Right, so a week and a half with the car and I’m able to cobble together some thoughts and first impressions on it. Overall we both really like the car, despite its foibles.
Exterior
I won’t dwell too much on this since you don’t have to be an owner to form an opinion on the looks. Having said that, give me this over an SUV in the aesthetics department any day. It’s really well proportioned and despite the grill objectively being massive and looking borderline comical in photos, it really doesn’t look oversized in the metal to me. The optional 20” rims really do add to the car’s presence. Before we bought the car I’d have said the standard 19’s are a nice looking design and plenty big enough. Whilst that’s still true, seeing the car on the optional wheels I’m a big fan of them - though they do affect the ride (see below).
A word on the fake exhaust tips: I know it’s fashionable to have a moan but look at them as being a design choice to make the rear end symmetrical rather than a deliberate attempt to make the car look like something it isn’t and it might be less annoying. It might be. That’s the way I look at it. Or try to.
Interior
The cabin looks beautiful in standard trim without any upgrades, to the point where I wouldn’t spend more to change anything about it (not that you can, beyond some wood trim replacing aluminium anyway). In general the interior of the car looks ultra premium and even better at night with the extended LED lighting.
The seats are decent. We went for rotor grey as the only alternative was black, which would look a bit too somber when matched to the exterior. I think they’re leather/alcantara and the central bit that you actually sit in is nice and soft. As I’ve never owned a car with lumbar support, it’s an option I never knew I needed. Now I know I don’t need it, as it adds nothing to my comfort, though of course YMMV depending on the state of your back, your posture and the type of journey you routinely do. The only other gripe I have is common to every other car with electrically adjusted seats: because of the fine adjustability, I find I’m constantly tweaking the settings trying to find the elusive “perfect” setting whereas in a manually adjusted seat I’d just make do and be less OCD about it. Though once again, YMMV here. Ultimately the fact that both me and the wife drive the car means that the seats are a definite plus due to the memory function. If you care about your passengers, then the good news is the back seats seem to be really comfortable.
A brief digression and not wanting to turn this into an SUV-bashing session - indeed the Chelsea Tractors have long since won the argument based on sales volumes - but the interior size equivalent SUV is a Q5 (same sized boot with room for 3 average sized adults in the back) and if you spec one of those up to the equivalent of this one, the list price is similar but taking into account the huge discounts on offer on the A6, then the Avant works out as several thousand pounds cheaper. So if your top two buying criteria are practicality and value, then the Avant is a no-brainer.
Infotainment
There isn’t much for me to say here that can’t be gleaned from video reviews of the A6, A7, A8, Q7 etc as I think it’s pretty much the same system. The graphics are lovely and pin sharp and the integration of the screen into the dash looks good. I concur with the downsides many others have pointed out: that the touchscreen is hard to use safely on the move. Fortunately almost everything you need to access whilst driving can be controlled from the wheel. The only exception is the climate control, which I reckon they really need to bring back physical button controllers for.
The upgraded B&O sound system is absolutely terrific - by far the best sound I’ve experienced in a car. For comparison we had the B&O upgrade in my wife’s MY15 A3 and I’ve got an HK upgrade over standard in my BMW but this system almost makes it sound like I was hearing previous car speakers underwater. The clarity is remarkable for a factory vehicle system, to the point where the wife, who doesn’t really appreciate the difference in sound quality between a track played back on CD versus the same sourced via bluetooth on the phone immediately remarked on the sound quality. On that point I only use high bitrate files played from a flash drive as a music source. If you generally use the radio or stream/bluetooth then I can’t really speak for the quality. Sorry if that sounds obvious but I’ve seen online debates about car sound systems devolve into rows because some people use really crappy sources without realising that you get out what you put in. Also, I’ve never used the standard system so I can’t claim that it’s much better (though I would be genuinely astonished if the standard system were close to the B&O).
Comfort and driving
My frame of reference here is a fairly stiffly sprung M240i with adaptive dampers on 18’s and a crashy A3 Saloon on 19” rims. Our car comes as standard with steel sprung suspension, stiffened and lowered versus the Sport trimmed version (you can’t spec the regular suspension on this trim!) and non-adaptive dampers. I described it in a post above as “smooth but firm” and having done more miles I’d stand by that. It’s really comfortable on a motorway or A-road. It’s perfectly acceptable in town, it’s never felt anything other than composed and if it were a taxi you wouldn’t complain about the ride. It is though a touch firmer over bumps and larger imperfections on the road than you’d expect of a premium large executive car that isn’t a BMW. I strongly suspect that would be remedied by smaller wheels and/or the adaptive/air suspension.
