The 2015 Audi A3 ditches its hatchback design for the sleek lines of a sedan. With its redesign, the 2015 A3 has grown 7.5 inches in length. That extra room helped make it easy to install our child-safety seats in this compact sedan.
How many car seats fit in the second row? Two
What We Like
- The A3 has two sets of lower Latch anchors that sit in the open under removable plastic covers. This style of anchors are some of the easiest to use.
- The rear-facing convertible fit easily in the A3's backseat, and the front passenger didn't have to move her seat forward to accommodate this car seat.
- The high-back booster seat fit well in the A3. The seat belt buckles sit on stable bases.
What We Don't
- There are three tether anchors on the rear shelf, but they're difficult to access because the head restraints aren't removable and there isn't a lot of room between the rear window and the rear shelf.
- The tough-to-use tether anchors made it difficult to install the forward-facing convertible, though it was easy to connect the seat to the lower Latch anchors.
- To fit the rear-facing infant seat, we had to move the front passenger seat forward. This left our 5-foot-7-inch tester's knees about a quarter-inch from touching the glove box.
Grading Scale
A: Plenty of room for the car seat and the child; doesn't impact driver or front-passenger legroom. Easy to find and connect to Latch and tether anchors. No fit issues involving head restraint or seat contouring. Easy access to the third row.
B: Plenty of room. One fit or connection issue. Some problems accessing third row when available.
C: Marginal room. Two fit or connection issues. Difficult to access third row when available.
D: Insufficient room. Two or more fit or connection issues.
F: Does not fit or is unsafe.
About Cars.com's Car Seat Checks
Editors Jennifer Geiger, Jennifer Newman and Matt Schmitz are certified child safety seat installation technicians.
For the Car Seat Check, we use a Graco SnugRide Classic Connect 30 infant-safety seat, a Britax Marathon convertible seat and Graco TurboBooster seat. The front seats are adjusted for a 6-foot driver and a 5-foot-8 passenger. The three child seats are installed in the second row. The booster seat sits behind the driver's seat, and the infant and convertible seats are installed behind the front passenger seat.
We also install the forward-facing convertible in the second row's middle seat with the booster and infant seat in the outboard seats to see if three car seats will fit; a child sitting in the booster seat must be able to reach the seat belt buckle. If there's a third row, we install the booster seat and a forward-facing convertible. To learn more about how we conduct our Car Seat Checks, go here.
Parents should also remember that they can use the Latch system or a seat belt to install a car seat, and that Latch anchors have a weight limit of 65 pounds, including the weight of the child and the weight of the seat itself.
Cars.com photos by Matt Schmitz and Evan Sears
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