Audi A6 Avant long-term test: report 6

The car Audi A6 Avant Sport 45 TFSI quattro Run by Chris Haining, sub-editor

Why it’s here To find out whether an executive estate car can still cut it in a world that prefers SUVs, and to see if there's still a place for petrol power in these days of electrification

Needs to Soothe on a long motorway commute without costing the earth on fuel; be endlessly versatile without being annoyingly cumbersome

Mileage 7680 List price £53,530 Target Price £49,273 Price as tested £57,210 Official fuel economy 36.2 mpg Test fuel economy 40.9 mpg 

19 August 2024 – A blameless life?

Over almost eight thousand miles, my Audi A6 Avant has been extremely dependable. I did have a moment at the beginning, though, when I thought that my time with the car might have carried a curse.

On the first long journey I made in the A6, from my village in Essex to What Car? headquarters in Twickenham, a stone bounced out of the back of a lorry and smacked my windscreen with a sound like an olympic starting gun. The car was just 250 miles old, and it already needed a new windscreen. Happily for me, the replacement only took an hour or so, even including the various sensors and cameras (for lane-departure warning and speed limit recognition) that needed to be re-calibrated. 

Fortunately, after that, all was quiet for a few months, until I found myself in a tight spot twice more in recent weeks. One evening, with the prospect of a long M25 commute home ahead of me, the A6 refused to unlock from the fob. I couldn't figure out how to get in manually with the key blade, either, because the owner's manual was locked inside the car. Happily, though, I knew how to solve the problem, because something similar had happened before.

A fortnight or so prior, having just faced a long M25 commute inbound, I had parked neatly (helped by the rear-view camera), gathered my bits and bobs and went to lock the car... and it refused. My inner technician suggested to check the cheapest fix first – the key battery. After lengthy fiddling, I finally worked out how to get the fob apart, and in the absence of a new battery, I just took the old one out and put it back in. And it worked. 

I've experienced only one gremlin that can be squarely levelled at the car itself. On one single occasion, just last week, I settled behind the wheel and started the engine, only for the two centre screens to remain resolutely blank. That would have left me without radio, navigation or the ability to adjust the air-con, but the good old "switch it off and on again" resolved things, and my peril lasted for about two minutes in all. 

I'd struggle to call it a fault, even – more an anomaly. Overall, I could hardly ask for a more dependable car.

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