Audi A4 Avant 2.0 TFSI quattro 2009 Review

Road Test

Audi A4 Avant 2.0 TFSI quattro

Price Guide (recommended price before statutory and delivery charges): $76,730
Options fitted to test car (not included in above price): Metallic paint $1695, Valcona leather $1112, navigation package $3390, Audi Drive Select/adaptive dampers $3390, variable luggage area/rail system $424, High Beam Assist $318, powered tailgate $1165 and Audi Side Assist $1324
Crash rating: Five-star (NCAP)
Fuel: 95 RON ULP
Claimed fuel economy (L/100km): 7.7
CO2 emissions (g/km): 183
Also consider: BMW 323i Touring, Mercedes-Benz C 200 K, Saab 9-3 SportCombi Vector, Volvo V50 T5

Overall rating: 3.0/5.0
Engine/Drivetrain/Chassis: 3.0/5.0
Price, Packaging and Practicality: 2.5/5.0
Safety: 3.0/5.0
Behind the wheel: 3.0/5.0
X-factor: 3.5/5.0

About our ratings

Audis with the French word Avant in their model name are wagons. They share everything with their sedan equivalents -- other than the rear panels. In the case of this particular car, there are quattro drivetrain components underneath the floor of the boot too. So contrary to its name (en Francaise Avant = front), the business end of the Audi A4 Avant 2.0 TFSI quattro is at the rear.

Ever pondered who would buy this type of car? Specifically, what sort of person would buy a small, prestigious European wagon with a turbocharged engine, dual-clutch transmission and all-wheel drive? This is the sort of car that business executive -- a car enthusiast at weekends -- would buy to drive during the week.

He or she would promote it as a safe and environmentally-friendly family carry-all. He or she would also square it with the company accountant that the resale value of the car won't head south after a couple of years and that it can be leased as a tax deduction.

The A4 Avant 2.0 TFSI quattro, which shall henceforth be known as the Avant, is fun to drive, it is practical, it's safe and it can accomplish much that the smaller S3 Sportback can -- but without the bright colours and stand-out badging.

Power for the Avant hails from a turbocharged and direct injected four-cylinder engine. It's an excellent powerplant that sounds wonderful, remains very refined and is a happy little vegemite in the higher reaches of the rev range. But it is slow to fire the Audi off the mark. That wait for the turbine to spool up will catch you out at times, particularly if you're attempting a right turn across traffic.

Fuel consumption, according to the trip computer, averaged 13.5L/100km over the course of the seven days the car was in our possession. On freeways and country roads we saw figures below 9.0L/100km, but commuting and enthusiastic driving took their toll. The Avant's fuel consumption probably also reflects its quattro all-wheel drive system and the added weight of the safety and convenience features in a wagon body.

The Avant features an S Tronic twin-clutch manual transmission. The seven-speed box is substantially better behaved than the six-speed DSG transmission tried recently in the Skoda Superb V6, but it still has its moments. It's not always smooth changing up on light throttle settings, for example.

The shift paddles provided fairly rapid downshifting, but only one gear at a time. 'Double-tapping' the paddle in rapid succession won't necessarily swap to the cog you want. To the car's credit though, the paddles turn with the steering wheel, so they're always at the ready.

As a further consolation, whether the driver is using the shift paddles or the lever to shift sequentially, the Avant's transmission will change up a gear as soon as the engine reaches its redline.

Still in the driver's seat, the sunvisor has to be gripped by the left hand to lower and raise. You slip your fingers into a cut-out on the left side to adjust it. Until accustomed to using the left hand to adjust the visor, right-handed folk will be doing a double-take.

The start button is disabled if you place the key into the slot in the Audi's dash. With the key in your pocket or in the cupholders, the start button will operate per specification, but not with the key in the dashboard slot. Audi's effectively telling owners that if they want convenience, leave the key in the pocket. Makes sense…?

Audi Drive Select was, as ever, a useful option, providing sportier suspension and steering dynamics when required or more comfortable settings at other times. It's not cheap, but for many buyers it's worth the money. In Comfort mode, the Drive Select system imbues the Avant with a ride quality approaching anything this side of an A8.

Another option, the 'Side Assist' blind spot warning was not as well received by this reviewer. It can be a distraction when you already have your mirrors set up correctly to check blind spots. The yellow LEDs flashed startlingly as the Audi passed parked cars in suburban streets. At other times, the flashing lights were missed if the driver's head was turned elsewhere.

