Audi A4 Avant 1.4T FSI Sport 5d Owner Review

An all-round good car with some annoying niggles. I’m happy I bought it but I’m already excited at the prospect of trying another car in a couple of years. If you have the budget, I would strongly suggest upgrading to a bigger engine. I don’t know whether it’s because the car is new, but the gear changes can often feel a bit rough and there is sometimes faint clunking noises coming from the gear box when changing gear. For a refined car, I wasn’t expecting that. The turbo lag is very noticeable and disappointing on this particular variant with the engine seeming to struggle at low revs particularly from a slow speed or when approaching a roundabout. However, get the gear changes right – by flicking down more often than you would in a diesel for example – and the car has enough pulling power for most day to day uses. Rev it highly and it is pretty nippy. On a gentle cruise, it’s a quiet machine but in no way as quiet as the sales videos made it out to be. There is some road noise from the wheels and a bit of wind noise around the wing mirrors despite what some reviews have said but I might be over critical given that my standards and expectations are very high. The 'Drive Select' that allows you to change driving mode doesn’t appear to do much other than prevent you from accelerating hard enough when you need to. I leave it in the ‘Dynamic’ mode all the time now. Fuel economy isn’t bad but it’s fairly far off what the manufacturer quotes. Achieving the average 51mpg is possible on a long run with very minimal journey disruption and carrying no luggage or passengers. I have managed to squeeze out about 55mpg going from South West London to Guildford driving mainly at 60mph and hardly accelerating at all. Around town, it tends to average circa 40mpg once warm enough and you’re better off walking for shorter journeys that can often agitate you when you see the mpg in the high 20’s. The stop-start technology helps but doesn’t make that much difference. Inside, the car is very well built and luxurious. It’s a pleasure to drive especially at night when the mood lighting lights up the interior gently. The seats are comfortable but the standard upholstered seats tend to mark and scuff very easily. One of the most annoying things about the car is the lack of advanced equipment. The standard specification is quite basic even though it does come with some essential items like Xenon headlights, standard cruise control, Bluetooth connectivity, a Sat-nav, auto-lights and an auto rain sensor. There is only a rear parking sensor and no camera. Useful features such as lane assist, front parking sensors and cameras, adaptive cruise control and auto dimming head lights are all extras that cost a lot of money. To make this car compete with some of the technology on offer in vehicles like the Nissan Qashqai would easily add at least £6k to the list price. The interface that allows you to control the car via speech (MMI) is supposed to connect easily to your mobile phone but it isn’t great. Without root access to your phones operating system (or an additional SIM card in the car), you’re stuck with just being able to make calls and possibly listening to some of the music on your phone. The list of commands through the MMI is like a dictionary and the Sat-nav is very fiddly to use. The controls on the centre console are neat and tidy but quite impractically positioned when you’re driving. Using the MMI is supposed to make things easier but I’m still struggling to get it to understand me and I find it annoyingly slow. The Sat-nav does what you expect but it isn’t great. It often takes you to your destination using roads that are difficult to access, for example by trying to get you to drive through service roads. Re-routing and making adjustments to your route is very difficult if at all possible. At least it gives you up to three possible routes before you set off. The tail lift is really useful although when it’s raining, rain tends to drip inside the boot when you open it. A bit of a design issue that Audi needs to sort out? Despite some of the annoyances described above, it is a very refined car and a pleasure to drive as long you’re not expecting it to thrill. It would have been nice if Audi added a few more extras to the standard specification.