2015 Audi A3

Name: 2015 Audi A3 owner-filed safety complaints per 1,000 sold
Creator: YearsTell

For every car sold, owners filed more complaints about the 2015 A3 than about the typical A3 year: 1.4 times as many.

Safety complaints filed by owners in the first three years, per 1,000 sold.

1.00 per 1,000

1.4 times this nameplate’s own median

Counted from 29 complaints filed in the first three years, of 179 ever. 95% lower bound 0.63.

This year’s generation (2015–2020) drew 0.57 complaints per 1,000 sold taken together, against 1.51 for the 2004–2013 generation.

Every A3 model yearComplaints per 1,000 sold, first three years

This yearOther yearsToo few complaints to rankTypical year, 0.70

Against its own model years

The model year carries far more information than the badge, so this is the comparison that matters. The bar is how many complaints each rate rests on.

Model year	Per 1,000	Complaints
2008	2.94	14
2009	0.70	3
2010	3.07	16
2011	1.07	7
2012	0.29	2
2015	1.00	29
2016	0.47	16
2017	0.44	12
2018	0.33	7

Issues owners of the 2015 A3 report

Phrases over-represented in these complaints compared with the same component on every other vehicle. Counts are complaints containing the phrase.

Air Bags 83 complaints

pods	22	27%
detection	14	17%
passenger occupant	12	14%
occupant detection	12	14%
detection system	11	13%

When it breaks

37% of reported failures happened before 30,000 miles (median 44,339 miles, from 98 complaints that recorded one).

No clear early or late pattern.

By engine

The VIN an owner files names the engine, which places 176 of this year’s 179 complaints. Sales by engine are not published, so these are not rates and say nothing about which engine drew more complaints. What can be compared is what each engine’s owners reported.

Engine	Complaints	About the engine or fuel system	Of those, before 30,000 miles
1.8 L 4-cylinder	88	27%	too few mileages
2.0 L 4-cylinder	79	34%	30% of 20

Engines as NHTSA’s VIN decoder (vPIC) reads them from the first eleven characters of each VIN. “Turbo” is shown only where every VIN records one; the decoder leaves it blank on many turbo engines. 12 complaints are not in the table: no usable VIN, an engine vPIC could not decode, or an engine with fewer than 25 complaints.

What NHTSA did

1 investigation covering this model year, 1 of which list a recall campaign.

Fuel Leak due to Suction Jet Pump Failure within Fuel Tank (Remedy Effectiveness of Recall 16V647)

Questions buyers ask about the 2015 Audi A3

Is 2015 a good year or a bad year for the A3?

For every car sold, owners filed more complaints about the 2015 A3 than about the typical A3 year: 1.4 times as many. The typical year is the median across its model years.

What problems does the 2015 A3 have?

The parts owners named most often in complaints filed to date: Air Bags (83), Electrical System (25), Fuel/Propulsion System (22). The phrases they used are listed above.

Is the 2015 A3 reliable?

Complaint records cannot settle that on their own. They count safety problems owners chose to report to the federal government, not every repair. What they do show is how this year compares with the other A3 years: for every car sold, owners filed more complaints about the 2015 A3 than about the typical A3 year: 1.4 times as many.

What the used-car guides say

No guide we read covers the A3.

Check this yourself

Example records behind this page, each on NHTSA’s own site:

Limits of this figure. It counts safety complaints filed with the federal government, which is a floor on failures and not a census: problems that only cost money are under-reported. Complaint rates also reflect how likely a brand’s owners are to file, which cannot be separated from how often the car fails. Sales are calendar-year and the denominator for this nameplate is checked by hand against its source table, not against an outside figure.