[Chris Vais]

My wife and I have owned two Audi A6 Avants over the last 23 years. Both have been wonderful vehicles to own, solid reliable, and unbreakable. Our 1993 went 11 years and 270K miles and our 2006 went 196K miles over 16 years.

 

It turns out that the sales of the A6 Avant in this country tanked with the introduction of the Q5 crossover and the Q7 SUV. It seems that Americans, unlike our European friends prefer SUV's and crossovers to A nice Estate wagon.

 

So what to buy. No American car company offers a Station wagon, so my choices are Japanese or Korean, Volvo. Mercedes Benz, BMW or Audi.

 

Checked them all out and leased a 2015 Audi allroad quattro. The first iteration of the all road was based on the A6 Avant, whereas the current version is based on the A4 Avant.

 

The car has a 2.0 Liter, twin-cam that is turbocharged, making 220 BHP and 258 lbs feet of Torque. The car  comes with only an 8 speed pdk transmission the can be shifted manually if desired. The car has three performance options, all of which are easily pulled up on the cars search function. I have to admit that it is great fun to put the car in the sport or dynamic mode and then do a standing start take off and run in the manual shifts. The PDK matched the upshifts perfectly and expertly manages the downshifts, including rev matching. It is like driving an F1 car. WE area very pleased with it.

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[Bulti]

You can have an A6 Allroad over here too.  I would opt for the A6 instead of the A4 because of the boot space, if my pockets would be deep enough

 

NO other car brand can build interiors like Audi either...  The materials and assembly are of such quality, it's a true joy to sit in one.  The Merc E-class has the biggest boot, the BMW is sportier.  Volvo would be a nice alternative to the German brands.  The Koreans or Japanese could be a nice choice too, but they just can not match their more expensive and refined German counterparts.

 

SUV's over here are getting more and more popular, they mostly take the place of sedans, which are considered to be more boring and impractical as opposed to their respective estate versions.

 

Try the A6 3.0 TDI, the 242 hp version has 369 lb/ft (about 500 Nm)!

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[Ryan]

It kills me that people think SUV's have more room than sedans. I rented a mid-sized SUV for vacation because we were going to take our dogs and it turned out that my wifes A6 had more room and I took the SUV back.

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[Waylander]

SUV's are just the in car to have, the favorite over here is the Nissan Joke, sorry Juke

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[blau]

Nice choice, Chris.

We have an 09 A4 Avant and love everything about it...except for the engine. The engines up until 2011 have serious oil burning issues (ours included). I've been considering swapping in an S4 driveline (3.0T and DSG trans).

The trans in the Allroad is your standard automatic transmission, but with more gears. It's not a dual-clutch (S-Tronic / DSG) but they certainly do shift very quickly. The biggest issue I have with the 7 & 8-speed auto is that to get into a proper powerband for passing you have to downshift 2-3 gears because the ratios are built for mileage. The engine itself is plenty peppy though.

My dad had wagons up until 2011, then switched to a Q5 because they drive up to VT a ton and in the spring the muddy access road to their condo is sometimes unpassable without the extra ground clearance. He just upgraded to the Porsche Macan S last June and loves it. I've driven it a lot and it clearly handles much better than any other SUV I've driven, but I'd still prefer a wagon myself.

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[Peter B]

I've recently bought an 2006 A6 Avant with 3.2L engine - 65K Miles on it.  I'm glad to hear you liked Chris and 196K-Miles!  

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[Chris Vais]

Peter B

 

Yes, it went 196000 miles and one before went 279000. Interestingly both were eventually written off in accidents. At time of their demise both were in very good condition. In both cases I upgraded the shocks to either Koni or Bilstin, I had a set of summer wheels with a lower profile wider track performance tire for summer driving and reverted back to the standard wheel with M&S tires for the rainy season. Also disabled the electronic governor so I could realize the cars full potential. I  fitted both with the beefier anti-roll bars from the Avant S. The result was an unadorned Avant that could stay with my 968 on a twisty road.

 

The new allroad actually is faster than I would have expected. The turbo doesn't create much lag and the car literally sprints through the gears. Handling is really good, better than the stock A6s. I had always hoped that my nest A6 Avant would be a TDI. I drove on in Italy when I was there last. Ate up the Autostrada!!! 

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[Peter B]

Hi Chris, 

 

My wife had an A4-Avant with 2.0T engine.  Yes, a very quick and light feeling car.  Quite fun to drive.  My only heartburn was the rear-seat legroom.  There really isn't any.    

 

My 2006 A6 has an air suspension.  I love for ride smoothness.  I run over a bump and only hear it.  I don't feel it.  On the downside, the car is much more boat-like.  I'm really interested in improving the handling.  The anti-roll bar may be a possibility.   I can't do much with the shocks other than adjust the air pressure and dampening.  I haven't found many leads on-line for how best to do this.  The dynamic mode isn't very dynamic, just bumpier.  

 

Yes - an A6 3.0 TDI Avant would be great.  I don't know if any of these got to the US in 2011 and 2012 before they stopped selling the A6 avant in the US. 

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