Audi A6 Avant long-term test: report 7

The car Audi A6 Avant Sport 45 TFSI quattro Run by Chris Haining, sub-editor

Why it’s here To find out whether an executive estate car can still cut it in a world that prefers SUVs, and to see if there's still a place for petrol power in these days of electrification

Needs to Soothe on a long motorway commute without costing the earth on fuel; be endlessly versatile without being annoyingly cumbersome

Mileage 8468 List price £53,530 Target Price £49,273 Price as tested £57,210 Official fuel economy 36.2 mpg Test fuel economy 40.7 mpg 

13 September 2024 – Escape to the country

Every summer, my wife and I head to the West Country. We feel right at home as soon as we arrive, and we’re not the only ones – this year, my Audi A6 Avant felt in its element, too. 

The 340-mile run down from Mistley in Essex to Millendreath in Cornwall simply evaporated, with the car achieving a more than reasonable 39.2mpg in the process – based on proper maths, not just relying on the trip computer. That really is impressive for a big, four-wheel-drive estate car with a 2.0-litre, turbocharged, 261bhp engine – basically the same as the one in a Volkswagen Golf GTI — and that's a hot hatch.

Admittedly, that economy figure plummeted west of Dartmoor, but my overall figure doesn’t seem outrageous given the nature of the roads that we found ourselves on during the holiday. Cornwall is basically made up of two kinds of road: fast, undulating sweepers and medieval cart tracks with a loose dressing of Tarmac if you're lucky. And on the former type, the A6 Avant felt right at home. 

In its Dynamic driving mode, which maximises accelerator response and holds the revs longer in each gear, the A6 can be made to cover ground very swiftly, and I imagine that explains where so much of my petrol went. Adjectives such as poised, balanced and fluid are the operative words, such is the way this smooth-riding, grippy machine flows from corner to corner. 

A fair amount of fuel was digested, too, on Cornwall’s narrow, hilly lanes, which have more ups and downs than a dot-com startup company’s profit and loss chart. Some of them, though, were more than just steep; they were hostile to the A6 Avant in every way they could be. In places, we could hear the long grass that sprouted from the crown of the road as it roughly massaged the car’s underbelly, and the innumerable ruts caused by tractor tyres had us wincing as expensive bits of car made contact with the ground.

The A6 Avant is a long, relatively low-riding estate car, and for the first time in ages, I missed the higher ground clearance you get from an SUV, such as the Lexus RZ I had before. On these lanes, average speed dropped to less than walking pace. 

Worst of all, though, was what happened when we encountered another vehicle. Passing was achieved with inches to spare, and one of the car’s driver assist systems did all it could to hold us up. Called “Manoeuvre Assistance”, it’s designed to help when parking in tight spaces, automatically applying the brakes if it deems that there’s a risk of impact.

Unfortunately, it’s also triggered by wild flowers growing out of the road, unevenly trimmed hedgerows – basically every topographic feature of a typical Cornish lane. This meant passing oncoming cars at close quarters involved a series of jerky movements, six inches at a time, accompanied by violent head nodding.

Only after we returned to Essex (after a blissfully serene cruise, during which the economy was comfortably back into the 40s), did I find out how to switch the Manoeuvre Assistance off. Or, in other words, how to engage Cornwall Mode.

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