine matrix: pre-facelift, 2012–2015
The 3 variants sold before the 2016 facelift. Power and years come from the variant records; prices are illustrative, not sourced.
Engine matrix: facelift / LCI, 2016–2020
The 3 variants sold from the facelift on, priced at a 9% premium over the pre-facelift car.
3 variants from the facelift on, carrying a real market premium of roughly 9% over an otherwise identical pre-facelift car. Variants appearing in both tables were sold either side of the changeover, the build month decides which one you're looking at, not the model year.
Market availability varied by country; check the engine code stamped on the block rather than the badge on the boot. · Compare every engine side by side →
Model-year availability
Which engines were on sale in which year, from the year ranges in the variant records. Availability varied by country.
Rating map, price against risk
Good-buy price plotted against risk level for every standard engine, so the value corner is visible at a glance.
Every standard engine in the chassis, plotted at its good-buy price against its risk level. Cheap and low-risk is the top-left; expensive and fragile is the bottom-right. M cars are excluded, they would stretch the price axis and tell you nothing about the rest.
Prices across the range
Where the money sits across the whole chassis. Every figure here is an illustrative placeholder, not a sourced market sample.
Every standard engine on one euro axis: the bar spans the 10th to 90th percentile of asking prices, the tick is the median and the green marker is the good-buy figure. S/RS cars are excluded; they sit an order of magnitude above the rest.
Every standard engine · cheapest first · 1.6 TDI CLHA highlighted as best value
at or under the good buy · good buy · median · bar spans the 10th–90th percentile
Chassis-wide issues, every engine inherits these
Faults recorded against the bodyshell and running gear rather than one engine, so every variant on this page inherits them.
Written once against the chassis and shown on every variant page below, so nothing here is repeated 3 times: S/RS cars included, since the bodyshell and electronics are shared.
Buying summary
Our read on the chassis, built on the records above rather than added to them.
Best value: 1.6 TDI, for the same reasons it works in the Golf. Best petrol: 1.4 TFSI. The things to check are the group's things: the water pump, a dry-clutch S tronic that may not have been serviced, and the usual questions about how the car was driven. So buy the Audi if you want the cabin, buy the Golf if you want the same car for less.
Cheapest and dearest in this chassis
The ends of the range by good-buy price. Useful for sanity-checking anything you're quoted.
Lowest entry price
1.6 TDI CLHA : from €7,550, risk 2
1.4 TFSI CZEA : from €8,100, risk 2
2.0 TDI CRBC : from €8,650, risk 2
Lowest risk
1.6 TDI CLHA : risk 2, good buy at €10,000
1.4 TFSI CZEA : risk 2, good buy at €10,550
2.0 TDI CRBC : risk 2, good buy at €11,350