2025 Audi A4 Allroad

If you’re interested in driving car that isn’t like pretty much every other car (and crossover) on the road, you might be interested in a station wagon.

They don’t call them that anymore, of course. And there are only a small handful of them available.

One of these is Audi’s A4 Allroad.

What It is

The A4 is a compact-sized wagon iteration of the A4 sedan. It is generally similar – except for the fact that it has much more room behind its back seats than the A4 sedan’s trunk can hold.

Prices start at $47,600 for the Premium trim, which come standard with three-zone climate control, leather seats, a heated steering wheel and an adaptive suspension that adjusts the car’s ride to suit driver preferences.

The $52,100 Premium Plus adds an upgraded digital instrument cluster Audi calls Virtual Cockpit, along with a 19 speaker Bang & Olufsen 3D audio system and rear USB ports, among the major upgrades.

A top-of-the-line Prestige ($55,800) includes all of the above features and adds heated rear seats, upgraded LED headlights, a Heads Up Display (HUD) for the driver and automated self-parking.

All A4 Allroads come standard with the same drivetrain, which consists of a 2.0 liter turbocharged four augmented by a mild hybrid system, paired with a seven speed dual-clutch automatic and all-wheel-drive.

What’s New For 2025

An S-Line Plus appearance package is now available and the Homelink garage door opener controls have been relocated to the rearview mirror. They were previously embedded in the LCD screen.

What’s Good

Twice as much space for cargo behind the rear seats than in the A4 – and five times as much space with the rear seats folded forward.

More ground clearance (6.5 inches) than the A4 sedan (5.2 inches) which matters when it snows. Or you want to drive up a rutted gravel road.

As practical as a crossover – without being a crossover.

What’s Not So Good

Though it can carry more than the A4 sedan, the Allroad isn’t rated to pull anything at all. Many compact-sized crossovers can pull up to 1,500 lbs. A few can pull 3,500 lbs.

Secondary LCD touchscreen is of the Pop Tart popping up out of the dash variety – and looks cheap in a luxury-brand car.

Driver Assistance tech can be overly-assisty.

Under The Hood

The Allroad’s drivetrain is identical to the A4 sedan’s.

Both come standard (and only) with a 2.0 liter turbocharged four cylinder engine that touts 261 horsepower, paired with a seven speed dual-clutch automatic.

A “mild hybrid” system is also part of this combination. It consists of a belt-driven, high-torque starter and 48 volt electrical system that serves chiefly to very quickly re-start the engine – which the system quietly shuts off whenever the vehicle isn’t moving, as when stopped at a red light and also during coasting/deceleration. The idea isn’t to propel the car – or even to increase gas mileage – but to lower and even eliminate (by shutting off the engine) carbon dioxide “emissions” (as they’re styled) whenever conditions allow. This helps Audi comply with government regs that – increasingly – can only be complied with by shutting off the engine as often as possible.

Or by getting rid of the engine altogether.

This is why so many new cars have hybridized drivetrains. Not – as is often asserted – to deliver better gas mileage. This can be shown by comparing the current Allroad’s touted gas mileage – 23 city, 30 highway – with that of the 2020 Allroad, which was basically the same car as the ’25 and equipped with the same engine except the ’20’s 2.0 liter four did not have the mild-hybrid augmentation. It touted 23 city, 31 highway – slightly better mileage than the 2025 iteration.

On the upside, the ’25 is a little more powerful (the ’20 touted 248 horsepower) and it’s quick. This wagon can get you to 60 MPH in about 5 seconds, which makes it nearly as quick as most Ferraris were back in the ’80s.

Another nice thing about the Allroad is that it does not come with a continuously variable (CVT) automatic, which is a compliance transmission.  CVTs have become very common for the same reason that mild-hybrid augmentation has become common: The necessity of having to comply with government regs. In the CVT’s case, gas mileage regs. A CVT typically improves mileage by 2-3 MPG vs. a conventional automatic that shifts up and down – as opposed to varying ranges. But gas mileage compliance is less an issue with a luxury-brand vehicle because the luxury brand manufacturer can price the vehicle higher to reflect the costs of the fines imposed for not complying with the MPG mandatory minimums. You pay more to avoid the CVT, in other words. But the take-home point is avoiding the CVT.

Audi’s Quattro full-time AWD system is standard with the Allroad.

