Audi A4 allroad 2016 Review

Audi A4 allroad quattro
International Launch Review
Rosenheim, Germany

The A4 'allroad' has traditionally shown how good the A4 wagon can be when Audi lets the tension off the springs, and this one’s no different. It can do almost everything the A4 Avant can do, but mixes in some light-duty off-road ability and a softer ride. The cost is cost, plus a bit of added weight, and that’s about it.

If you have even the remotest interest in Audi’s A4 Avant, it has just become incumbent upon you to test the A4 allroad as well.

The A4 allroad is, and always has been, a slightly higher riding version (34mm higher in B9 A4 guise) of the wagon variant. Tradition has it that the allroad version will ride a bit better on its taller springs, will have a slightly tougher look about it and will be able to ford shallow streams and tackle modest rocky trails.

There’s nothing wrong with this formula. It filled Audi’s SUV vacuum in the 1990s and 2000s and made such a significant slab of money (and had such a loyal, almost cult following) that the company kept it when the Q5 and Q7 came on stream.

While the allroad was derided by the early SUV adopters of Mercedes-Benz and BMW, Benz has now decided the allroad isn’t all bad, and will show its own E-Class-based entry into the genre at September’s Paris motor show.

It’s a technical groundbreaker for Audi this time around, ushering in an era of smart all-wheel drive, which will run in front-wheel drive as much as possible to save fuel, pushing the traditional mechanical system to the margins of the high-horsepower RS monsters at quattro GmbH.

The Torsen torque-sensing quattro will now live on only in the RS models, to soon be replaced everywhere else by an active system that uses its satellite-navigation data to predict when its all-wheel drive traction might be helpful.

We’ve touched on the system before, and Audi is dubbing it the Quattro Ultra, to link it to its fuel-sipping Ultra versions of each model. It claims the predictive all-wheel drive, which uses sensors all around the car to switch in and out of all-wheel drive to deliver maximum economy without compromising traction, saves around 0.3L/100km on the NEDC cycle. That seems like a lot of work for not much in fuel savings, though it also weighs 4kg less than the traditional Torsen system.

It loses some of the weight savings it might have had by giving a set of computer-controlled dog clutches to the rear differential, which uncouples the entire rear-end of the driveline when it’s not needed, so it doesn’t pay the usual price in friction and the rear wheels spin freely.

It will roll out in all of Audi’s MLB-architecture cars, but only those with the seven-speed S-tronic dual-clutch transmission (the eight-speed automatic’s casing is so big it doesn’t leave enough space inside the transmission tunnel to house the system).

Audi engineers insist that all-wheel-drive security would always top economy as a brand value. It would rather over-estimate the need for added traction than crib another few tenths on its mileage numbers.

It’s a more sophisticated car than the B8 A4 allroad in many ways (and it’s 91kg lighter). Its suspension has switched to five-link systems at both ends and it has optional adaptive dampers for the first time.

It also adopts every piece of tech from the A4’s astonishingly clean, crisp interior. It will carry over the core of the interior from this year’s all-new A4 Avant, including the optional all-digital virtual cockpit instrument cluster, its 8.3-inch multimedia screen, fast LTE internet connection and head-up display.

It ends up delivering 505 litres of luggage capacity, or 1510 litres with the rear seats folded down, plus seating for five adults and it now has standard electric power for both the cargo cover and the tailgate.

There is the brand-signature chrome allroad grille, with standout vertical bars, plus an alloy brush guard at each end and flared wheel arches.

To figure out where the A4 allroad sells strongest, you only have to look at the powertrains. There is just one petrol engine and everything else uses diesel power, in either four- or six-cylinder forms.

Fortunately, the 2.0-litre, turbocharged petrol four is a cracker of a motor and is the sweet spot of the allroad range, even though the 2.0-litre TDI four-cylinder will undoubtedly be its biggest seller.

While we drove three variants (one of the 2.0-litre TDIs and the 200kW/600Nm 3.0-litre V6 TDI thumper), we came away most impressed with the petrol engine.

It’s a sweetie. It’s strong and silky smooth, spinning freely and seemingly without effort, and delivering not a single identifiable trace of vibration or harshness into the cabin. It starts cleanly and easily, smoothly and quickly settling into its idle, and its throttle response is sharp and accurate.

Audi claims it has 185kW of power between 5000 and 6000rpm and 370Nm of torque from 1600 to 4500rpm, and its actual on-road usability reflects the numbers.

It’s no rocket ship, but it’s never slow. It’s not designed for outright sprinting, but still gets across to 100km/h in 6.1 seconds and tops out at 246km/h, which will be more than enough for most people.

The real key to it is that it’s immensely strong around town, with its mid-range and bottom-end performance aping a diesel four, but without the harshness and the vibration, and without the NOx emissions.

It’s exceptionally quiet at highway speeds, too, and it sounds sweet at every point of its rev range and you just can’t trick it into behaving like an unsophisticated motor, because it’s not an unsophisticated motor.

The seven-speed dual-clutch transmission is a big step up in manners from its predecessors, too, and it’s now a lot harder to abuse it into clunky shifts or juddered take-offs. Most of the time, you don’t even notice it’s there.

Its launch powertrains will give it between 100kW and 200kW, with engines ranging from a single TFSI 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol motor to five turbo-diesels. All-wheel drive will be standard, and it relies on six-speed manual, seven-speed dual-clutch and eight-speed automatic transmissions to get its power from the engines to the differentials.

The only petrol engine on offer, the 2.0-litre TFSI consumes 6.6L/100km, which equates to 152g/km for CO2 emissions. Oiler versions of the allroad, starting with two versions of the 1968cc four-cylinder turbo-diesel (with either 120kW and 400Nm or 140kW/400Nm), pull the NEDC number down to as little as 4.9L/100km, though the stronger of the two takes 7.8 seconds to hit 100km/h.

There is a 160kW/400Nm version of the 3.0-litre V6 TDI in the A4 allroad, too, though we only climbed into the 200kW/600Nm version (because it’s all they had at the launch). It’s even quicker than the 185kW petrol version, with a sprint time of 5.5 seconds to 100km/h, and uses only 5.3L/100km.

The diesel engines are both heavier over the front axles than the petrol engine model, and they both feel it, too, especially the V6.

Where the TFSI is 1580kg (dry), the 2.0-litre TDI is 1640kg (with all of the extra mass sitting over the front axle), while the V6 is 1730kg, which is climbing up there.

The price the diesels pay is that they lose the light-footed feel of the petrol-powered Allroad, and don’t shift their weight as easily or serenely from corner to corner. They’re not bad, but they just lack the calm, unflurried swiftness of the TFSI’s handling prowess.

There are standard steel springs and fixed dampers underpinning all of this, though Audi expects a high take-up rate for the optional dynamic damper system, which can raise and lower the ride height. The allroad’s body sits 23mm higher than the standard A4, but it gathers another 11mm in ride height through a taller tyre aspect ratio on its 17-inch to 19-inch alloy rims.

2016 Audi A4 allroad 2.0 TFSI pricing and specifications:
Price: TBC
On sale: August
Engine: 2.0-litre inline four-cylinder turbo-petrol
Output: 185kW/370Nm
Transmission: seven-speed dual-clutch auto
Fuel: 6.6L/100km
CO2: 152g/km
Safety rating: TBC