Audi A5 Avant review

Our opinion on the Audi A5 Avant 

As a replacement for both the A4 and A5, the Audi A5 Avant makes a lot of sense, especially in TDI diesel guise. It’s practical and spacious, comes with some efficient mild-hybrid engines, and is arguably better looking than the saloon with which it shares the same platform. It’s also chock-full of excellent technology, and feels well made. It’s certainly worth a look if you can afford the premium price.

About the Audi A5 Avant

Whenever a car manufacturer like Audi goes the extra mile and produces a brand new platform – as it has with the A5 – it is invariably the workhorse models at the lower end of the range that benefit the most, and which represent the best value within that range.

How so? Because the lesser models come with all the fundamentals that underpin the more expensive versions – same new chassis, same new interior, same improved packaging and refreshing new design – but without the price tag to match. And in the case of the A5 Avant, the starting price of just under £44,000 (provided you go for the free white colour) is competitive relative to its mainstream competition from all the other premium car brands.

There are three trim levels for the Avant: Sport, S line and Edition 1. All versions get the same basic cabin and dashboard design with the same strong equipment levels – and sports front seats – appearing across the range. The Edition 1 then gets a full suite of extras including electric adjustment for the leather sports seats plus a third 10.9-inch TFT screen in front of the passenger.

It also comes with Audi’s new Sound and Vision pack as standard (a £2,495 option in the Sport and S line models), which brings a superb B&O sound system with speakers in the headrests.

Used - available now

2019 Audi

A5

40,711 milesAutomaticDiesel2.0L

Cash £17,600

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2019 Audi

A5

50,417 milesAutomaticPetrol2.0L

Cash £16,300

View A5

2019 Audi

A5

38,806 milesAutomaticDiesel2.0L

Cash £17,700

View A5

2018 Audi

A5

46,721 milesAutomaticDiesel2.0L

Cash £15,500

View A5

Standard across the range is adaptive cruise, park assist, lane assist and a reversing camera, while the Edition 1 gets massage seats, a panoramic sunroof and Audi’s brilliant new head-up display that’s optional on the Sport and S line.

Engine choice is between 148bhp and 201bhp petrol models, and a pair of 201bhp diesels – one front-wheel drive, one with quattro-branded all-wheel drive. The economy of the diesels means they’re capable of 700 miles or more between stops for fuel – useful if nothing special once, but a figure that stands out more now in a market full of electric cars capable of half that.

Audi has worked hard over the last decade or so to improve the driving experience of its cars. Once safe but dull, today’s range is more engaging than it used to be without any real sacrifice in comfort or refinement. The A5 Avant continues this trend, though to pick out any significant advances over the already talented A4 Avant it replaces would require driving them back to back – it feels very similar to us.

With the A6 e-tron taking up the mantle as Audi’s electric offering for now, the A5 Avant sticks to more traditional means of propulsion with petrol and diesel engines, an automatic gearbox, and the option of quattro all-wheel drive depending on the variant, and power and torque figures competitive with others in the class.

Performance, 0-60mph acceleration and top speed

There are currently four A5 Avant engine options in the standard range – two petrols of different outputs, a four-cylinder diesel, and a diesel with all-wheel drive – plus a sporty S5 Avant topping the range.

The 2.0-litre petrol models are separated by output, with 148bhp for the entry-level car and 201bhp for the more powerful model, with 0-62mph acceleration of 9.8 seconds and 7.8 seconds, respectively, and top speeds of 132mph and 152mph. Next up is the first of the diesels, a 2.0 TDI making 201bhp and promising a 7.7-second 0-62mph time and 149mph flat out. Add Quattro, and with the same engine (and with the same S Tronic automatic used across the range) the 0-62mph dash drops to 6.9 seconds, while top speed is 146mph.

On the road, the front-wheel drive TDI we’ve tried feels refined and brisk, lively but never fast. Its engine produces enough torque in the mid-range (400Nm between 1,750 and 3,250rpm) to satisfy but rarely elate, while the steering, suspension, brakes and fine automatic gearbox provide a good platform from which to enjoy the car’s main feature: its cabin.

Town driving, visibility and parking

Refinement is this car’s priority and that comes across during in town driving. We’re still yet to test any of the models on smaller wheels, which might take the edge off a ride quality that transmits smaller bumps more than bigger ones, though given the Edition 1’s 20-inch wheels the ride is more than respectable. The cabin has thin enough windscreen and roof pillars for decent visibility, too.

