AUDI has everything to play for in the mid-size luxury car segment. In Australia its A6 achieves only about half the volume of the rival BMW 5 Series and Mercedes-Benz E-class, but hopes are high that the frugal, keenly-priced new four-cylinder variants will help to reverse that trend.
The Ingolstadt insurgent is already stealing market share from its German rivals, sustaining growth in the shrunken Australian market while both BMW and Mercedes sales have slipped more than five per cent.
Has Audi cracked it this time with the A6 and come up with a challenger that can be considered a true equal to its critically-acclaimed four-cylinder luxury rivals on the road as well as in the showroom, or will traditional shortcomings like a hard ride and iffy handling spoil the party?
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C6 A6 four-cylinder
Released: July 2009
Ended: September 2010
Family Tree: A6Audi added the frugal $74,500 2.0 TDI A6 to its range as a way of swerving the Luxury Car Tax threshold that had been revised to give a break to cars achieving fuel economy below seven litres per 100 kilometres.
The four-cylinder diesel A6 had a combined fuel consumption rating of 5.8L/100km with carbon dioxide emissions of 153 grams per kilometre.
The 2.0-litre TDI engine was a 1968cc common-rail direct-injection twin-cam unit with two balancing shafts and a variable-vane turbocharger to deliver 125kW of power at 4200rpm and 350Nm of torque from 1750 to 2500rpm, giving 0-100km/h in 8.9 seconds.
It became the new entry-level variant, priced beneath the $78,500 2.0 TFSI four-cylinder turbo-petrol (capable of 8.5L/100km average fuel consumption) originally launched in September 2006, which had 125kW and 280Nm and sprinted to 100km/h in 8.7 seconds.
Both engines were paired with Audi’s Multitronic continually variable transmission (CVT), with seven ratio steps.
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