From the Archive: 2002 Audi A4 3.0 Quattro Tested

View PhotosJEFFREY G. RUSSELL|Car and DriverFrom the October 2001 issue of Car and Driver.Correction: An article Saturday on the Environmental Protection Agency’s announcement . . . truncated a remark by President Bush. The complete quote reads, “I am confident, and so should America.”
—Columbia Journalism Review, July/August 2001 If you’re similarly addicted to reading corrections in newspapers and magazines, you know that many are painfully unnecessary, sometimes heroically pointless. Which is why we went all bilious upon learning of Audi’s intention to “correct” its dandy A4 with a heavily revised, second-generation effort.Did the A4 really need correcting? Not only is it Audi’s bestselling vehicle—34,460 sold here in 2000 alone—but since its U.S. introduction in 1995, the car has also emerged as a 10Best vehicle three times and as a comparison-test victor seven times, earning hyperbolic plaudits for three engines and two body styles. Hell, in its last gasps of production, it aced two of those comparos this year. That sound like something in need of correction?Apparently so, at least if you’re an engineer in Ingolstadt.View PhotosJEFFREY G. RUSSELL|Car and DriverFor starters, the new A4 now resembles a seven-eighths-scale A6. For the next few months, car spotters will be able to pick out the 2002 A4 only by dint of its slightly more angular trunklid and taillights. Shouldn’t the A4 be driving the A6’s styling?This latest Audi is marginally more ample than its forebear—2.3 inches longer, 1.3 inches wider, 1.3 inches more noble in wheelbase, and, ahem, 377 pounds bulkier. Most of this augmentation goes unseen, and even the aft cabin’s newfound two cubic feet are hard to locate. There’s a 0.9-inch increase in rear legroom but no increase in shoulder room. For two adults, the rear bench is now not so much comfortable as it is less uncomfortable. Six-footers still splay their legs to clear the seatbacks, and large-hair types will still want to pack restorative gels and mousses. What’s more, the new dimensions seem to have benefited front-seat occupants not one whit. The driver’s right leg regularly rubs the transmission tunnel, and his elbow is often in contact with his neighbor’s. A taller beltline means that visibility is slightly impaired, too.View PhotosJEFFREY G. RUSSELL|Car and DriverThe A4’s cockpit is nevertheless a great place to fritter away time—tasteful, inviting, more Italian than Teutonic. It makes you want to touch everything—the rich fabrics, the Buffalino real leather, the persuasive “leatherette,” the muted aluminum, and the real wood that looks like real wood. Double door seals and 30-percent-thicker glass further hush an already pacific workplace. And subtle touches abound: rubber-lined storage drawers beneath the front seats, illuminated rear footwells, a tiny three-spoke leather wheel like something out of a DTM racer, and a classy fishnet headliner that flows down the A-, B-, and C-pillars.HIGHS: Four-star steering, solid as a bridge abutment, a suspension so composed you’ll search for ways to trick it.Initially, two engines are offered. There’s the familiar 170-hp, four-cylinder 1.8T, now the first turbo to meet ULEV standards. And there’s again a 30-valve V-6, although this all-aluminum variant now displaces 3.0 liters and produces 30 newfound ponies, all at a saving of 44 pounds. The V-6 hustles a manual-shifting Quattro to 60 mph in 6.8 seconds—versus the old car’s 7.4—although it will likely be remembered more for its smoothness.View PhotosJEFFREY G. RUSSELL|Car and DriverWith its sump-mounted balance shaft, this new six, at idle, is as silent and quiver-free as a dead carp. In part because of its new variable valve timing and dual-path intake manifold, whose 4200-rpm crossover we neither felt nor heard, the V-6 is also more forgiving of short shifters and engine luggers. In fact, second-gear starts are a cinch. After that, feel free to flatten the throttle, from step-off to 6400 rpm, and you’ll experience so precisely the same insistent accelerative whoosh—with so characterless an exhaust growl—that you’ll swear there’s some sort of electric motor at work. Along the Ohio Turnpike, we inadvertently drove 30 miles in fifth gear, rather than sixth. Which may signal one of the V-6’s shortcomings. It lands squarely in luxury’s lap, rather than sport’s, and possesses none of the zing or immediacy of the sixes in, say, the BMW 3-series or Lexus IS300. Course, there’s an upside to this: We drove home from New England in one shot—750 miles with only two blitzkrieg gas stops—then happily ambled off to a late dinner and movie.So positive has European reaction been to the A6’s continuously variable transmission (CVT) that the device is now offered in both U.S. front-drive A4s. Our initial experience with it—a 10-minute flog only—suggests no “slipping clutch” sensation, no possibility of inducing the inadvertent, jarring downshifts characteristic of conventional automatics, and little of the wide-open-throttle droning that troubles lesser-horsepower applications. We’ll trot out a full test shortly. View PhotosJEFFREY G. RUSSELL|Car and DriverFor now, you should remember merely that the $1750 Quattro all-wheel-drive layout can be mated to a five-speed manual (in the 1.8T), to a six-speed manual (in the 3.0 V-6), or to a five-speed automatic (in either). That automatic includes not only Tiptronic but also a largely unnecessary “sport” detent in the full-auto mode, holding lower gears longer and serving up ballsier kickdowns. About the only