While keeping its more-than-familiar looks, the new Audi A4 B9 comes with a lot of news and goodies. Let’s find out together.
Anyone would be entitled to make evolutionary design jokes, but those would be more appropriate after reading all the changes the new Audi A4 suffered. For an instance, the new dimensions.
Despite looking quite the same as the ruled out generation, the new Audi A4 is bigger and with more interior space. It stretched to 4.73 meters in length, and it’s 1.84 meters wide and 1.43 meters tall. So the new Audi A4 is longer and wider and sleeker — the drag coefficient has been reduced to 0.23 for the sedan and 0.26 for the Avant model.
And is lighter. Audi A4 B9 loses 264 lbs (120 kg), reaching a minimum weight of 1,320 kg for the 1.4 TFSI entry-level version. The growth in length is translated in more loading space — the Avant version is surpassing the premium rivals, with a boot volume of 505 liters. If you fold down the 40:20:40 back seats, the Avant’s loading space extends to a total of 1,510 liters.
The interior features newly redesigned seats — which improve the backseat passengers’ legroom by 23 mm — and top notch quality in Audi’s distinct style. You have no less than 30 ambient lights to choose from; there’s a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster (already seen on TT and Q7) and an 8.3-inch central display and a bunch of connectivity solutions — Android Auto, CarPlay, LTE Connectivity, Wi-Fi hotspot. And there’s also voice control.
The infotainment system is available for the back-seat passengers, too — in the form of 10.1-inch tablets mounted on the front seats’ headrests. And the audio can be upgraded with a Bang & Olufsen surround sound system.
As for what’s under the hood, Audi A4 comes with a broad range of engines:
1.4 TFSI with 147 hp (150 PS) and 184 lb-ft (250 Nm),
2.0 TFSI with 188 hp (190 PS) and 236 lb-ft (320 Nm) or 248 hp (252 PS) and 273 lb-ft (370 Nm),
2.0 TDI with 147 hp (150 PS) and 236 lb-ft (320 Nm) or 188 hp (190 PS) and 295 lb-ft (400 Nm),
3.0 TDI with 215 hp (218 PS) and 295 lb-ft (400 Nm) or 268 hp (272 PS) and 443 lb-ft (600 Nm).
The 1.4 and 2.0 engines are four-pot while the 3.0 has a V6 architecture. Audi also announced a compressed natural gas-fuelled version — with 168 hp (170 hp) and 199 lb-ft (270 Nm) delivered by a four-pot 2.0 TFSI engine.
Audi A4 Avant g-tron (estate is the only body available for the CNG propelled model) can store 19 kg of compressed natural gas (at 200-bar pressure) in special tanks, enough for 310 miles (500 km). When that depletes, the car automatically switches to gasoline (and is granted fuel for another 280 miles, or 450 km).
The inline-four engines are coupled to a six-speed manual ‘box or, optionally, with a 7-speed S tronic dual clutch transmission that replaces the variable multitronic gearbox. The top-of-the-line 3.0 TDI is available with an 8-speed tiptronic.