I review the Audi A5

Well, most of the time I review cars that are not necessarily mine. Yes, I can drive some of them every day but the car that I actually own is the Audi A5 Coupé. I am a bit reluctant to review my car because in general, it’s just not a good idea. There can be a lot of bias and other factors that affect the purity of the review.

The Audi A5/S5 Coupe was debuted in 2007 as a replacement for the A4 Cabriolet. Since then, the public view of Audi has changed because it was around the Audi rebirth time of the Q7 V12 and the new R8 and the Iron Man movies.

The A5 has had a significant effect on the car world as we know it today. The R8 and A5 coupe were the first cars to feature LED daytime running lights so every car that has them copied it from Audi. The A5 also has a bigger effect because although its not a common car, this car is everywhere. I legit thought my neighbour’s Nissan was an A5 for a second because of the belt-line. Then a Cupra parked outside which also had the same A5 belt-line. I ignored and went outside to the mall and an MG had the same belt-line as well. The newer Audis also have an influence from this design as well but we cant really complain about that. As a result, This design does not look dated even in 2023 despite being 14 years old.

I’ve had the A5 coupe for a while now and every time I look back at it, I wonder how I could possibly be cool enough to even pull this car off. Despite my owning this, I’m not going to be biased towards Audi. I bought this car having formed an opinion already and I knew what I was buying before I purchased it and my review here will be heavily based on that opinion.

I have a confession, The Audi A5 coupe was not my first option, the car i that was truly on my dream list was the B8 Audi A5 Cabriolet (convertible version) because I think that it’s the best-looking Audi ever made. The Cabriolet is ever so slightly differently proportioned and although I think it’s the better-looking car, most people disagree and think the coupé is better. The Coupé I do agree is a more masculine-looking vehicle while the Cabriolet has a slight feminine touch which plays better with me because, Im into woman. I chose the coupé because at the budget, i could either have a risky A5 cabriolet or a perfect A5 coupé. The A5 coupe i got was also one of the only all wheel drive A5’s which will command a premium over the standard front wheel drive so i got a bargain because i paid FWD prices for an AWD.

I was a bit reluctant to buy the 4 Door Audi A5 sport-back, It is the least similar to the range and is more similar to the A4 than the rest of the A5 range. It was also not really the work of the original creator but a modified-looking version of the original A5 coupé. It’s also higher off the ground and the least impressive-looking A5. I think the A5 Sportback is the redundant A5 in the lineup because it’s too similar to the A4 in fact, the interior is exactly the same including the door cards but the coupé’s and cabriolet’s is different.

So why did i choose the A5 of all the cars I could have bought? Well, my objectives were:

A good car with great fuel economy and low running costs, with at least 4 seats, looks good, has a good stereo, and is safe and practical. I did not want a flashy car but I wanted something interesting enough that I could make content out of it.

My options were the humble Alfa Romeo Giulietta which is good-looking but is toxic and is known to give the owners a hard time with maintenance. I saw one with a busted headlight just 2 days ago. The BMW 3 Series Coupé was the obvious option but there’s a stigma around them. I could have had something Japanese like a Nissan Z perhaps but those can be childish, flimsy and impractical and American cars are just as if not less practical than that even.

The first time I saw an A5 was a few years ago when I saw a red A5 cabriolet that was impounded because of outstanding finance. It was the most beautiful car I had seen in my life! It was purely gorgeous! When I was looking for a car and realised the A5 happened to meet all the criteria, I considered it an option.

The main word of the day here is tactile. Like Porsche, It has the level of tactility to it although this has OCD level tactility. Everything has a specific click and notch, From the AC buttons to the turn signals and even the way the door handle opens. The gear lever notches into place and everything else involving the driving experience is very well thought through and theres nothing annoying about it. You start to feel around the cabin and small things like volume knob being linear, The glove box is damped and centre console is adjustable and super heavy. Everything appears to be screwed together properly, It’s a very solid car!

The doors are very long and very heavy. If you have a girlfriend, she will expect you to open the door for her. The doors are as heavy as any Mercedes if not heavier because of the length of the door. The car has so many gimmicks that it will take time to learn how everything works.

The ridiculous Audi MMI is so difficult to use, Every time i get in it i find something new that I didn’t know about. In terms of difficulty, this car is clearly not made for anyone in retirement. The good thing is that they are integrated properly with all the tactile buttons and controls. It is far better built than the Mercedes or BMW equivalent.

It’s the feel too, When you close those heavy doors, the frameless tinted window slightly goes up to such a quiet cabin. You cannot hear anything from outside which I’ll talk about later. The best part is that this car is relatively comfortable despite the low driving position. This car has the best seats of any car I’ve sat in ever besides the Mercedes Benz S class. When you turn it on, the dials sweep from min to max to min like an SLS AMG. If the doors are open, it will make that signature VW beeeep which i absolutely hate.

