Audi’s new 2017 A4 is for nerds, by nerds

The A4 is an important car for Audi. Last year more people took home a new A4 than bought any kind of Audi just five years ago—it was literally the company’s bread and butter, even if the bread was getting a little stale. Enter the 2017 A4, packed full of clever electronics and driver assists that inspired the tag line “intelligence is king.” Make no mistake, Audi wants you—dear Ars reader—to buy this car.

The new A4 is a little wider and longer than the outgoing model, shedding some unwanted weight in the process. There’s an entirely new five-link suspension front and rear, and it’s available as front- or all-wheel drive. For now the entire line gets the same 4-cylinder 2.0L turbocharged direct injection gasoline engine and seven-speed dual clutch gearbox, which means 252hp (185kW), 273lb-ft (370Nm), and 0-60mph in 5.7 seconds. And it’s priced aggressively to take on rivals from BMW and Mercedes-Benz, starting at $37,900—although expect your invoice to start with a four if you want some bells and whistles.

Design

There aren’t any real surprises when it comes to the new A4’s styling—if you like Audi sedans it will hit all the right notes for you. That’s not to say it’s without neat touches of visual flair. The grill and headlights—all LED, no incandescent bulbs here—echo design cues from the company’s sports cars, and its width gives the car’s appearance a bit of muscle.

Under the skin there’s that all-new suspension, including the option of adaptive dampers that work with the electronic stability control to improve ride comfort and handling. Engineer Oswin Röder explained that the new suspension benefits from a systematic approach to lightweighting; in total, 70 percent of the quattro car’s weight reduction over the previous model was gained via the suspension, brakes, and a switch to electronic power steering. (Reducing unsprung weight has a bigger impact on how a car handles than taking the same pounds off elsewhere).

The cockpit bolsters my opinion that no one else does mass-production interior design better than Audi these days. There’s a quality feel to everything you see or touch. Aluminum trim (a la TT) prevents the interior from feeling like Darth Vader’s bathroom (to quote my colleague Lee Hutchinson), and the ergonomics are good, particularly the positioning of the S tronic gear lever, which also acts as a hand rest for the infotainment system’s scroll wheel. The borderless mirror is also rather well done.

Designer Ruediger Mueller walked us around the car, pointing out cool features like the large central air vent that provides what Audi calls “ambient air,” keeping the interior at the right temperature without the fans blasting you. The chrome border around the climate controls turns seamlessly into haptic controls for the HVAC, and the same Nest-like temperature dials we loved so much from the TT reappear.

How does it drive?

Happily, we got to test out the A4 in San Diego’s North County, on roads your author knows well. It copes well with freeway driving and the day-to-day traffic grind, aided in no small measure by the various driver assist systems, more on which later. On the back roads of North County—including the epic South and East Grades of Mount Palomar—it acquitted itself well. Broken road surfaces were shrugged off, and even some late-winter snow melt courtesy of El Nino didn’t affect the sense of confidence one has behind the wheel.

The electronic power assisted steering is better than some other examples of the technology, although we’re of the opinion that such systems still have a way to go to match good old hydraulic PAS setups. (The weight and fuel efficiency benefits of ePAS mean it’s here to stay.) By default, the engine’s torque is slightly rear-biased (40:60), but the mechanical center differential can let up to 70 percent of that go to the front wheels or 80 percent to the rear.

As with the TT (and even McLaren’s 650S) there isn’t a limited slip differential—rather, it uses small applications of the brakes on the wheels on the inside of a corner to quell understeer, keeping things neutral. Röder told us the new system (which we also experienced in the TT) is a big improvement, now able to cope with wet or snowy roads. The system’s brains sample sensors at 100Hz and compare that input to handling models to give the car an idea of the conditions it is experiencing. In Dynamic mode, it should oversteer with sufficient provocation, although we didn’t attempt to find this out first hand in the absence of a closed track.

Tell me about these gadgets then

Audi’s 1440×540, 60fps Virtual Cockpit display makes a welcome appearance in the A4. Unlike the TT, it’s joined by a second 8.3-inch 1024×480 screen mounted to the center of the dash that is the main display for the MMI infotainment system. (The base spec Premium trim level keeps conventional dials with a smaller screen between them, and it has a smaller 7-inch MMI display.)

We liked the latest version of MMI when we used it in the TT, and that held true for our experience with the A4. The system’s chief architect, Mathias Halliger, was quite proud of the integration with both Android Auto and Apple CarPlay; Audi works closely with both companies and wanted to ensure that the A4’s scroll wheel worked properly with both interfaces in the absence of touchscreens. That absence was a deliberate choice, meant to prevent any confusion, pointing to the need to be able to control MMI via the multifunction steering wheel as well as the scroll wheel (or putative touchscreen). “The biggest asset is having your hands on the steering wheel, and there’s no touch on that,” he said.

MMI continues to gain connected function. There is smartphone and smartwatch integration, and you can do things like geofence your car (it will alert you if it moves outside the designated location) or enable a valet mode. There’s cloud-based traffic info (via the onboard 4G LTE modem) which aggregates data from a number of sources including Google. Audi is apparently considering integrating Waze into MMI thanks to its close relationship with Google, although there’s no firm decision yet.

We know our audience remains deeply skeptical of connected cars, but Halliger stressed that Audi takes privacy and security seriously. The company doesn’t collect or store any data from its customer cars and has a “red team” that tries to find security holes in exploits that is separate to the team who designed those security layers. In the event of a security hole being discovered, patches can be applied remotely without needing to visit a dealer, although Halliger told Ars that for the time being the company won’t provide full system updates OTA direct to customers.

The tech on the A4 extends beyond Virtual Cockpit and the latest and greatest MMI. It’s now packed full of sensors—a front optical sensor, front and rear radar and ultrasonic sensors, and smaller cameras that enable a top-down 360-degree parking view—that allow for some advanced driver assists.

Two of these are first-in-class according to Audi, called Turn Assist (which brakes the car if you’re turning left and another car is about to cross your path) and Vehicle Exit Assist, which uses the front and rear radar sensors to warn you if a car or bicycle is approaching as you exit either the front or rear doors. There’s another assist that uses the rear sensors to warn you of oncoming cars when backing out of a parking space, and Pre Sense City, which should keep you from running over errant pedestrians.

Driving hands-free on I-5.

We didn’t get to test any of those thankfully, but we did put some of the A4’s other assists to good use. Adaptive cruise control and lane assist are augmented now. ACC will detect when you’re on a curvy road and will use GPS data to slow the car for bends, as well as braking for turns if you have a route guiding you. Beware—if you have the car set to its sportiest Dynamic settings, this can be quite aggressive! Artur Burtczyk, one of Audi’s driver assistance engineers, told us that in Dynamic, the car will brake at up to 0.5G. We can report when the car is set to comfort, things are much calmer.