Regarding driving dynamics, my honest view is that I really don’t care. The car was bought for family lugging duties and I have never and will never get even close to exploring the limits of the car in anything other than a straight line. Having said that, it feels much like the A3 to me, albeit slightly more “wallowy” which is probably as it should be for a moderately luxurious family wagon, which is to say it feels inert, unremarkable and stable. One of my wife’s concerns was that the car would be too big and unwieldy, but it really doesn’t feel like a big car in terms of being able to place it. In fact, again it’s rather A3 like in that regard and is similarly a doddle to drive.
Drivetrain
My frame of reference here is 6-cylinder petrol motors in small cars, as that’s what I’ve been driving in one form or another for 10 years. As such, a 4-pot turbo in a big barge is a very different animal. I had expected to be a little disappointed with this engine - the wife test drove the 40TDI because the dealer didn’t have a petrol car available - but first impressions are really quite positive, bearing in mind I haven’t even given it the full beans yet due to running the engine in. I think it’s powerful enough for most people and makes the car feel noticeably faster than the 190-odd PS A3 it replaces. The engine is not a torque monster on paper but it pulls well enough in high gear to be perfectly capable in motorway overtaking situations. Having said all of that, despite it having 240-odd PS it never actually feels genuinely fast, which is partly due to the mass of the thing. In any case the character of the car encourages you to drive it serenely rather than aggressively, which is also probably something to do with the mass of the car. I’m not actually sure I’d want the car to have much more power than it does without chassis changes and I’ve not yet encountered a scenario where I felt the car really needed more grunt.
The transmission (or presumably the software) is a tad sluggish, but not nearly to the extent that has been made out in some other reviews. If you’re used to going for gaps in traffic, on junctions and entering roundabouts then you will be able to it in this car without worrying about the pedal not responding. I’ve tried 1st gear pull-aways in D and S mode and whilst the latter is better, the car is perfectly drivable at low speed. Where the ‘boxes sluggishness is evident is on kick down whilst on the move, when it takes a second or two for the transmission to have a quiet think about what it wants to do with it’s life before it engages a lower gear. Being in S mode improves this only slightly, if at all.
The upshot of the characteristics of the engine and transmission are that though the power available is decent, it is delivered in quite a boosty way. You put your foot down, the gearbox lights up a cigar, the turbos spool up and after a second or two the car gives you a shove in the back.
As for the fuel economy, IT IS FLIPPING TERRIBLE! We were under no illusions buying a 1.8 tonne car with a turbocharged petrol motor about fuel economy: I expected it to be average at best. However so far we’re getting high teens around town. Bear in mind many of those miles are by my wife driving to work and she’s been terrified of hitting something in her enormous new car and drives like Miss Daisy is in the back at the best of times. The traffic is very slow and stop start, in partial mitigation. However I did a 60 mile trip last night (i.e. Saturday night) around some country A and B roads, at speeds between 40-60 with minimal stops for traffic and managed 28mpg. I was doing some testing so did put my foot down a few times but in between I was actually trying to drive economically. Now, it’s not so much that the figures are appalling, even though they are, at least versus my expectations (and I have to assume that it will get better as the engine loosens up) but more that the figures are nearly identical to what I get in my 6-cylinder, 350PS, 1.5 tonne car doing similar journeys, which I definitely do not drive with economy in mind. Fortunately it’s not a huge issue as fuel economy was not really a consideration for us but if it is for a potential buyer then I don’t think I could recommend this car to you. If you do buy the car anyway, spec the larger fuel tank!
If I were seriously considering this versus the 55TFSI (which must drink fuel like a Lambo if the 45 is anything to go by), then unless you spend an insane amount of cash on the Vorsprung and somehow the adaptive air suspension performs some sorcery on the dynamics, then I’d save my money because I doubt you’ll see the much benefit of the extra horses except at the start of the traffic-light Grand Prix.
If you’ve got this far without falling asleep then thanks for reading. It might be a while before I’ve done a decent number of miles in the car but I will aim to update this thread in future with my thoughts and include stuff I haven’t mentioned here due to not really forming an opinion on them like the autonomous driving tech.