The A5 I have has the S line sport package which means it’s lower to the ground than any normal car. Roads with undulations are a major threat to an A5 coupé, It’s so low that if the tire goes flat, youll have an interesting time getting the jack under the car, These are the levels of crazy lowness i’m talking about here! There is a high performance version called the RS5 which is ever so slightly lower still. I have only seen one RS5 of this B8 generation and better believe they drive it on smooth roads exclusively. I must admit that the ride quality is sort of like a Land Rover with blown shocks. It’s sort of soft over tiny bumps but also wiggly giggly especially over big bumps. You can tell that there’s not a-lot of travel and it rebounds very quickly. I’ll however have to live with it because the SE version with the more comfortable suspension is not as good looking as the S-line.

Lets talk about not hearing anything, mine has the 2.0 TDI (Turbocharged Direct Injection) diesel which is the most economical engine in the range and I suspect is part of the VW emissions scandal. I chose this over the 1.8 petrol and 2.0 petrol because it has the least issues and is the easiest to run and maintain. This engines are known to go over 200000 miles with no issues. It does however have its quirks and and flood with fuel sometimes when its cold and you’ll just have to live with it. The Petrols are quieter of course but because of the timing chain problems, they would have made less sense to own and on top of that are less efficient.

Service intervals are 15000 miles so in my case, I’d do a minor service once a year and a major one every two years. This has the infamous VW TDI but because it is, It doesn’t require exclusively Audi parts because it shares many parts with the VW Golf. It also sits on the VW MLB (Modular Longitudinal Platform) which is shared with the Audi Q5, Porsche Macan and funnily enough, the Audi Q7. That TDI engine can also do 450-500 miles on 50 litres of diesel which makes it one of the most efficient engines ever made. My friend has a car he thought was efficient with a 1.2l engine but, this TDI is far more efficient than that. You will however have a hard time filling your A5 Coupé because most Audi’s from this generation have this fuel door actuator problem so you’d have to locate the string in the boot as detailed in the owners manual.

You will definitely hear the annoying diesel clutter with the windows open but it doesn’t bother me as much as I thought because of how efficient it is and also because the moment you close the windows, you even forget to change gears because you literally cannot hear the engine at all, No exaggeration. I drive with the windows partially down because of this reason, It has road isolation similar to a top-rank Mercedes. I was in a previous generation E-class Mercedes (Predictably a taxi) from 2020 and that car has more road noise than this one. The car is eerily with the windows closed up till any speed below the speed limit.

Speaking of changing gears, I got the manual version because automatics were not abundant at the time of purchase. I do not think the manual particularly suits the vibe of the car because the car is too refined to even realise that you’re supposed to change gear. The manual transmission is very reliable and is not known for mechanical issues which is a bonus for me. It also automatically restarts when you stall and has some form of anti-stall so, It makes it easier for you. The shifter is short and notched and it also comes with shift lights indicating when to shift up or down so making a mistake is difficult. It has 6 speeds too which makes it lovely on the highway. I would by all means prefer the automatic but, they were more expensive and i wanted something reliable so the manual will have to do. I’m not used to driving manual cars but I’ve learned quickly with this one.

This may be a low car but it’s not a small car infact its rather big. It’s over 2m wide with the mirrors which makes it wider than a Land Rover Discovery. It’s also as long as a 4 door car yet it has 2 doors but doesn’t feel super unwieldy because it’s not meant to rival the s-class. It’s also not as expensive as it’s rivals when it comes to running it. Driving it is surprisingly easy because when i get into most cars, i feel weird because of their terrible visibility. This car has excellent visibility however so it’s not really a problem, It feels like a low Q7 which it is because its on the VW MLB platform, so it actually is a LOW Q7! This is a very wide car and people that are used to small cars are intimidated by the width and length. Pictures do not do this car justice at all because the design goes a long way to hiding its true size. It’s actually a strangely sized car just like the Q7. Technically it’s supposed to be a rival to the C class coupe and 4 series because the A4 rivals the C class and the A5 is an A4 coupé but, the A5 is closer in size to the Mercedes Benz E-class coupe and 6 series BMW which is in a class above. As a result this car also competes in the class above making it least expensive car to run in its class of cars because of this.

The back seats are big enough to fit regular sized humans although I noticed theres less room in the Cabriolet than there is in the coupe. But of-course, if the roof is down, the convertible has millions of times more headroom than the coupe but I’m talking about general room. The convertible lacks an armrest but the coupe is well equipped because it has one with a first aid kit inside it. The A5 sport-back (4 door) is pretty much an A4 so there’s nothing really to talk about, it has an abundance of space. The practicality however of the seats has nothing on the boot space in the A5 coupe. It can fit 2 full sized adult human beings comfortably. Its similar in size to the Porsche Macan Suv with the seats up. You can fold down the rear seats and if you do that, you can camp inside, 829 litres! The boot is metaphorically bigger than the car! It’s as if the main focus when building it was the boot. They made sure you can open the boot from the remote as well. Its like a magic trick honestly! No one can believe how much storage space this car has. If you decide to smuggle people, you’d be able to fit 7 of them in this car!!

