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Born of the popular A4, Audi's A5 takes the same platform and offers it in a svelte, attractive two-door body style.
Recently relaunched locally to critical acclaim, some of the first generation car’s charms – including affordable V8s and manual gearboxes – may have disappeared, but the A5 is regarded as one of the best looking cars ever to come out of the Ingolstadt stable.
The second-generation car starts with the A5 Tfsi S Line that is priced at $79,900, coming with a 1.8-litre and front-wheel drive, while the A5 Tfsi S Line tops out at $79,900, coming with a turbocharged V6 and all-wheel drive.
It’s true, there’s not a lot of weight saving with a smaller spare wheel and tyre, but these are called space savers, not weight savers. And that’s because they’re about saving space in the luggage compartment first and foremost. Many modern cars with huge wheels and tyres could not swallow a full sized spare; there just isn’t space inside the vehicle. So, the space saver was the industry solution.
They have obvious limitations, too, including the limits on distance and speed you can travel on them. And you would not be the first or last owner to replace the space saver with a full sized spare. In rural and remote areas, a full sized spare is great peace of mind.
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What you haven’t told me, Luke, is whether your car has a petrol four-cylinder engine or a V6 turbo-diesel. In any case, the petrol engine fitted to this series of A5 Audis used a timing chain, so it should never need replacing as it’s designed to last the life of the engine itself. That, however, has not been the experience of every owner of these cars, and timing-chain failures have been a hot topic of discussion on these four-cylinder turbocharged engines.
The V6 turbo-diesel, however, does use a toothed rubber timing belt, and that, along with its tensioners, does need to be changed at regular intervals. The trade reckons that interval should be every 120,000km or every five years, whichever comes first. That’s because rubber deteriorates with time as well as kilometres. The other piece of advice is to change your water pump while you have that part of the engine pulled apart. It’s a lot cheaper to do both jobs in one go than to open the engine a second time to replace the water pump.
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There’s good and bad news here, John. The transmission in the car you’re looking at is code-named DL501 and it’s a wet-clutch design. That’s distinct from some of the dry-clutch designs also used by the VW Group which were much more troublesome with a high rate of failures. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that even with its more durable wet-clutch design, the DL501 has also been known to suffer what appear to be inherent problems. Mainly, those relate to the mechatronic unit (more or less the transmission’s central nervous system) and premature wear in the clutch plates themselves.
The car you’re looking at has covered a very low distance, so it should be okay for now, but there’s no telling what dramas might crop up with years and kilometres. The problems will likely be worse if the car has not been serviced by the book, so check the service handbook for evidence of this. Even then, it’s a bit of a gamble.
But the only thing I’d stay further clear of than a DSG transmission would be an extended warranty from a car-yard. These are specifically written to exclude the things you’re most likely to need them for. Have a close look at the fine print and you might find that the sort of transmission problems you’d expect in this car will be specifically excluded.
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The Audi A5 Sportback has a premium aesthetic as soon as you open the door. This model has the S Line interior which means nappa leather seats that are also heated and a leather steering wheel with a flat bottom.
The 2021 Audi A5 Sportback boasts a new, large 10.1inch screen with Apple Carplay and Android Auto and a 12.3inch digital cockpit in front of the steering wheel. It's got 19-inch alloys and LED headlights.
The Audi A5 45 TFSI Sportback is a speedy unit and is quick off the mark. This model gets from 0-100km/h in 5.8 seconds.
The Audi A5 Sportback is spacious in the front with rear seats a little tighter for adults but plenty of space for children. There are two ISOFIX points and three top tether points for kids' car seats.