Wednesday 1st March 2017

Audi S4 Avant: PH Fleet

After a month and several thousand miles, we're really getting to know the big red Audi

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After last month's introduction to the PH Fleet, it has been straight down to business for the S4 Avant. The car arrived with just over 150 miles on the clock, but as it sits in the car park quietly cooling after my regular morning commute to London it is now showing 3,000-odd miles on its wonderfully high resolution Virtual Cockpit. As such, I've certainly not lacked time behind the wheel in which to form some opinions.

Which is what makes it all the more strange that I continue to blow hot and cold. I'm struggling to think of another car that's ever had me sitting so resolutely on the fence.

On the one hand, the S4 is great. It is fast, full of equipment, practical, looks good, is supremely comfortable and the damping is brilliantly judged and usable in all of the available modes. It sounds decent, handles neatly and is extremely surefooted on winter roads, making rapid progress extraordinarily accessible. All of which make it extremely easy to live with.

There's a but coming
On the other hand there are a couple of problems that we identified very early on. The steering isn't great and is described best by Editor Trent, who went full Queef with his appraisal and describing it as "flaccid, gloopy and inert". Equally, the gearbox is a bit slow off the mark in manual mode and occasionally seems to have a mind of its own. That being said, it is superb when left to its own devices in everyday use.

So on balance, there are a lot more plus points than negative ones. Yet at times I still find myself struggling to decide if I like it or not. No blame can be levelled at this not being "my sort of car" either. Aside from being a self-confessed lover of fast estate cars, I previously ran a Volvo V60 Polestar as a long-termer, which shares a huge number of similarities with the S4. £50K price tag, 350ish horsepower, four-wheel drive, six-cylinder turbocharged engine, slightly slow gearbox, supremely comfortable seats, confidence inspiring handling and enough sporting intent to encourage you to hustle it down your favourite road. But where the S4 leaves me lukewarm, I adored the Volvo and couldn't get enough of it.

Since replaced with a new and more powerful four-cylinder, 'my' six-cylinder version's thirst was offset by the character of its engine. The S4, meanwhile, benefits from having that brand new EA383 engine that, whilst not as characterful, is at least designed to incorporate the latest technology, auto stop start and switchable drive modes in order to extract the maximum fuel efficiency from it. Or so you'd think. Despite official claims of 37.7mpg for the combined fuel cycle, it doesn't get anywhere close to that. 30mpg is just about achievable on a long motorway journey if you happen to have a tail wind and plot a route that is mainly downhill. In day to day driving, low 20s are more likely.

This has lead to me almost exclusively driving the S4 in the Efficiency drive mode in an attempt to eke out some more range, which is something I've never resorted to before. Sadly this dulls the throttle response to a point where it sometimes feels like the car is stuck in top gear. All of which is no doubt further tainting my impressions. In writing this I've just realised that I need to run an experiment. For the next month I'm going to do my best to completely disregard economy and drive the S4 in a more enjoyable fashion, making use of the more dynamic engine modes. All in the name of science, of course.

Whilst I'm sure my bank balance won't thank me, maybe that'll do the trick and help me to bond with the car a bit more.

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FACT SHEET
Car: 2016 Audi S4 Avant
On fleet since: January 2017
Mileage: 3,814
List price new: £44,415 (As tested £49,770 comprising Misano Red paint for £645, Quattro sport with Sport Differential for £1,200, 19-inch diamond cut wheels for £550, Light and Vision pack for £750, Adaptive S Sport suspension with damping control for £900, Audi phonebox with wireless charging for £325 and on the road costs of £985)
Last month at a glance: First impressions? More like thirst impressions...

Previous updates:
Audi S4 arrives on the fleet
Audi S4: Review

[havoc]

article said:

Despite official claims of 37.7mpg for the combined fuel cycle, it doesn't get anywhere close to that. 30mpg is just about achievable on a long motorway journey if you happen to have a tail wind and plot a route that is mainly downhill. In day to day driving, low 20s are more likely.

VAG seem to have got VERY good at gaming the emissions/economy system without actually delivering it in the real world to owners - my (very short-lived) vRS230 was the same, c.40% off claimed combined.

article said:

Editor Trent, who went full Queef with his appraisal

:tropicthunder: Never go full-Queef!

[havoc]

big_rob_sydney said:

On the other, I find the reviewers comments a little strange. Yes, fine, it will cost more in fuel. But how much more? Are we talking the third world debt of Botswana's difference, or is it more like a coffee a day's difference? Can you work it out over the course of, say, the actual month you had it so far? It would be interesting to see how much the difference seems to be (granted different people drive differently).

3,814 miles over 2 months.

So, per month, assuming SUL 98RON fuel @ £1.28/litre:-

Official 37.7mpg = 50.6 gals/mth = £294/mth
"eco-driving" 30mpg = 63.6 gals/mth = £370/mth
"real-world" 23mpg = 82.9 gals/mth = £482/mth

Now 1,900 miles/mth is above average, so half that = 11,500 miles per year.
- So the gap between claimed combined and actual M-way eco-driving for an average user is £38/mth / £450/yr
- And the gap between claimed combined and real-world combined use for an average user is £94/mth / £1,100/yr

95RON supermarket fuel would knock ~5-6% off those differences, but not a lot. And if we assume the PH crew have heavier-than-average right feet and the real-world average user will get say 26mpg, that's 'only' £66/mth (£800/yr) more than the official expectation.



More pertinently to me, how much more real-world economical is this (and the 340i/M4, and the C43/C63AMG, etc. etc.) vs their nat-asp predecessors. Because if the answer is "not a fat lot", then all we've achieved is a load of torque at the expense of noise, throttle-response and character...

[havoc]

TurboHatchback said:

My experiences of vaguely modern VAG cars was quite the opposite.

• Mk5 Golf GTI: Averaged high 30s, managed mid 40s on the motorway.
• Audi A6 4.2 FSI Quattro: Averaged just under 30, managed mid 30s on the motorway

Actually I agree with you on those two - wife had a Mk5 GTi, and while we didn't see your level of economy it was always north of 30mpg combined use, while the naturally aspirated 4.2 was supposed to be pretty good on fuel.

I'm specifically referring to the latest-gen turbo'd engines, which show much better on-paper figures than their predecessors but no real-world improvement.

[havoc]

Not 400bhp, but I've heard a fair bit of empirical data about 330i's (230-270bhp, depending on year) delivering >35mpg combined in the real world. So +75% power for same economy in a very similar vehicle...


As I said in the first post, I think VERY poor mpg vs claims is a largely-VAG issue - BMW don't seem to be AS far away, nor do Merc...
(Jag I'll hold judgement on...not enough data)