B-road driving and handling

The TDI we’ve driven so far is not a car that enthusiasts will rush towards, but it does more than enough dynamically to provide plenty of enjoyment to whoever is behind the wheel. It’s impressively refined rather than outright fun to drive, with an emphasis on ride quality and not on-limit chassis precision, which is just the way it should be in a car of this type.

Motorway driving and long-distance comfort

The A5 Avant makes a predictably good motorway cruiser. Wind and road noise are kept to a minimum on the move, the most audible noises being a distant hum from the engine and a faint rumble from the low-profile tyres of the Edition 1’s 20-inch alloys. The top model also gets standard massage seats, which may prove welcome over longer trips, though we’ve no complaints with the basic shape of the seats to begin with.

Audi’s simple approach in offering petrol and diesel models means fuel economy is a case of ‘what you see is what you get’ – no calculating the impact of electric range or big concessions for certain journeys. 

Audi claims up to 41.5mpg from the least powerful petrol model, 56.5mpg from the front-wheel drive 204PS TDI, and slightly less, 54.3mpg, from the TDI quattro with all-wheel drive. We’ve not had a chance to test the A5 Avant’s long-term economy yet but past experience of other Volkswagen Group machines with similar engines suggest those figures shouldn’t be too hard to hit in the real world, unless you’re particularly heavy-footed or your commute is a low-speed crawl through town. In the diesels, that economy also gives you a theoretical range of over 700 miles from the slightly larger 60 litre fuel tank (petrol models have a 56 litre tank), so refills shouldn’t be frequent.

The absence of a plug-in model does narrow the car’s use case though, since those most likely to appreciate the big gaps between fuel stops probably won’t be so keen on the enormous company car tax figures that petrol and diesel cars now attract. These buyers may instead look towards the BMW 3 Series Touring and Mercedes C-Class Estate, because both are available with more cost-effective plug-in hybrid options. We think the A5 Avant will find more favour with family buyers until the plug-in hybrid models arrive. 

Insurance groups

Audi A5 Avant insurance starts in group 24, for a Sport or S Line spec car with the 150PS TFSI petrol. Stepping up to Edition 1 trim knocks this up to group 27, with a similar three-group jump for other engines. 204PS petrols in Sport trim begin at group 30, the 204PS TDI at group 32, and the TDI Quattro in group 34. The S5 Avant starts in group 42. These numbers are pretty similar to the BMW 3 Series Touring, which starts in group 25 for a 318d and tops out in group 36 for a plug-in 330e model. 

Tax

There’s no escape from the luxury car tax surcharge with the Audi A5 Avant since the cheapest model starts at over £44,000, which means that after the first year, all models are subject to five years at £620 before dropping down to the standard £195.

In the first year though tax is still CO2-based, which marginally benefits the two four-cylinder diesels over the four-cylinder petrols. The 2.0 TDI’s 129g/km gives it a £220 first-year bill, while adding Quattro and bumping up to 135g/km increases that to £270. Both petrol models are 155g/km, for a £680 first-year VED bill.

With no plug-in models in the range at the moment, all will sting you hard as a company user paying Benefit-in-Kind (BiK) taxation. The 2.0 TDI is in the 31% bracket, the TDI Quattro 33%, and the petrols 37% for the 2025/2026 tax year. By contrast, an all-electric Audi A6 Avant e-tron is just 3% – the difference between paying around £770 a year for a higher-rate earner for a basic e-tron, to a whopping £6,200 for an A5 Avant TDI.

Depreciation

According to our expert valuation data, the Audi A5 Avant is predicted to maintain between 45 and  51 per cent of its original value after three years or 36,000 miles, with the 2.0 TDI Edition 1 losing the most and the least expensive 2.0 TFSI Sport performing the best. That’s on par with key rivals such as the 3 Series Touring and C-Class Estate, although the less expensive Skoda Superb Estate does slightly better, maintaining between 47 to 54 per cent of its value over the same time period.

This is the first time you’ve been able to buy an Audi A5 Avant, but don’t let that fool you - effectively, the car takes over from the A4 Avant in Audi’s range, and it’s very much a visual as well as philosophical evolution of that car. Audi singleframe grille? Check. Slightly angry, squinting headlamps? Check. Silhouette that implies a slight sacrifice in utility in the name of a rakish profile? Also check.

Other than adopting other recent Audi cues such as a full-width light bar at the back (remember when these used to be considered slightly naff in the 80s and 90s?) and a hint at haunches over each wheel arch, mainly the preserve of RS models before, there’s nothing groundbreaking here but also nothing that should put off the seasoned Audi buyer, including the typically restrained paint finishes – Grenadine Red and Ascari Blue are the more vivid options if you’re feeling bold.

Interior and dashboard design

The interior takes a few steps further than the exterior, mainly as it’s more screen-heavy than its predecessor. Driver and infotainment displays are now in one pseudo-freestanding unit that is shaped vaguely like the car’s front grille but still contains resolutely rectangular displays, and some models get a passenger display too in the style of some other recent Audi and Porsche models.

Equally, there’s been a similar reduction in physical controls, for less visual clutter than the outgoing A4 Avant but not necessarily a more attractive (or, given almost every other manufacturer has their own take on the curved display screen interface now, Audi-like) user environment. 

Most buttons (such as those on the steering wheel, or the controls for the hazard lights and Drive Select on the centre console) are capacitive, though you still get a physical volume knob on the centre console, and can angle the tiny air vents by hand too.

Materials and build quality

For all its screens, Audi has kept its suppliers of piano black plastic happy, because there’s a ton of it in here, from the centre console to the steering wheel controls, all positively begging to pick up fingerprints and small scratches within the first few weeks of use. There’s a smattering of silvery trim trying vainly to lift the uniform black colour scheme (S Line models do also allow for a lighter shade of seat material), but piano black aside, everything has the usual Audi tactility, with squishy plastics and artificial leather (or microfibre in the Edition 1) with a high-quality feel.

Infotainment, sat-nav and stereo

All models come with a wraparound 14.5-inch OLED touchscreen as standard, with AI-powered navigation and infotainment that learns your habits and subtly adjusts the car’s set-up to suit whatever it believes is your style, be that for lighting or even navigation preferences.

You can still tap away at it, and it’s quick to respond when you do, while Apple CarPlay and Android Auto get a suitable chunk of real estate when you access them (and are as easy to use as in any other car, via wireless or USB-C wired connection). With no more physical heater controls you need to fiddle with settings displayed on the screen itself, which functions adequately, while capacitive steering wheel controls let you change certain driver display screens, music settings, and activate the heated steering wheel – some of which it’ll do even if you don’t want them to, if you happen to brush a button when cornering. 

While the latest A5 Avant has the same five-door silhouette and rakish wagon profile of the old A4 Avant, the new car is slightly larger, the primary benefits of which will be felt by the passengers, who all get a little more space to stretch out than they did before.

There’s a caveat to this, which is that Audi’s been more generous to passengers than it has to luggage. While the Avant gets 31 litres more space than the regular A5, it’s actually 19 litres smaller than the A4 Avant’s boot was, or more in diesel models, which lose another 28 litres. Probably not enough to notice unless your milk float is out of commission and you need stand-in wheels, but the deficit compared with the 500-litre 3 Series Touring, despite the BMW being a smaller car, is notable.

Dimensions and size

The A5 Avant is bigger than the old A4 Avant in more than just model number. Where the old car measured in at 4,762mm long, the A5 grows to 4,829mm. Width has also expanded, from the old A4’s 1,847mm to the latest A5’s 1,860mm, and it’s wider too (including the mirrors), at 2,099mm compared to the previous model’s 2,022mm. And of course, it’s literally gone up in the world – 1,460mm rather than 1,435mm. So while the proportions have remained the same, the entire car takes up just a little more road than it used to.

It’s also bigger than a BMW 3 Series Touring in every dimension, which stretches 4,709mm long (shorter even than the old A4 Avant), 1,827mm wide (2,068mm with mirrors), and 1,440mm tall. 

Driving position, seats & space in the front

Front seat occupants shouldn’t have a problem getting comfortable. The seats are well shaped and have plenty of adjustment. For the driver, the steering wheel can be tilted and extended into the right place however short or gangly your arms might be. The centre console isn’t so high you’ll feel hemmed in either, though Audi’s been a bit mean with storage space – the door pockets aren’t huge and other than a pair of cupholders, a fairly small phone charging tray, and a token glovebox, that’s your lot for oddment stowage.

