AUDI A4 ALLROAD 4X4 REVIEW

My car

First impressions are of a fine car with some REALLY annoying little quirks and very poor fuel economy for a CR170 diesel.

It's the little things that annoy most - like the fact that there is no mechanism to control both driver and passenger temperature controls together. Every other VAG car I've driven has this, so why not this one?

The speedo indications are ludicrous for UK use. This is a 140MPH car, maybe a bit more in the 3.0TDI version, but this one does 140MPH tops. So why does the speedo read to 180MPH? The 0MPH mark is at the 6 O'clock position, and 12 O'clock is 120MPH with 180MPH at the 3 O'clock position so pretty much the whole of the UK's legal speed range is squished in between 6 O'clock and 9 O'clock. But the area between 3 O'clock and 6 O'clock is blank, so they could easily have spaced it out a bit better.

And there is a lump where the clutch-rest and the clutch meet up when the clutch is depressed, so if you don't have your foot halfway across the clutch pedal, you never quite get the clutch pedal fully depressed. And you'll be depressing the clutch a lot, so the stop/start doesn't kill the engine all the time.

And then there is the fuel consumption - 35MPG is not what I was expecting however I think I need to ignore the car's desperate attempts to get me change gear obscenely early. It seriously suggests changing from 4th to 6th at 45MPH. That's about 1200RPM. If I drive it a steady 2500RPM I can just about average 50MPG. 3/5 Then.

My car

While this car is no S Line and it is a bit more wobbly than the sports Avant it was amazing in the snow. People often say why do you need the extra clearance - well this winter was made for this car. How often I had the outside lane to myself as other cars struggled in the conditions