powertrain you won’t find is a manual-shifting front-wheel-drive V-6, deep-sixed after less than five percent of buyers plopped down cash for it. LOWS: Snug interior, reduced visibility, plagiarized styling, overly muted V-6.Throughout Vermont’s soggy Green Mountains and across scorching Midwest interstates, our A4 rarely put a foot wrong. For one thing, it has brakes right out of a Paul Tracy dream. With 1.5-inch-larger front rotors, our V-6 Quattro halted in 176 feet, but equally endearing was its communicative pedal. It’s child’s play to hold this car at the raggedy lip of lockup. The steering, ever an A4 hallmark, remains so frictionless and subtle that you won’t think much about it until Day Two. That’s when you’ll enter a familiar turn and declare, “Well, let’s see, about 22 degrees oughta do the trick,” and then you’ll go have a smoke and fiddle with the standard in-dash six-CD changer, because no further corrections will be required. Rock-solid on-center feel and the directional stability of a white-tailed eagle. Here is a car you can “fingertip” through even the vilest double-apex switchbacks. View PhotosJEFFREY G. RUSSELL|Car and DriverThe four-link front suspension remains, but the A4’s track is now widened, and there’s a new A8-like “trapezoidal link” independent rear suspension that’s common to both front- and all-wheel-drive A4s. It must work, because this sedan is so planted, so square, so enduringly unperturbed that we began trying to perturb it. The suspension seems actually to encourage experimental steering inputs, big changes in throttle, chronically late braking, even later apexes, and off-line passing maneuvers you’d normally attempt only at Laguna Seca raceway. On our handling loop, there’s a 90-degree turn with a bumpy entrance. Under heavy braking there, most cars skitter laterally over the center line, scrabbling for contact. Not the A4. It goes all flat, squat, and taut, somehow wringing grip from the tips of scabrous ripples. Rarely does a car so clearly relate what each corner is doing, without those messages becoming intrusive. This A4 will usually max out your courage before it maxes out its composure.In fairness, our car sported the optional suspension: 17-inch Dunlops; 0.8-inch reduced ride height; beefier springs, shocks, and anti-roll bars. Skidpad grip climbed to 0.82 g versus the old 2.8 Quattro’s 0.80 g. The ride, occasionally on the brink of brusque, was rarely criticized. Still, if your lifestyle leans more toward sedentary distractions, stick with the 16-inch wheels—free with the V-6, optional with the 1.8T. We say that because even the base A4’s spring and shock settings now equal the old car’s sport settings, with only cushier bushings saving the day.View PhotosJEFFREY G. RUSSELL|Car and DriverAll A4s are fabulously furnished—even electronic stability control is standard. Alas, Audi won’t establish pricing until September, a month before the model’s arrival here. Industry ferrets nonetheless predict a 10-percent rise, so that a base 1.8T will fetch $27,500 and a 3.0 V-6 will command $34,000. A wagon arrives late next summer, a super-zoot S4 in two years.And so, as far as “corrections” go, this one’s a beaut. The new A4 is a dazzling dual-dossier sedan—luxurious yet sporty, as silent as a lemur and with almost as much grip, so quintessentially satisfying that BMW’s engineers must already be passing peach pits.Four thumbs up. (Hey, it’s a Quattro.)CounterpointsForget the inevitable comparisons between the new A4 and the BMW 330. That’s not the point. The point is that my wife, who has always loved the A4 and wanted badly to own one, doesn’t want this car. In fact, she can’t tell it apart from an A6. I can’t, either. I doubt Audi personnel can tell the two cars apart without looking at the badges. Audi built its comeback on the current A4, not by making it mechanically perfect, but by forming a beautifully shaped, stylish alternative to other options. The new A4 is a brilliant vehicle. Its feel is substantive. Its power is substantial. And almost-full-scale humans fit in the back seat. Something is lost in its maturation, though. —Daniel PundDo one thing, do it well. Audi seems to aspire to this mantra as it churns out a succession of cars exhibiting increasingly similar Bauhaus styling coupled with deft road manners. The new A4, the replacement for the car that all but rescued the franchise here, in many respects exceeds the template established by its predecessor and sister cars. But the quality appears about the same. The car handed to us alternately flashed its check-engine light and ESP warning light, it never tired of complaining that the fuel door was ajar despite all physical evidence to the contrary, and the passenger-door trim suffered a relentless squeak. Remember, Audi, to do it well. —Aaron RobinsonThe old A4 was the key to Audi’s Lazarus act in the U.S. market. And by most objective indices, the new A4 stacks up as a better car than its predecessor. More refinement, more power, and a new CVT that’s going to change our attitudes about automatics. So why ain’t my heart beatin’ faster? For one thing, there’s another “more” on the list—more mass—that’s a distinct liability. For another, the shift quality of the six-speed manual is a tad rubbery. But the real ho-hum is that the A4 looks like a Smokey Yunick-scale model of the A6. Hard to see it as all-new when it looks so familiar. —Tony SwanSpecificationsSpecifications
2002 Audi A4 3.0 Quattro
Vehicle Type: front-engine, all-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door sedan
PRICE (ESTIMATED)