Seats & space in the back

One benefit of the A5 Avant’s physical growth over the old A4 is a little more space for rear passengers. Put a couple of particularly tall people in the front seats, and it’d begin to intrude on legroom, and it’s still not a car in which three adults would like to travel side-by-side, but otherwise, space is pretty generous, and the slightly longer roofline means more space for heads than in the regular A5 saloon. A pair of ISOFIX child seat mounting points with top tether attachment are fitted to the outer positions of the rear seats, with a further i-size point for the front passenger seat. Do make sure that the front passenger airbag is switched off if you do decide to put a child seat in the front, though.

Boot space

The load area is well designed and is nice and square in shape. It has a competitive capacity of 476 litres with the rear seats up, rising to 1,424 litres with them folded (or 448/1,396 litres in diesel models). The rear seats fold in a more flexible 40/20/40 split like its BMW 3 Series Touring and Mercedes C-Class Estate rivals to make the most of the available space and potentially allow you to carry both people and random IKEA flatpack furniture at the same time.  

The tailgate is electric in all versions, while the loading height is a relatively low 640mm, making it a bit easier for a dog to jump abroad when compared with a typical SUV. There’s no lip as such to heave luggage over – a key plus in an estate car like this. 

A full five-star rating from Euro NCAP in 2024 (albeit excluding the S5 and yet to be released plug-in hybrid models) suggests there are worse places to be than an A5 Avant in the event of a crash. However, the A5 only narrowly beat its fellow stable mates the Skoda Superb Estate and Volkswagen Passat in the child occupant category, but in all other areas (adult occupant, vulnerable road user, and safety assistance technology) both the Superb and the Passat had the edge over the A5. 

Still, the A5 has a long list of safety features to match it’s competition. Audi helpfully makes it relatively easy to turn off lane-keep functions with a little button on the end of the indicator stalk.

The car’s too new to make any solid predictions on reliability yet, though Audi’s use of familiar petrol and diesel engines mean the brand should have the hang of bolting those together by now – if issues arise, we’d expect them to be with the fancy new interior screens rather than the car’s mechanicals.

A three-year/60,000-mile warranty isn’t especially impressive though – BMW and Mercedes both offer unlimited mileage policies, Lexus up to 10 years/100,000 miles with routine main dealer servicing, and even Alfa Romeo gives you five years/75,000 miles these days. Audi doesn’t have a great reputation in our Driver Power survey either – the old A4 most recently placed a distant 44th from 50 cars.

Audi offers flexible servicing based on the car’s own assessment of when it needs looking at, so gaps between services could be as long as two years or 18,600 miles.

Buying and owning

• Best buy: Audi A5 Avant Sport TDI 204 S Tronic

So far our experience of the A5 Avant is limited to the 204PS TDI in Edition 1 trim. We’ll have a more definitive verdict on the best engine and trim level in due course, though past experience suggests the extra kit of range-toppers like the Edition 1 falls into the “nice to play with now and then” category, rather than being essential to the experience. For a start, we suspect the car will ride a little better on the smaller wheels of Sport models, while Sport and S Line are hardly poorly equipped. Plus, Sport and S Line don’t have that extra screen for your passenger to faff around with.

Given buyers opting for the A5 Avant are likely to have deliberately chosen it rather than the electric A6 e-tron, the diesel is probably the version to go for, on account of its enormous range between fills, lower first-year tax burden than the petrol models, and it being the only model (outside of the S5) to offer all-wheel drive.

Alternatives

Once again the change of name hasn’t altered the A5 Avant’s position in the market: the car goes head-to-head with its old foes, the BMW 3 Series Touring and the Mercedes-Benz C-Class Estate. The Audi lags the others on boot space (476 litres in petrol models, compared to 490 litres for the Merc and 500 litres for the BMW) but since estates like this are bought more as more practical alternatives to the saloons, rather than outright load-luggers, a few litres here and there likely won’t make much difference.

There’s the usual split in terms of how each drives, with BMW’s offering being more fun and the Mercedes being the ride quality champ, while on pricing, the Audi’s £44,605 starting point works out higher than the BMW’s £43,160 but lower than the £46,870 of the Mercedes.

Neither Alfa Romeo nor Lexus offer equivalent estate models, and Jaguar barely exists – let alone offers a suitable estate car. However, Genesis still offers a premium estate you’re almost guaranteed never to see coming the other way: The Genesis G70 Shooting Brake starts at £42,995 with a 242bhp petrol engine, rear-wheel drive, and a slightly pokey 403-litre boot.

Audi A5 Avant pictures

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