When you drive it, you feel like iron man or Zac Efron in 17 again. Zac Efron actually has more than one of these cars in real life. The guy that designed it (Walter de Silva) who was in-charge of design for the whole VW group said the A5 coupé was the best-looking car he ever designed in his career and he designed the R8 and many other VW group projects at the time including the TT and Q7. He also worked for Alfa Romeo and so for him to say that this was his star project means a-lot. People turn heads wherever i take it even here in the UK which i did not expect. I think because the new one is virtually identical and in the dark, you cannot tell them apart so people legitimately still think that this is a new S5. Anyone that is not an Audi Nerd will not be able to tell the difference between this and a new one. Although this is an older car, the B8 is the best looking A5/S5 and looks slightly better than its successors. It is also carries so much mystique especially in black and so much flair in Nardo grey. The DRLs also remain on and are so bright and it just adds to it. It is a very captivating looking car and i agree with Walter de Silva, The A5 Coupe is the best looking Audi.

The A5 has fenders like an American muscle car but with the refined nature of a German luxury coupe. It has a super muscular look, especially in black and there’s the RS5 which looks like it’s on steroids. I was actually surprised because when you look at it, you wouldn’t expect it to be so solid and refined so it has the best of Europe with American styling. It’s wide and low and long with silver trim in the middle and when you see its reflection in a shop window or something while you’re driving, you get a tingling sensation in your head similar to the one you get when you have a crush on someone and i promise you, i’ve never gotten that from a car. You feel so good yet so bad at the same time, You feel like Dominic Toretto even just sitting in traffic.

Of-course the difference between owning this and something like a Giulietta is absolutely noticeable. I don’t know whether it’s just perceptual but something is definitely psychologically different too even when it’s just parked on the driveway. It can boost morale and confidence and for some reason, since I bought it, the car just attracts all forms of opportunity and attention both beneficial and unfortunately sometimes negative. You enter a whole new dimension of things you don’t usually expect when you’re living your daily life and minding your own business.

Then theres the attention difference. Men will say it straight and women will try to be more subtle about it although the confident ones will just say it. The attention difference is absolutely noticeable for sure. I did not buy this car for attention but, I have never gotten this attention from any other car besides a Porsche. You cannot do the same thing in a BMW coupe which i almost bought by the way but I avoided because its a boys car. I wanted something subtle and If being the man is your thing then the A5 coupé has that something about it, Im not surprised Zac Efron has one.

Now obviously these sound like very lustful reasons to buy a car but, I’m not stupid. I didnt buy it purely because its pretty because some cars has the potential to completely ruin your life. I did thorough research before I bought this car using my reliable trusted source and forums. Different car review has helped us for years, especially with Land Rovers. The Audi A5 has the shortest and most popular video I have ever seen on that channel. The worries are the Automatic transmission, Petrol 4-cylinder engines and their timing chains, and convertible roofs. These are all things that my car does not have because its a diesel, manual coupe. Service is due in 6000 miles and nothing is mechanically broken which is weird if you’re coming from a Land Rover. The thing that is annoyingly not working but i am thankful for not working is the keyless entry because cars are stolen a-lot because of it but, if the keyless entry isn’t working, its harder to steal. The A5 specification i have is very reliable and thats why i bought it over any of the other options including Japanese cars. I must warn you that in the winter, the windows can freeze and you wont be able to get in the car except going through the boot.

So, with all sensible talk comes the question many people want to find out, is it fast? It’s fast enough. The reality is the sensation of speed far exceeds how fast the car is going because, between 3 and 4k rpm, It’s more than torque’ey enough to scare the 3 passengers in the car but its not so fast that your license is constantly on life support. Before and after peak revs however is where you notice that it’s still a small efficient 2.0l VW TDI however, For a car that can do nearly 60mpg and can drive across a country and back on a single tank, it’s more than fast enough. I do not think that it is a sports car and nor is it intended to be. It is more of a GT car and it feels like it. It is perfect if you need to drive from London to Monaco and back and that is the general vibe of the A5 Coupe. Thats why it has the big boot and AWD for the skiing holiday. The A5 is a cruiser and so i don’t think you really need too much speed in a car like this. If you want an Audi sports car then go buy an R8 or a TT. It does lack body roll for faster corners which is a bonus and the steering is fairly direct, heavy and quick.

I’m convinced that for the budget I had, I could not have done better. I’d recommend that you buy one while you still can because the B8 Audi A5, S5, and RS5 are predicted to go up in value especially the RS5 because they are so rare. The AWD cars are also a bonus so I’d look for that if you were looking.

So should you buy one? Sure , its a perfect car! It’s a very beautiful car with little to no issues that is solid, quick, and does not make a vulgar statement for the person who is driving it. It is relatively economical to run and gives you economy car running costs with GT car benefits. As a bachelor/bachelorette, it is a perfect car and, when you do expand the fleet, there are 3 more seats to be enjoyed inside the A5 Coupé and Cabriolet and one more still in the Sportback for little Johnny not like id name my son Johnny.

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