There’s so much to admire about this car, but its multitronic auto gearbox isn’t one of them.
Yes, it makes driving a doddle most of the time but the financial downsides are many. With diesel now uncomfortably higher than 130p per litre almost everywhere you look, filling up is becoming a pricey business, my last one costing just shy of £75.
The manual beats the auto on several financial criteria: the SE auto is £1525 more expensive (£29,520 vs. £27,995) and unavailable with stop/start (vs. standard stop/start on manual 2.0 TDI versions), which goes some way to explaining its greater thirst (48.7mpg vs. 54.3mpg), higher CO2 (152g/km vs. 135g/km) and greater BIK (22% vs. 19%). As a CVT with a notional ‘fixed’ eight ratios, it’s just not as smooth or as fun to drive as Audi‘s more intuitive double-clutch S-tronic system on six-cylinder models, and currently I’m only getting a 31.4mpg real-world average in my urban-biased manoeuvres (vs. 37.7 official urban). Unless your fleet driver absolutely has to have an A5 auto I’d recommend a manual every time.
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