Base/As Tested: $34,000/$39,800
ENGINE
DOHC 30-valve V-6, aluminum block and heads, port fuel injection
Displacement: 182 in3, 2976 cm3
Power: 220 hp @ 6300 rpm
Torque: 221 lb-ft @ 3200 rpm
TRANSMISSION
6-speed manual
CHASSIS

Suspension, F/R: multilink/multilink
Brakes, F/R: 12.3-in vented disc/9.6-in disc
Tires: Dunlop SP Sport 9090
P235/45ZR-17
DIMENSIONS

Wheelbase: 104.3 in
Length: 179.0 in
Width: 69.5 in
Height: 56.2 in
Passenger Volume, F/R: 49/39 ft3
Trunk Volume: 13 ft3
Curb Weight: 3759 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS

60 mph: 6.8 sec
100 mph: 18.9 sec
1/4-Mile: 15.4 sec @ 92 mph
130 mph: 35.4 sec
Rolling Start, 5–60 mph: 7.7 sec
Top Gear, 30–50 mph: 10.0 sec
Top Gear, 50–70 mph: 8.8 sec
Top Speed (gov ltd): 132 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 176 ft
Roadholding, 300-ft Skidpad: 0.82 g
C/D FUEL ECONOMY

Observed: 20 mpg
EPA FUEL ECONOMY

Combined/City/Highway: 18/16/23 mpg
C/D TESTING EXPLAINED
Source: caranddriver.com