Final report - The final curtain

After six months of living with the A5, I can honestly say that if I had the budget, I would be more than happy putting my hard-earned cash here.

A bold statement, perhaps, but I think there are few cars that tick as many boxes as the Audi and look as good in the process. It wasn't just me that the A5's talents won over - other members of the BusinessCar team rated it just as highly, while my family members were also huge fans of the car; in particular, my teenage stepdaughter and her friends.

We first spent a month with the A5 Coupe before swapping to the Sportback and, although we preferred the sportier look of the former, the addition of two more doors and slightly improved interior space (a 15-litre-bigger boot at 480 litres) is worth the investment in our book, even if the £1,400 premium seems a little steep.

In top-of-the-range S line specification, our long-term car comes very well equipped for its £37,390 P11D price, with cruise control, keyless start, a 7in infotainment system, three-zone climate control, Apple CarPlay and black leather/Alcantara front sports seats to name a few of the additions to the standard kit.  

Quality and overall finish throughout the cabin is very impressive, and the modern and advanced tech on offer will satisfy even the more demanding younger generation. Apple CarPlay proved a big hit, plus the on-board safety kit is easy to use and very well executed. Our favourite safety system is the blind-spot monitoring called Side Assist, which forms part of a Parking Assistance Package for £1,350. It works from 10-155mph and is perfect for the motorway, alerting you if you have a car in your blind spot making it unsafe to change lanes.  

The upgraded 8.3in infotainment screen, part of the MMI Navigation pack for £1,100, offers crisp resolution, especially when using the reversing camera, and the ten-speaker sound system outputs excellent quality even for my rather odd - or so I'm told - taste in music.
Our car also includes the excellent Virtual Cockpit, one of the best driver displays on the market today, and other useful reasonably priced safety options worth considering, including high-beam assist for £150 and headlight washers for £250.

The A5 Sportback feels sportier and more poised on the road than its A4 Saloon sibling. Ride quality is sacrificed a little and there's no denying the A4 offers more room in the back for passengers, however, boot space is actually the same for both cars, at 480 litres. Our A5 Sportback comes with Audi's Drive Select system, allowing you to choose from five different modes - efficiency, auto, comfort, dynamic and individual - which, in turn, makes tangible differences to the suspension and engine settings to suit.

Taking the long way home? Pick dynamic, along with S in the automatic gearbox, which sharpens up the throttle response, adds more weight to the steering and firms up the suspension for a more engaging drive home. Even without Audi's excellent four-wheel drive system, our car had plenty of grip, so you can feel confident tackling corners at speed.
The 2.0-litre diesel under the bonnet is a real gem; thanks to its 190hp and 400Nm of torque, the car gathered speeds easily and proved superbly refined at cruising speeds. Running costs are also kept in check thanks to its official fuel economy of 65.7mpg and 109g/km of CO2.

Over the past six months, we've achieved an average of 50.6mpg and, on longer motorway trips, when we applied some eco driving techniques, we saw this figure rise as high as 55mpg, which we think is very good overall. As our custodianship with the A5 Sportback comes to an end, we are surprised by how well the car stacks up against its slightly comfier and fleet favourite A4 Saloon stablemate. The only downside, it seems, is the price.
With a starting price of over £4,000 more than the A4, you need to be prepared to pay for that extra style and slightly sportier drive that the A5 range delivers - something we'd pay time and time again.

Our average consumption 50.6mpg
Mileage 10,342

6th report - Feeling blue?

Nearing the end of our journey with the A5, we were starting to feel a bit blue. So was the car, in fact, which at just over 9,000 miles started demanding that we top it up with some AdBlue.

Refilling cars with AdBlue, a process necessitated by manufacturers meeting the latest Euro6 emissions regulations, has become commonplace - or so I thought. But this assumption was challenged when, before a roadtrip to Cardiff from London, finding somewhere that stocked the substance proved no easy feat.

At the time, I was living in Clapham and my first thought was to contact my local Audi dealership, but I soon discovered that, at this time on a Friday evening, they were closed. The next bet was Audi on Great West road, but the last thing I wanted to do in Friday rush hour traffic was make a pitstop there.

I began ringing local MOT garages only to discover none of them had AdBlue in stock or told me they didn't keep it at all. At this point, I was getting rather fed up and panicked at the prospect of having to ditch the car and spend a fortune on a train fare. But luckily, on the seventh phone call - success. A Euro Car Parts in Brixton garage said they had it in stock and would be open until 6pm.

I headed down there ready to hand over my purse to be pleasantly surprised at the £18.50 price tag for the 4-litre starter kit, which comes equipped with a spout so you can refill with no mess. All topped up, we were good to go and finally ready to pile on those efficient AdBlue miles.

Our average consumption 49.5mpg
Mileage 9,055

5th report - Safety first, autonomy later

The technology may be almost there but full autonomy is not yet an option on our roads. When the time comes, however, autonomous cars could enable zero accidents and fatalities.

Until then, driver assistance technologies will have to do, and we will all have to keep putting up with terrible drivers, just like the ones I encountered on a rush hour airport run home in the Audi A5 Sportback.

On long, tedious drives such as this, it becomes obvious that manufacturers like Audi are working their hardest to increase road safety, providing the perfect opportunity to put the tech to the test.

The first notable technology in the Sportback is Adaptive Cruise Control Stop&Go including traffic jam assist which, according to Audi, plays a pivotal role in the safety of the car.
This system was really handy in the slow-moving traffic at speeds of up to 37mph, assuming the tasks of braking and accelerating. The car automatically follows the preceding line of traffic and the Stop&Go function brings the vehicle to a complete stop and lets it start off again automatically at the driver's request - really handy for when that right foot gets a bit achy.

Next up is the Audi Pre-Sense city system, which comes as standard on the A5 line-up. It monitors the road at speeds of up to 52mph, detects other vehicles and pedestrians, and initiates full braking in an emergency. This technology proved particularly useful when someone decided to change lanes less than a few feet in front of me and forgot where their secret indicator device was located. 

Luckily there were no accidents on my route home but if there was, Collision Avoidance Assist is able to intervene if the car has to drive around an obstacle to avoid an accident. