Review: The 2022 Audi Q3’s Sales Plummeted This Year– Here Are A Few Possible Reasons.

We can’t all be the A3, which has seen sales skyrocket by 401% from 2021 to 2022, according to the company’s own chart.

The 2022 Q3, by contrast, has plunged in sales by an incredible 30.5% this year.

It’s not all bad news, though. It’s one of the best-looking rides in its size and class, it got many compliments during its week’s test, and it looks like a vehicle costing thousands more. You’ll get the same material and tech features inside, too, offered in the badge’s high end machines.

Other good news for this year (The 2023 Q3 is already out) includes new standard equipment like parking sensors, a blind spot monitoring system, and smart-looking new aluminum interior trim. A Convenience Package, all-new for this year, includes 8-way power front seats with driver memory, an integrated garage door opener and exterior mirrors that fold in.

Go for the Premium plus trim and you’ll get a kick-ass 360-degree camera that’s squeeze you into the most unlikely parking spaces quickly and easily – it’s one of the best of its kind, as opposed to some of the incomprehensible systems of this type.

It is, though, weak acceleration-wise and ordinary in every other fashion in its driving manners. You expect little a Audi to fly when you step on it, to hug corners and to impress you with its accuracy. You’ve a choice of a 2.0-liter four-cylinder with 184 or 228 horsepower or a 221 or 258 pound-feet of torque. It’s all-wheel drive and engines are mated to an 8-speed automatic.

Instead, what we get is a just-ok experience. It was a big “so what?” after seven days of pushing it up and down mountains and making a daily 100-mile round trip drive. The mileage is also just-ok, at a reported 21 MPG in city driving, 30 on highways.

Now here come the bigger gripes.

Almost all Q3s come with an 8.8-inch touchscreen MMI infotainment system featuring Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. A larger 10.1-inch touchscreen is also available with the same content.

But its voice-nav system, as powered through my new-ish Droid, could not manage to deliver complete sentences. For instance, the statement “In a quarter mile, prepare to turn left” became just a fraction of that statement, as in “prepare to turn.” I eventually shut off the Bluetooth system in disgust.

That said, the sound system itself was rich, deep and appropriately crispy and bass-y. But Audi placed the volume control all the way to the right, while leaving the fan of the climate system placed dead center. How many times did I wish to raise or lower the music but instead sent more or less wind to the hair on my legs?

Another head-scratcher is the position of the RPM indicator and the speedometer, placed left to right in the driver’s information cluster directly ahead of the steering wheel. I don’t know about you but I like to see how fast I’m going instantly and, since I read and write English, my eyes go from left to right. Not only is the speedometer extremely dinky in the first place, one’s eye always falls on the RPMs and you have to quickly tell yourself “No, the speedometer’s on the right.”

Fellas, make the speedometer nice and big and put it where your eyes can find it in a second – because it’s more important than any other indicator when you’re driving at night or you’re going over a hill doing 54 in a 45 and the po-po are right behind that billboard.

Its safety features are many, and welcome, including automatic high-beam headlights and automated emergency braking, as well as standard automated emergency braking with pedestrian detection, standard lane-departure warning that doesn’t nag you, and available adaptive cruise control.

In sum, if you’re a hard-core Audi fan who doesn’t require Godzilla under your hood, this may be your ride. Me? I saw a lot of reasons why the 2022 model didn’t do so hot this year.