Personally I would stear clear of most VAG cars now - they are trading on a name and the marketeers and accountants are running the show. You are NOT getting what you pay for and VW/Audi are not the super reliable, well-built cars that they would have you believe. I don't think they are any better than Ford, Vauxhall or any other of the mainstream brands. Read around for yourself, but there are plenty of issues with VAG across the board and many examples of bad design. My experience wih models from 2004 onwards is that they really start to give issues once they get towards 100K on the clock and the dealers simply do not want to know. Known problems are brushed under the carpet and customers are charged for repair work resulting from poor design/parts. Yes, many other brands are the same BUT the differance is they are not charging over-inflated prices.

Consider what an A3 or even the latest Golf is - same floor pan, running gear, electrics and engines as a Skoda Octavia. Not to say there's anything wrong with Skoda - quite the reverse! Skoda cars actually seem to out-perform VW, Audi and SEAT and are cheaper. So ask yourself, just what are you paying for other than a fancy badge?

various manufacturers who offer a 5 or 7 year warranty that covered all the major items comprehensively.

That would be no-one then. Electrics, clutch, suspension and brake components are excluded from long warranties. So most of the stuff that's likely to go wrong then.

Engine and transmission are covered, but 7 years of dealer stamps and you've probably paid for a new turbo or DMF whether or not you needed it.