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From YourSITE.com Reviews & Road Tests When the typical Audi customer thinks of buying an Audi, the front-wheel drive A4 2.0T with Multitronic CVT may not be the firs car considered from the company’s portfolio. However, with gas prices continually on the rise, perhaps it should be. We recently spent some time with just such a car, complete with the more sporting S-line package, and were surprisingly pleased with the experience.
As you can see, the price raises pretty quickly should you option it out. However, what you are left with is an eye-catching sports sedan heavy on luxury and surprisingly strong in fuel economy. The 2.0T FSI engine makes 200 horsepower from 5,100 RPM to 6,000 RPM, and 207 lb-ft of torque from 1,800 RPM all the way up to 5,000 RPM. With a curb weight of 3,450 lbs, the 2.0T mated to the CVT propels the car to 60 MPH in a very respectable 7.3 seconds. The CVT does an excellent job of keeping the engine revolutions right at the power peak under full throttle acceleration (5100 to 6000 RPM).
In addition to respectable performance, the gas mileage is quite amazing. The EPA estimates for this car is 24 city and 32 highway. From Centreville, VA to Gaithersburg, MD with the cruise control locked at 65 MPH and the engine revolutions at 1900, the on-board computer indicated an average of over 36 miles per gallon – significantly better than the published numbers and besting reports we’ve seen of real-world highway mileage for the Toyota Prius. The 2.0T gasoline engine is no slouch. With FSI, it's powerful and also obviously quite frugal. Logging this sort of mileage with gas-powered 2.0T, you have to wonder just how much of a high mileage athlete this car would be with Audi's Europe-only (for now) 2.0-liter commonrail TDI diesel engine. The transmission is perfect for keeping revs ultra-low for cruising - a quality that probably helped us achieve the surprisingly high numbers we were able to do with the car. Still, no matter how impressed we might be with Multitronic for its fuel economy, it still has some hurdles to jump when it comes to refinement.
When cold, we experienced some roughness from the CVT when first starting the car. Furthermore, when braking and the engine revolutions pass 1200 revolutions on the way back to idle, there is a harsh vibration that transmits through the brake pedal and shakes the cabin of the car. Modulating the throttle to accelerate from a stop proved tricky, as the lag from the transmission and the slight turbo lag from the engine caused an abrupt delivery of torque, and often resulted in wheel spin, which subsequently causes the ESP to intervene. Such are the pains though of a CVT. While not perfect, the Multitronic CVT transmission in our 2007 test car was still markedly more refined than previous Multitronics we’ve driven from Audi. Additionally, the chain design in Audi’s CVT means no rubberbanding effect under acceleration that is common in belt-driven CVTs. Also, Audi’s manual mode includes seven predetermined ratios that are controllable from the gater on the center console or via Audi’s steering wheel-mounted paddles in car’s like our S-line tester.
Like we said, the A4 with Multitronic might not be the most common Audi considered in Ingolstadt’s lineup, but in today’s economy… maybe it should be. Our A4 S-line has all the looks of the Audi S4, with real world highway fuel mileage we saw at 15 mpg better than the equivalent S-car and even besting cars from competitors with more heavily marketed qualities of frugality. If it’s a long commute, the A4 2.0T with FrontTrak, Multitronic and S-line package should definitely be a serious consideration.
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