Reviews & Road Tests
Driven: 2009 Audi A5 3.2 quattro
By by: Stu Fowle, photos: Stu Fowle and George Achorn
Apr 28, 2009, 12:47

Each time an A5 or S5 is scheduled to arrive at Fourtitude's Chicago office, we plan accordingly and bring a change of pants, lest we run into that embarrassing situation Andy Samburg sings about on Saturday Night Live. We've said it before and we'll say it again; this car is beautiful. The type of beautiful that doesn't get old, even after an entire day of photographing our Meteor Gray example seen here. And this isn't even one of this car's more flattering colors.

We’ve spent a good amount of time with the S5, both in the form of our long-term test car and a few other examples that have found their way into our fleet here or there, but our time in the more relaxed, less expensive A5 has been surprisingly limited. A quick glance over this car’s build sheet, however, reveals that we’re in for an excellent A5 experience. Many of the best options and packages are listed after the car’s $42,000 base price, which includes the six-speed Tiptronic transmission. Visual add-ons include the pearl effect paint, a set of five-arm Y-spoke wheels measuring 19 inches in diameter, and the trademark LED strips below a pair of adaptive headlights. The lighting components are part of a larger premium package, which includes heated seats, Homelink, and auto-dimming mirrors. Thanks to a technology package, the headlights swivel with the front wheels; that package also includes a blind spot warning system, keyless go, and a rearview camera. Inside, the only visual option is no-charge aluminum trim.


Beneath the surface, our loaded-up, $53,665 A5 continues with a list of wonderful additions. A Bang & Olufsen premium sound system, at $850, is well worth the money. The navigation package is also useful, though the screen and MMI controls are included whether or not the option box is checked. As a plus, Audi’s iPod interface is included in the navi package. This car also includes an option we’ve been waiting to test on an A5- Audi’s Drive Select system. At just under $3000, it’s rather pricey; to make matters worse, it can’t be ordered on a car without the $1900 premium package. Still, we’ve been excited to try the system out; while the long-term S5 test car at our East Coast office has Audi Drive Select, no one in the Chicago facility has had a chance to try it.


If you’re willing to part with a good chunk of change, the drive select system’s fine-tuning capability is easy to appreciate. However, there’s one last catch – to fully appreciate drive select, you’ll also need to have a car with the navigation package. That’s the only way to move beyond the three standard settings (comfort, auto, and dynamic) and into an “Individual” mode that allows the steering, suspension, and throttle to be modified independently from one another. Personally, I’ve found the steering of most Audis to feel too light and vague and the suspensions to be either too floaty or too harsh. Additionally, in cars like the outgoing RS 4, selecting sport mode sends the throttle tip-in well beyond hypersensitive. While the new B8 chassis cars move in the right direction in all regards, drive select allows me to have my cake and eat it, too. In individual mode, dynamic steering, comfort engine, and dynamic suspension is the winning combination for daily cruising.


While computers are mostly to thank for this system, there’s obviously some mechanics behind it as well. The throttle changes are a simple re-mapping of the drive-by-wire system that Audis have used for some time now, while adaptive dampers have also been used on various products. The new addition is the steering, which uses a concentric-shaft gear system to adjust the overall ratio based on speed and the selected drive select option. It’s better, though, to look at the system as a whole, rather than three individual components. As a whole, drive select shines bright. We just wish it would save our individual settings and keep them as default each time the car is started. (We’ve addressed this issue in our long-term S5 updates as well.)


Especially with the added sportiness of drive select, the A5 doesn’t lack much after driving an S5, other than the intoxicating mechanical earthquake of noise from the 4.2-liter V8. The V6 still delivers impressive acceleration and good response, while many of the other elements of the car - the things you see and touch - are shared between the models. More significant is what one gains with the A5, and that’s a huge bump in fuel economy. Compared to the S5’s city/combined/highway rating of 14/16/21 mpg, the A5 boasts an improvement of four, six, and six mpg, respectively. Or more simply, the A5’s combined fuel economy is higher than the S5’s highway figure. During our time with the car, we saw a combined mileage of about 25 mpg with an even split of highway and city driving. Our last S5 adventure around the same roads had us burning a gallon for every 15 miles or so.

That’s a huge difference to consider when, regardless of which you’re driving, the car’s going to be beautiful and perform well. Until the 2.0T model is added next fall and brings even better numbers, the A5 3.2 is an S5 for those who want to drive guilt-free. And it might just be the best personal daily driver Audi has ever built.

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