This type of safety technology -- and not limited to Audi -- seems to have some way to go before meeting the needs of urban drivers. Perhaps it should be audible rather than optical. Like acoustic parking guides...

While the Avant was quiet in most circumstances, there was some NVH penetration in the cabin, transmitted by the tyres on certain road surfaces.

The driver's seat was passably comfortable and provided the usual broad spectrum of powered adjustment, so finding somewhere from which you could see the instruments easily and reach the controls readily was not hard -- just time-consuming.

No matter how long this reviewer spent setting up the driving position however, there was no escaping the perennial issue of pedal placement and footwell shape. In the Avant, as for other A4 models driven in recent times, the transmission tunnel was quite wide and this reviewer found his left ankle and lower leg pressed up against it -- with the car's pedals offset to the right. At least there was no clutch pedal in this car.

It was hard to distance oneself from the accelerator pedal too. At least there was a generous range of adjustment for the steering wheel and the fore/aft travel of the driver's seat. But then you're not leaving entirely adequate legroom for the passenger seated behind the driver.

The rear seat accommodation still provides plenty of kneeroom, even with the driver's seat back some way -- and you can stick your feet under the driver's seat -- but you just can't relax comfortably, since the rear seat doesn't support taller rear seat passengers properly under the thighs in that context.

What sets the Avant apart from the A4 sedan is primarily the wagon body, of course. The Avant's luggage compartment is a handy size for what remains a compact-sized wagon.

As an option, Audi provides elasticised dividers and one solid medal divider that can be used to partition the luggage compartment in different ways. These are mounted on stubby plastic bollards that can be located anywhere along the length of the metal tracks in the floor of the luggage compartment and can be removed altogether if you need all the available space.

As it is, you could set up these dividers to create a little section of the boot in which you could load all your groceries and have them held in place upright for the trip home. It looks like quite a good system, although it also seems like it would appeal to 'obssessive/compulsive' types.

The time you spend locating the bollards and the catch-straps to hold fast your groceries in the boot is probably about the same length of time as it takes you to gather up all the tins of jam, dog food, bottles of soft drink and packets of spaghetti that have escaped from their bags during the trip home. It may even be longer...

At least though, with the variable luggage area and rail system, the car will be considerably safer in the event of a crash. There's nothing more likely to ruin your day than copping a tin of raspberry jam in the back of the noggin.

The tailgate, at full stretch, doesn't open high enough. In the dark, males of average height could be concussed by it. It's a powered tailgate, which is a nice feature, especially since it's rather heavy and solid, just like the passenger doors.

To drive the Avant is to forgive some of the packaging quirks. The car's steering provided better feel than a lot of Audis and certainly more so than the A6 2.0 TDI driven a couple of weeks earlier. You could always tell what the front wheels were doing and the feedback from the steering complemented the car's turn-in, which was nice and tight on a trailing throttle.

The steering and handling actually seem a little more consistent than we recall from the A4 sedan driven previously with the same engine. Interestingly, we briefly drove the Avant in the dry with the stability control switched off -- and found none of the steering and handling issues previously mentioned for the sedan. That's not to say that we recommend switching off the stability program though.

There was none of the same on-centre nervousness in the wagon's steering. Perhaps the four-door was in need of a front-end alignment when we tested it. At any rate, the Avant provided a spirited drive in the corners and was safe as houses, thanks to its all-wheel drive roadholding.

Xenon headlights were also more effective in the Avant than we recalled for the sedan. They were governed by the intelligent high-beam system fitted as an option and were set at the appropriate height and direction on low beam. That system generally worked well, although it would drop the lights when confronted by highly reflective road signs and, conversely, wouldn't change to low beam unless reciprocal traffic was approaching from dead ahead. It didn't always detect cars approaching from around a bend, so its lateral scope is probably not wide enough.

And arguably, the scope for this car in the marketplace is quite narrow also. We're left with the question posed near the beginning of this review. Who would buy the Avant in this specification? It remains an undeniably satisfying car to drive and boasts all the usual Audi virtues, including build quality and finish, but demographically it defies being pigeonholed.

Read the latest Carsales Network news and reviews on your mobile, iPhone or PDA at www.carsales.mobi.