Audi allroad reviews

2004 Audi allroad Driving Impressions

The Audi allroad quattro is fudge smooth and just as rich. Like all Audis, this vehicle simply oozes down the highway, feeling somehow more in the road than on its surface.

The steering is easy but commensurate with the car's mass and speed. The allroad seems to like turns as much as the driver and its handling is close to that of an accomplished sports sedan.

On a mountain pass, not really pushing it, but purposeful cruising, the allroad seemed as comfortable with the terrain and the curves as a companion Audi S4 high-performance sedan. At higher highway speeds the allroad automatically hunkers down to its lowest ground clearance and loves the road. It is a most pleasurable vehicle for long-distance touring.

Ride height adjusts automatically, lowering the car at highway speeds. Ride height is also manually adjustable by depressing a button on the dashboard. Level One provides 5.6 inches of ground clearance and is designed to diminish aerodynamic drag and improve fuel economy for travel at speeds of 75 mph or more. Level Two raises the car an inch for driving on paved or "well-established" road surfaces at speeds slower than 75 mph. Level Three puts 7.6 inches between the bottom of the allroad and the ground and can be used for rough urban roads, dirt roads and mild two-tracks. However, if you drive on any of those surfaces at more than 50 mph, the system automatically lowers the allroad to Level Two. Level Four boosts the car 8.2 inches above the ground, which Audi notes exceeds the BMW X5's ground clearance and equals that of the Land Rover Discovery. This serious off-road height is designed for use on rough terrain and at speeds of less than 22 mph.

Braking is equally impressive. All German cars need Autobahn brakes, the kind that can snug a really fast-moving car down to a truck-passing-truck-pace ASAP. The allroad complies.

In city driving the bi-turbo boost sometimes answers accelerator pressure with a little more brio than wanted at the moment. Practice should temper that. On the highway, the engine's torque is mapped to suit demands for quick passes or sudden decisions. Coupled with the fingertip controls of the Tiptronic, and the instant response, those opportune short periods of dotted lines among the solid yellow can be taken advantage of with alacrity. It's rather fun.

Meandering onto a rock-strewn dirt path on a mountainside demonstrates the versatility of the allroad. It is sure-footed with the quattro system; the ride smoothes ruts, and the range of four variable heights feeds confidence that the allroad can go anywhere.

Of course it can't.

Those craving the boulders and steepness of way off-road will trick out a Jeep Wrangler with locking diffs and a SEMA showroom of other stuff. The allroad isn't for these folks. It lacks a creeper gear, a low-low gear for those steep plunges that end in a cliff and demand a crawling descent to make the turn or else. And though the wheels are worn fairly close to the edges of the allroad, enough overhang remains to preclude some of the angles of attack found in the true wild.

And, too, for all the head-on answers to the compromises that matter to most drivers (high stance for clearance on the bad roads and low level for security in turns on the smooth ones) the allroad can wear only one set of tires at a time. Tires are the ultimate compromise. Off-road (or even awful bad roads) calls for an aggressive tread and thick side walls to resist cuts from sharp rocks. The highway calls for a much milder tread for grip on a dry road and thinner sidewalls to flex properly and keep the tread in contact with the road for traction.