2022 Audi A6 Allroad Video Review: MotorTrend Buyer's Guide
This is the 2022 Audi A6 Allroad. Station wagon enthusiast
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 This is the 2022 Audi A6 Allroad.
00:12 Full disclosure in two parts.
00:13 Number one, I'm a wagon person.
00:15 I like station wagons better than
00:17 any other type of automobile.
00:20 It's true, some people are into trucks,
00:22 some people like supercars, I like wagons.
00:25 Number two, I am a former Audi Allroad owner.
00:29 So, rather than pose the normal questions,
00:32 today I'm gonna explain to you why A,
00:35 the Allroad is so awesome,
00:37 and B, why you should absolutely buy one.
00:41 Because on this video, that's what we're gonna find out.
00:44 The first thing we have to talk about is
00:50 why is this called the Audi A6 Allroad
00:54 and not the A6 Avant?
00:56 That's what Audi calls their wagons, Avant.
00:58 Well, you gotta understand that Germans are logical people.
01:03 So, 21 years ago, they said,
01:04 "Hey, there's this SUV craze going on,
01:07 "but no one really needs an SUV.
01:09 "The wagon is the most logical form
01:11 "of automobile that exists.
01:13 "If they really wanna go off-road,
01:14 "why don't we give them a wagon that can go off-road?"
01:17 And that was the first generation Audi A6 Allroad.
01:20 It had air suspension so you could
01:22 raise it up for more ground clearance.
01:24 It had low gears so it could do a bit of rock crawling.
01:27 It was so cool, and of course, we didn't buy it.
01:30 We bought the BMW X5 instead.
01:32 So then Audi came out with the Q5 and the Q7,
01:35 and the rest is history.
01:37 However, they still sell a lot of A6 Avants
01:40 in the rest of the world,
01:41 and finally, a couple years ago, they said,
01:43 "What if we brought in an A6,
01:46 "didn't have all the superpowers of the first gen,
01:49 "but it fits some very slippery,
01:51 "buttery legal definition of an SUV?"
01:54 We'd raise it an inch.
01:55 We'd put some cladding on it so it looked off-roady,
01:58 and we called it an SUV.
02:00 Maybe Americans are dumb enough to accidentally think
02:03 they're buying an SUV and they're really buying a wagon.
02:07 Well, they're not the only ones who have this thought.
02:09 Mercedes used to sell an E-Class wagon
02:12 for decades here in the States.
02:14 That's now gone.
02:15 You can get the E-Class All-Terrain.
02:18 Same thing, slightly lifted, slightly armored.
02:21 Volvo recently got rid of the gorgeous V90 in the US.
02:25 However, you can still buy the V90 Cross Country.
02:29 Slightly lifted, slightly armored.
02:31 And we'll go ahead, just for fun,
02:32 throw the Subaru Outback into the mix,
02:35 because even though it's sold as an SUV,
02:38 that's a jacked up station wagon,
02:40 just like this here Audi Allround.
02:43 We're gonna talk design, but let's start with the paint,
02:47 because this is a new color for me.
02:49 It's called Dew Silver Metallic,
02:52 and that's Dew, D-E-W, like morning dew.
02:55 It reads really green.
02:57 I don't know how it looks on camera,
02:59 but it's this kind of light mint color.
03:01 You know what it looks like?
03:02 You ever been inside of a butcher shop
03:03 and everything's green?
03:05 Well, the reason they do that
03:06 is to make the meat look more red.
03:08 This is that color green.
03:09 It's very cool.
03:11 Audi started the giant grill craze,
03:14 and you know what?
03:14 They're sticking with it, and why not?
03:16 This one's really good.
03:18 The radar sensors here and here, okay,
03:20 they're kind of sticking out.
03:21 They're beauty marks.
03:22 We'll call them beauty marks,
03:23 but really nice looking front end.
03:26 Come down the side, two things to notice,
03:27 and they're sort of at odds with each other,
03:29 but this black cladding here,
03:31 well, why is that there?
03:32 That makes it an all road.
03:34 It looks tough.
03:34 It looks like it can go anywhere, like an SUV,
03:38 but then you have these gorgeous wheels,
03:40 and you realize that nobody would ever take this off road.
03:42 You'd have to be crazy.
03:44 If you scratched this wheel,
03:45 you'd start crying into your hands.
03:47 Look at it.
03:48 Fantastic.
03:50 I've said this a zillion times,
03:51 but nobody folds metal the way Audi does.
03:54 They are the master of just lines on cars.
03:58 They all make sense.
03:59 They all work.
03:59 They're all gorgeous.
04:01 They're radiused perfectly.
04:02 It's just wonderful surfacing, wonderful metal work.
04:06 Love that.
04:07 Get down here.
04:07 Oh, station wagon Nirvana.
04:10 Look at this.
04:11 Perfect ratio from the C to the D pillar.
04:14 So good, so sexy, so gorgeous.
04:16 Love the roof rails.
04:18 Pretty aggressive rear glass,
04:20 although it still has a rear wiper, so that's cool.
04:23 Overall, it's just a handsome station wagon.
04:26 And now we're taking a look at the inside
04:30 of the A6 Allroad,
04:31 and I'll keep this one simple and short.
04:33 Audi started making world-class interiors
04:36 about 20 years ago, and they've yet to stop.
04:38 Look at this thing.
04:40 Look at this across the top of the dash.
04:42 You have this beautiful, elegant piece of leather.
04:44 It's all you need.
