Our Cars: Audi S5 Avant

The Audi didn’t win our recent estate car triple test, but I can tell you exactly what would’ve made the difference – and it has nothing to do with the cars themselves, nor the road we used, the conditions on the day or anything obvious like that. Just a different writer. Andrew had the S5 Avant as his winner and were it his story not mine, the Audi would have prevailed. Alas, I was refereeing that day and the BMW M340i won the day for me.

I only say that now to illustrate how narrow the winning margin was. Here is a sporting Audi that needs no excuses, and if you happen to prefer the way it looks, or its interior, or you live a bit closer to an Audi dealership than a BMW showroom, any of those would be as good a reason to choose the S5 over the M340i as any I could offer in the BMW’s favour.

But let’s run through a handful of the S5’s shortcomings, which are beginning to emerge now that it’s been with me for a couple of months. Nobody buys a car like this expecting excellent fuel economy, but in 2200 miles the Audi has averaged 27mpg. If petrol prices continue to rise, that might start to sting. I can’t imagine the BMW being much more efficient, if at all, and if you can’t stomach that rate of consumption you’ll need to consider a different sort of car altogether (unless you choose the plug-in hybrid Volvo V60 T8 that finished a valiant third in that triple test).