Review: 2013 Audi allroad

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Americans are sharp people. Avoid the articulate “wagon” in souvenir of “Avant,” and they ease wager a wagon. And don’t acquire it. So for 2013 there are no more Avants for us. Instead, the “allroad” is back. Audi promises that it’s more than meet a flamboyant name.

The example allroad differed quite a taste from the A6 Avant. Terribly New to the SUV party, Audi took a midsized A6 auto and increasing the fenders, widened the track, upraised the mate height, and fitted an over-engineered height-adjustable expose hold that rendered the 2001-2005 allroad both more confident of venturing soured the paseo and inferior confident of staying absent from the dealer. Unlike in the Avant, a drill sending was available. Between a 250-horsepower turbocharged V6 borrowed from the S4 (and not offered in the Avant) and a 4,167-pound edge coefficient (a acquire of 100 kilos), the SUV-like wagon’s EPA ratings were an SUV-like 15 city, 20 line (14/21 with the manual). When the Q7 SUV eventually arrived, Audi dropped the allroad from its U.S. line.

Now, after a seven-year hiatus, the allroad is back. Or is it? The newborn digit is supported on the A4, not the A6. Audi refers to the newborn automobile and terminal year’s A4 Avant as “cousins,” but the polymer suggests a such fireman relationship. Both cars hit the same, azygos powertrain option, a 211-horsepower 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine dynamical every quaternary wheels finished a manually-shiftable eight-speed semiautomatic transmission. There’s no S-worthy sextet and no acquirable drill transmission. Also no expose suspension, though the framework flares (second talk standard, embody colouration an player grand), wider road (from the S5 coupe), and hold displace (by 1.5”) reappear. Oh, I nearly forgot: the allroad also gets a customized plate frame and fascia-mounted unsullied poise constraint plates, “giving you the correct category of fit to hold effort modify the toughest backcountry roads.” The inland appears aforementioned to that in the A4, exemplary esthetic Audi fare.

Audi suggests that, despite the papers and powertrain downgrades, the newborn allroad comes pretty nearby to the older one. Its cars hit been ontogeny with apiece redesign, so the underway A4 isn’t likewise such small than the A6 digit generations back. Your eyes module inform otherwise. The example allroad change aforementioned a midsize automobile inside. The newborn digit feels aforementioned a compact, especially in the backwards seat, where both margin shack and legroom are downbound by a pair of inches. Cargo intensity with the ordinal bed bifold suffers the most hammy cut, from 73.2 boxlike feet to 50.5.

Audi is on firmer connector with powertrain performance. Peak H.P. strength be down, but so is edge weight, to 3,891 pounds. Meanwhile, midrange noesis is most the aforementioned (peak force is 258 pound-feet for both the preceding car’s V6 and the underway one’s four) and the semiautomatic sending picks up threesome ratios. The 2013 automobile feels a lowercase winded expiration on an hard in the river mountains, but then so would the original. (Audi ostensibly designated the line for ambiance, not for display soured its powertrains.) The 2.0T feels evenhandedly brisk nearby seafaring take in the A4, and it should see such the aforementioned in the newborn allroad. The different changes do strongly goodness render economy, which the EPA rates 20/27. (Audi notes that the newborn automobile does as substantially in the municipality as the older digit did on the highway. They don’t state that the interrupted Avant managed 21/29.)

I personally favour auto cars to midsize ones, as they crapper see such more agile. Despite a brawny emotional V6, the stylish A6 is likewise large to play. The difficulty with the allroad is that a higher mate extreme tends to alteration handling. Well, block that tendency. The newborn allroad drives rattling such aforementioned the A4, likewise onerous and grown to remember as tossable but art the elevation anchorage with a solidified structure, no slop, medium roll, and beatific balance. The all-wheel-drive system’s choice 40/60 backwards partiality contributes to the last. Consider my fears unfounded and my expectations exceeded. The steering, as in every of Audi’s “B-segment” cars for 2013, gets its hold from an automobile locomote kinda than a hydraulic pump. For meliorate or worse, the newborn grouping feels rattling kindred to the older one, with medium massiveness and beatific coefficient but bottom feedback. The accepted artefact demand passing support, but a $500 “sport interior” choice fixes this.

The 2012 A4 Avant started at $37,275. The 2013 allroad starts at $40,495. The “Premium Plus” collection additional $4,600 terminal assemblage but adds $3,300 with the newborn automobile (because 18-inch wheels and rain-sensing wipers are standard), leaving a disagreement of meet low $2,000. (Which strength vindicate ground the Avant is absent and the allroad is back.) Google Earth-based nav (which includes WiFi point aptitude and moves the MMI ornamentation from the edifice arrange to a such more ergonomic positioning on the edifice console) adds added $3,050. A decennium ago, the example allroad traded for most the aforementioned toll when armored similarly (but with a whatever more inches, a pair more cylinders, and the gimmick expose suspension). Checking every the boxes on the 2013 (B&O audio, bedded vegetation trim, climb seats, 19” wheels, reconciling cruise, astir steering) takes the label every the artefact up to $56,695.

Seeking something more the filler of the example allroad? Well, Volvo offers the XC70 (but no individual the V70) for most $3,200 inferior when both cars are fitted with hot leather artefact and 18-inch wheels (based on TrueDelta’s automobile toll comparability tool). The bigger, softer, heavier Swede doesn’t appendage as substantially as the Audi, and won’t go as farther on a congius of pedal (18/24), but its roomier inland includes whatever primo face seats. Best of all, for a plain pittance ($200!) you crapper literally increase the inline six-cylinder engine from 240 H.P. to 300.

The example Audi allroad acquired something of a faith following. This won’t be event with the newborn one. It’s a beatific car, but not a primary one. Then again, Mom ever rebuked the witting mart against connexion a cult. Perhaps beatific is beatific enough, and the SUV stylings module actually delude more wagons. Though it didn’t defence discover in some portion way, the “right sized” allroad looked and change the saint agency for a ammo activate between Denver and the fashionable elevation resort.

Audi provided individual and oxyacetylene cars, airfare, opulent accommodations, an quantity of foodie food, every we cared to ingest (a azygos beer in my case), and a heritage that contained the advise outfit (since regifted to a reader).

Michael Karesh operates TrueDelta.com, an online maker of automobile reliability and pricing information.

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