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Audi A4 vs Audi Q5

What's the difference?

VS
Audi A4
Audi A4

$32,990 - $51,888

2021 price

Audi Q5
Audi Q5

$73,400 - $113,984

2025 price

Summary

2021 Audi A4
2025 Audi Q5
Safety Rating

Engine Type
Diesel Turbo, 2.0L

Diesel Turbo 4, 2.0L
Fuel Type
Diesel

Diesel
Fuel Efficiency
5.2L/100km (combined)

4.8L/100km (combined)
Seating
5

5
Dislikes
  • Space-saver tyre
  • Short warranty
  • Paying extra for driver-assist tech

  • Noisy diesel
  • Annoying safety systems
  • Screens a little large
2021 Audi A4 Summary

The Audi A4 allroad is the off-roader of the A4 line-up. I’m using the term ‘off-roader’ loosely here because this wagon is obviously best suited to daily duties in a city and suburbs, with perhaps an occasional foray into very light off-roading, i.e. driving on a well-maintained gravel or dirt road with few, if any, corrugations, and in dry weather only. 

But that’s not a negative factor because the great thing about adventures is that they can be scaled to suit you, your lifestyle and your vehicle of choice.

However, is this allroad your best option for a comfortable, nice-driving all-rounder? Read on.

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2025 Audi Q5 Summary

So EV evangelist Audi is still making a range of Q5s with engines in them? New ones?

Yes, it is confusing, isn’t it? When Audi said they’d like us to fly to Spain to drive its new Q5, I was still digesting the fact that its sexier sister brand - Porsche’s Macan - had gone all-in on electricity. And wasn’t Audi one of the early adopter, all-EV trailblazer brands? Surely the new Q6 EV was the car they were talking about?

But no, all of these new Q5s would have engines - a 2.0-litre petrol, a 2.0-litre TDI diesel and, praise be, a howling, growling 3.0-litre V6 petrol one in the SQ5 - and none of them are even PHEVs (the initial launch phase are all mild hybrid electric vehicles or MHEVs, the PHEV variants will launch in the second half of 2025).

Furthermore, this new and yet old-school Q5 was built on an all-new PPC platform (Premium Platform Combustion), which will be shared by the whole Volkswagen group and which, very strong rumour has it, Porsche is now desperately trying to get its hands on to reverse engineer a Macan variant that more people might like to buy.

So does that make this new offering the SUV the new Macan should have been, or just the Q5 you didn’t expect Audi to be making at all? Either way, it’s quite likely to be the last of its kind, so there was quite a lot to be curious about as we jetted off to Malaga to check it out.

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Deep dive comparison

2021 Audi A4 2025 Audi Q5

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