Hmmm good info.

BUT, does weight of the vehicle really matter? The car is compact and feels very light with the open-sky as it is.

Unless your needing a lighter weight to RACE your A3's at tracks.

Is this what most of you are concerned about? The fact that the open-sky will weigh down and decrease your speed?

 

Some of you guys are starting to sound like the Porsche drivers on Rennlist.
C'mon, the A3 2.0T is a sport station wagon. Power-to-weight ratio, center-of-gravity, unsprung weight? This car isn't designed to handle so precisely that an Open Sky equipped car will be noticeably different from one without the roof option. And the weight gained by the 3.2 engine makes it even less likely that you'd ever notice a performance change with Open Sky.
The A3 is a great little car, but a well-balanced race car it's not.

 

Hmmmm......maybe many A3 drivers are disguised Porsche drivers! [8D]

Unusual activity sighted: my A3 rides likes its on a rail at 140 MPH, I just dusted that BMW330I he had no chance with my chipped A3!

My favorite from a another forum: "The only problem so far I've had with my A3 is a speeding ticket!"

 

Chef or anyone for that matter, has anybody tinted their opensky glass and with what kind of tint ?
i'm sure it might help me with the heat down here in MIA but i was told the glass could crack.

 

You must have missed my post near the top of this thread.
By the way - I don't know exactly what the roof panels are made of, but I doubt they're "glass." More likely high-impact plastic. Tinting the Open Sky should have no effect on the panels.

 

Open Sky is toughen safety glass, not plastic.

 

I assumed it was plexiglass (plastic) like most auto moonroofs 'cause neither panel has a DOT glass label on it.
I thought all glass used in cars had to have the DOT mark.
Thanks for setting me straight.

 

Thats odd, all toughened safety glass is suppose to have code markings on it? First thought is that its got to be somewhere on the Open Sky glass sections. BTW you want to go with toughened safety glass because of the way it breaks (no sharp edges) when you get into a accident. All Audi/VW glass on my vehicles has the DOT mark on windows and moon roof.

On the positive side the more glass you have on your car the less polishing and detailing you have to do!

 

I live in South Florida, and I found the sun roof on my last car and on my wife's car were kept covered by the shades about 98% of the time, and since I wanted white for the advantage of keeping the car cooler ( it's kept outside) It made no sense to for me to have the open sky. I could only put the top down on the miata I used to have, after the sun went down. I was able to have the top down more often when I lived in MA, even though I had to have the heat on. You will have to weigh the advantages and disadvantages for your situation. I would think ordering the car without the opensky would not cost more than one with, but maybe not $1100 less.

 

Ok Las Vegas boy here. The open sky is great. The sunshade blocks enough and during the summer I leave the roof cracked unstead of a window. It safer and the car then doesn't get unbarebly hot in our 115+ degree summers. Plus the wind nose was the same on the open sky as the none when I drove both. Its a great feature and my buddies that all sit around 6'2"+ like the back sunroof the open the slid and it allows them extra head room.