04:46 It's stately.
04:47 I mean, show me a better one, honestly.
04:49 Great use of open-pore wood.
04:51 Look at that.
04:52 And then a lot of people complain about,
04:54 oh, you know, like those touchscreens,
04:56 they just look like their iPads glued to the interior.
04:58 Not this one.
04:59 It looks fully integrated.
05:01 It's beautiful.
05:02 And it's a great touchscreen.
05:04 It's so good, in fact,
05:05 they put another one right here using your HVAC controls,
05:08 and it's big and it's bright and it works
05:10 and it's easy to use.
05:12 I'm having a hard time thinking of anything negative to say,
05:15 'cause it really isn't anything.
05:16 Lots of room in the rear seat, and hey, guess what?
05:18 Forget about the trunk.
05:19 It's a wagon.
05:20 Tons of room back there.
05:22 And if you fold the seats down,
05:23 you can haul exactly as much as you could with an SUV.
05:28 I love this interior.
05:29 In terms of performance,
05:32 the Audi A6 Allroad is actually impressive.
05:35 Under the hood, there's a three liter turbocharged V6
05:38 that makes 335 horsepower and 369 pound feet of torque.
05:43 Not bad at all.
05:45 In fact, that's the same motor you will find
05:47 under the hood of the Audi S4/S5.
05:50 All the power goes into a seven speed
05:53 dual clutch automatic transmission.
05:54 Audi calls it DSG.
05:56 And of course, this is a quattro,
05:58 so the power goes to all four wheels.
06:01 Even though this thing weighs nearly 4,500 pounds,
06:04 because it's quattro, because of all that torque,
06:07 because of the quick shifting dual clutch,
06:09 it will hit 60 miles an hour in 5.1 seconds.
06:14 That's impressive.
06:14 There's no other way to put it.
06:16 As far as handling goes and ride quality,
06:18 it rides really well and it's fun to drive.
06:20 It's actually good to drive.
06:22 Now, I've driven this.
06:23 I've driven the Mercedes version
06:24 and I've driven the Volvo cross country
06:26 and I've driven the Subaru.
06:28 And let me tell you,
06:29 as far as the station wagons cut to SUV class goes,
06:33 this is the best one to drive.
06:35 And since it's not an SUV, it's not shaped like a barn,
06:40 the fuel economy's okay, even though it's pretty heavy.
06:43 21 miles per gallon around town,
06:45 28 miles per gallon on the highway.
06:48 As far as safety goes,
06:51 the federal government has yet to crash test one of these.
06:54 However, the Insurance Institute did
06:56 and they gave it a top safety pick plus,
06:59 which is of course their highest crash rating.
07:01 As far as standard active safety features go,
07:04 the all road comes stacked with them.
07:06 And should you opt for the top prestige trim,
07:09 you get even more including
07:12 Audi's active lane keeping assist.
07:14 And now, how much?
07:18 I thought you'd never ask.
07:20 Okay, you can get into a 2022 Audi A6 all road for,
07:25 that's my drum roll motion, $68,590.
07:32 Hey, it's not cheap, it's a luxury car, what do you want?
07:35 This one, as it sits with this unique paint color,
07:39 this one is the prestige and it is over $82,000.
07:43 Again, it's not cheap, but what about the competition?
07:47 I'm so glad you asked.
07:48 Okay, Subaru Outback, well as this one sits, it's double.
07:53 It's more than double what you're gonna get
07:55 into an Outback for.
07:56 But hey, a Subaru's gonna have less power,
07:59 it's smaller, way less luxury, way less leather,
08:02 all that sort of stuff.
08:04 So okay, you can't afford this, maybe Outback.
08:06 But what about the Swedish one or the German one, right?
08:09 The Volvo or the Mercedes?
08:11 The Volvo V90 Cross Country, it's about $10,000 less
08:16 than the A6 all road here, all right?
08:18 That's fairly substantial, so there you go.
08:20 Volvo's less money.
08:21 Mercedes starts at about $1,000 more.
08:25 Functionally, is there any real difference
08:27 between the Mercedes and the Audi?
08:28 Yeah, the Mercedes, the rear cargo area is bigger.
08:32 Also, Mercedes options tend to go up more quickly
08:36 than Audi ones do, so to get something
08:38 with this trim level on the Mercedes,
08:41 you might be flirting with six figures.
08:43 And hey, speaking of six figures,
08:45 let's say you want an electric jacked up station wagon
08:48 that's sort of supposed to be an off-roader,
08:49 but really isn't.
08:50 Porsche makes one, it's called the Taycan Cross Turismo.
08:54 It begins life at about $100,000.
08:57 So if you go for the fully kitted up Prestige all road here,
09:02 it's still $18,000 less than a Porsche Taycan
09:07 with no options.
09:08 (upbeat music)
09:11 If there's one thing that I want you to know
09:13 about the 2022 Audi A6 all road,
09:16 it's that you would be lucky if you woke up in the morning
09:20 and whatever minivan, fake SUV, family hauler thing
09:23 that in your driveway has been replaced by an all road,
09:27 by a great, actual, honest to goodness station wagon.
09:30 From the gorgeous exterior to the techno packed interior,
09:34 to the performance, to the practicality,
09:37 to the value within its segment,
09:40 I don't think you can beat an Audi A6 all road.
09:44 To see vehicle rankings and a complete buyer's guide,
09:47 please visit motortrend.com/cars.
09:50 (upbeat music)