Audi A4 Avant estate (2011-2015) - Reliability & safety

You can’t fail to be impressed by the Audi A4 Avant's top-notch build quality and it’s not short of safety gear, either. The brand’s reputation for reliability is good, too, but in the A4’s case, our Driver Power customer satisfaction survey suggests that there’s some work to be done.

Audi A4 reliability

You would have thought a premium model such as the Audi A4 Avant would perform well for reliability, but in our Driver Power 2014 owner satisfaction survey, the model finished a slightly disappointing 80th out of 150 cars – more than half-way down the table. Audi itself fared much better, finishing 12th out of 32 manufacturers, so the brand is clearly doing something right.

As for Audi dealers, they didn’t do well at all. Its showrooms were voted 26th out of 32 manufacturer dealers, which puts them near the bottom end of the table – and four and five places below BMW and Mercedes dealerships respectively.

You can also see what real-world owners think about their car in our Audi A4 Avant user reviews.

Safety

The Audi A4 Avant has a five-star rating from Euro NCAP. It comes with six airbags, rear parking sensors and what Audi calls a 'rest recommendation system' as standard. This last item monitors your driving and sounds a warning if it seems like you might be falling asleep at the wheel.

The Advanced Technology Pack costs £2,065 and includes some clever electronic driving aids. Adaptive cruise control automatically keeps a safe distance from the car in front by braking and accelerating for you at speeds of up to 100mph. Below 20mph, the system can automatically hit he brakes if it detects an imminent low-speed crash.

Also part of the pack is active lane-keeping assistance. This monitors the car’s position on a motorway or A-road lane (or even on a country B-road) and emits a warning sound if it veers across a white line while travelling at more than 37mph.