I feel that the steering effort is artificially light at local road speeds (50mph here in Irvine). I am used to driving FWD Hondas.

I went to Audi Mission Viejo this morning to rotate my tires as my A3 was pulling a little bit to the right. I asked the technician to lower the level of the steering assist. It was originally set to 5, he set it to 3. He said the adjustment levels range from 1 to 9 (whole numbers only). This was done free by the way; I feel sorry for those at Fourtitude who were charged by their dealers to do so, even though they were visiting for other maintenance/service items. I had to go to work right afterwards so have not had a chance to really test it with any high speed cornering, but the steering feels a quite a bit tighter. Much better.

 

I didn't realize that they could adjust the level of steering assist. Is it an ecu adaption or mechanical?

 

http://wiki.ross-tech.com/index.php/Audi_A3/S3_%288P%29

 

It is a setting within the ECU, no mechanical modification necessary. That's because the new A3 has electric power steering, vs. hydraulic power steering in most other cars. So lowering the setting just makes it provide less assist. These are the threads at Fourtitude.

http://forums.fourtitude.com/zerothread?id=2055604

http://forums.fourtitude.com/zerothread?id=2190976