On The Road

The main functional advantage the Allroad offers vs. the A4 sedan is not its AWD system but its additional 1.3 inches of ground clearance. If that doesn’t sound like much difference, try driving both when there’s  several inches of fresh snow on the road. The grippiest AWD system doesn’t do much good if all four wheels aren’t grabbing because the car’s riding up on top of the fresh snow.

This is one of the reasons why crossovers (and SUVs) are so popular. They can deal with snow better because they ride higher; most cars – including the A4 sedan – ride lower. When they have AWD – like the A4 sedan – they have more grip on dry and wet paved roads. But snow can strand them just as effectively as it often does a rear-drive car.

The other advantage of the extra clearance is being able to drive up rutted/washed-out gravel and dirt roads with less risk that you’ll lose a piece of the car or damage its undersides. The Allroad can be thought of as a fancier take on something like a Subaru Outback; neither are meant for rock-crawling but either will probably get you home in bad weather.

And – of course – the Allroad is much quicker than the Subaru.

There is some initial sluggishness – when accelerating full-throttle from a dead stop – until the dual-clutch automatic gets down to business. Once it does, the shifts are lightning quick and that’s the point of these dual-clutch transmissions and why they are common in sporty/performance car applications. But they take a moment, at first – kind of like the way turbocharged engines sometimes take a moment to respond, because it takes a moment for the exhaust gas pressure to build up sufficiently to spool up the turbo and create the boost.

But there’s no arguing with a 5 second to 60 timeslip. And once you’re rolling, the surge of turbo torque is always ready – and so is the dual clutch automatic. It anticipates downshifts, as when entering a sharp curve – and it does not shift up until you’re exiting the curve. Driving this wagon is much more fun than driving the typical crossover.

And that’s the main sell of a sporty wagon vs. a crossover.

At The Curb

The Allroad is 187.5 inches long – which is exactly as long as the A4 sedan. But it looks longer – and it’s without question more spacious inside.

Both cars have the same front and rear seat legroom – 41.3 and 35.7 inches, respectively. But the A4 sedan has a tiny (just 12 cubic foot) trunk, whereas the Allroad has 24.2 cubic feet of space behind its backseats and if you fold those forward, the space available increases to 58.5 cubic feet, which is five times as much space as you’d have in the A4’s trunk.

The A4 is a fine little car – but it is a little car. More finely, it has a little trunk. And that is arguably why little cars aren’t selling nearly as well as little crossovers, which have much more space inside for the stuff people need to carry. The Allroad is a little wagon that has space comparable to what you’d have available in a small crossover. But it’s not a crossover – and that’s huge if you’re someone who needs the space but would really like to not have to drive a crossover, just like everyone else seems to be doing.

The wagon layout has some other advantages, too. It’s easy to load – and unload – because the bodywork’s not as high up as a crossover’s. But most of all, it does not look like a crossover. Meaning, it does not look like pretty much everything else you see on the road.

The standard 10 speaker stereo is good, but the 19 speaker Bang & Olufsen 3D system you get in the Premium Plus trim is exceptional. It is worth the price bump up from the Premium trim almost all by itself. But you also get the attractively laid out Digital Cockpit main instrument cluster that includes a Google Earth-style map overlay that’s unique to Audi.

Unfortunately, you still get the Pop Tart-looking tablet display that seems to have popped up in every new car, which takes away from the appearance of luxury-brand cars. Ten years ago, these tablet-style interfaces were futuristic and exclusive. Today, they are commonplace and that renders them unimpressive. Especially when they look afterthoughty.

Other than that, the Allroad comes across as a cut-above, which it ought to given its nearly $50k-to-start base price. And – in its defense – the Allroad is still about $2k less to start than its main luxury-branded rival, the Volvo V60 Cross Country – which lists for $50,300  to start. The Volvo also comes standard with a less powerful (247 horsepower) 2.0 liter engine.

But it is rated to pull up to 2,000 lbs.

The Rest

2025 could be the final year for the Allroad, which hasn’t changed much since the 2017 model year. The reason why isn’t  because of that, however. The reason has to do with wagons being a hard sell in America – something as hard to figure as why the French put mayonnaise on their fries. It may have something to do with memories of wagons being – like minivans – the car you bought when you had to, because of family considerations.

Not because you wanted to.

The Bottom Line

Many people don’t think about wagons as alternatives to “practical” crossovers – and less practical cars. Probably because they don’t hear about them much.

Now you just did.

. . .

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