Audi A4 2015 Review - International

You don’t have to remember back very far before this starts to feel familiar. When the Q7 broke cover, as the tech leader of the next generation of Audis, we all thought: “I hope it drives better than it looks”. It did.

And now here we are in the same situation with the A4. And it does, too.

It must take some kind of perverted genius to throw away everything from a car, give it a new chassis, new engines, new transmissions, new suspensions, a new interior, new in-cabin electronics and contrive to make the sheet metal 10 per cent more boring.

Aware of the suffocating visual indifference that hung over the A4, Audi’s technical boss Ulrich Hackenberg took us along on his final validation drive a couple of months ago, trying to reignite interest in the car’s engineering, its equipment and its actual car-ness.

So we tested it there, finding a very good, borderline-great car, brimming with in-cabin tech, comfortable beyond the segment average, with a cossetting ride that signals a new era at Audi, yet doesn’t lose anything in ground-covering ability.

For some complicated reasons, we were given a choice of one car to drive out of Venezia airport, the 3.0-litre turbo-diesel in quattro form. Think of it as the flagship, because that’s how it will be considered in Europe, where the petrol engines aren’t as beloved as here.

For European conditions, it’s a treat. The 2967cc V6 is one of the sweetest turbo-diesel engines going around, with not a hint of vibration or coarseness anywhere in its entire rev range.

It spins willingly out beyond 5000rpm, too, and does it without getting wobbly or grumpy. Lift it beyond very light throttle openings and anybody not paying attention would swear it was a petrol six. And an inline one, at that.

It’s a genuine contender now to be the smoothest six-cylinder diesel engine going around, and that’s even with BMW’s tri-turbo diesel six waiting tens of thousands of dollars upstream of it.

There’s 160kW of power from it, in a 1000rpm flat line from 4000 revs, but it’s the torque that steals the show. It’s always on offer, with 400Nm hitting at just 1250rpm, which is barely a blipped throttle up from idle, and it stays on point until 3750rpm.

The 160kW of power is enough, too, that it doesn’t feel like it tapers off at higher revs.
Combine the two curves and there is more than enough reason and reward there to spin the six out from idle to redline before you change gears, especially if you’ve found a rewarding piece of road.

Yet it’s easily strong enough at low revs to do the burble-and-shift thing early and often if you want to keep it quiet, civilised and economical.

And it’s that last part, too, posting 114g/km of CO2 and 4.7L/100km for the combined NEDC cycle (or 4.4L/100km if you’re a part of the owner base’s two per cent that keeps it on the smaller 17-inch wheels and tyres, rather than upgrading to 18s or 19s).

It’s also still plenty quick, punching to 100km/h in 6.3 seconds and on to an artificially limited 250km/h top speed. It wasn’t that long ago that numbers like that were the domain of proper sports sedans.

There’s a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission at the heart of the quattro all-wheel drive system, too, and it’s smoother than such things have been in the past.

The old bugbears of low-speed, light-throttle operation and slow response from the lights have been worked through and it’s now a lot closer to the smoothness of a hydraulic automatic than it has a right to be.

It’s not just strength and economy that are its hallmarks. It’s fuss-free, which is the new standout philosophy of the A4. Want to accelerate? Just go, with no diminution of the serenity inside. Want to stop? Stand on the brake pedal and watch the scenery stop blurring while you sit there, calmly. Want to go around corners? Turn, feel, then straighten up again.

It’s whisper quiet at most speeds and on most surfaces, with little wind noise (it’s drag coefficient is a class-leading 0.28) thanks to moving the mirrors to the doors and using acoustic side glass.

But the surprise is the way it rides, even on its 18-inch rubber. The attitude-adjusting Audi Drive Select (mated here with the more comfort-oriented of its two adaptive damping options) comes with Comfort, Auto and Dynamic modes.

Forget Comfort, which is massively underdamped for a 1620kg car (the fours are a lot lighter). The Auto mode is the place to be most of the time, with the damping so beautifully judged that it’s a rare bump that unsettles the body and the people it holds.

Dynamic, too, is well judged, firming things up just enough to make corners fun and ground covering rapid, without making the mistake of making the car uncomfortably hard in an effort to reiterate to people what the Dynamic button does, trading off heavier steering with more feedback.

It’s almost a throwback in its feel, delivering something of the philosophy of big Benzes of two decades ago. It’s not going to encourage you to seek out and smash through the winding mountain roads, but if you ask it to anyway, it will surprise you with its aplomb and ability.

It’s a good sign of engineering depth and a step away from the way rival modern premium mid-sizers are developing.

It shares its modular MLB Evo architecture with the larger Q7 SUV, making the sedan 4726mm long, 1842mm wide and 1427mm high, which explains why its on-road behaviour feels similar.

Critically, its wheelbase has grown 12mm to 2820mm and it’s 41mm longer, 32mm wider and 13mm lower than the C-Class. Take that, Mercedes. There are more mores. There’s more rear legroom (23mm), more headroom, more shoulder room and, while the quattro version of the sedan has a similar 480 litres of luggage space (15 litres fewer than the front-drive), it’s up to 965 litres with the seats folded down.

There are five-link suspension setups at both ends and there is also adaptive steering as an option, but the car feels better without it, while 60 per cent of the torque usually heads to the rear-end, helping with the balance of the chassis feel.

Audi bet big on its interior design and equipment, as confident in its ability to outshine the opposition as it is unconfident about the exterior design (details of which don’t show up until page 38 of its press kit, when they’re usually front and centre).

It is a bit special, really. It’s not as flashy as the C-Class cabin, but everything fits precisely and looks expensive, right down to the all-digital Virtual Cockpit instrument cluster (that is standard on this car, but optional on the entry-level four-cylinder models in Europe) and the very high-resolution multimedia screen.

You wave your fingers at the ventilation controls and the screen above the buttons brings up each menu. Same with the interior lights. Wave your hands at them and they come on, do the same and they switch off.

It has always been a standard setter in interior design, trim quality and feel, which Audi built on even more with this car, and it’s safer, both in crash and in crash avoidance. It has at least 30 sensor-based safety features as at least options (more than the Q7).

It’s not a car anymore. It’s a first-strike weapon aimed at striking down the C-Class and the aging 3 Series and keeping down new foes from Lexus, Jaguar and anybody else who thinks they have a contender.

And good luck tackling it.

2015 Audi A4 3.0 TDI quattro pricing and specifications:
Price: TBC
Engine: 3.0-litre V6 turbo-diesel
Output: 160kW/400Nm
Transmission: Seven-speed dual-clutch, all-wheel drive
Fuel: 4.3L/100km
CO2: 111g/km
Safety rating: TBC

What we liked:
>> Swift, silent, balanced, but not lumpy
>> Magnificent interior design and electronics
>> Silken diesel performance

*A4 2.0 TFSI model pictured