In its eighth generation, the A4 has been Audi’s bestselling model for 39 years, but that hasn’t stopped the company to continue to work on its upgrading with a revised look, freshened interior and technical and engine changes. That new Audi A4 will hit the showrooms in Europe in January and the US in June or July next year.
A new look accentuates the car’s horizontal lines at the front end. The bonnet is more arched, whilst the upper corners of the single frame grille are tapered. The grille has been changed as well. It will now feature a single frame grille with 6 corners. The front of the car will now have more attractive headlamps with reworked LED lamps and with a slight wave at the bottom edges, quite similar to what the freshly redesigned A5. Modifications have changed the dimensions only by a few millimetres.
The interior of the A4 models has also been refined. New colors for the upholstery as well as new steering wheels, even a new design for the contact keys, have now been included. The Audi A4’s MMI navigation plus system now features four instead of eight buttons, with a script function integrated in the volume control dial. Other usability improvements concern the operation of the automatic transmission, the air conditioning, Audi drive select and the multifunction steering wheels. The seat heating and air conditioning are now directly operated at the respective buttons. The new A4’s drive system is impressive. The consumption levels have dropped by 11 percent on average, despite the increased power and torque of many of the engines.
The A4 also receives Audi’s new 1.8 liter TFSI engine, now producing 170 PS and 320Nm of torque while offering a fuel economy figure of 50.4mpg and 134g/km of CO2 emissions. The new 1.8 liter engine features improvements in the control of its valves, and a new thermal management system. There’s also a detuned entry level version of this engine making 120 PS. The 2.0 TFSI makes 211 PS and the top of the line 3.0 TFSI in the S4 makes 333 PS. Another new feature is an electromechanical power steering, which allows reduction in CO2 emissions of up to 7g/km because it does not need to be powered for straight-ahead motion, thus reducing fuel consumption.
The new Audi A4 range will be in dealers in early 2012, with exact UK specifications to be announced shortly. Prices of the A4 range will change only slightly, despite the upgrade. UK prices will be announced nearer the launch.
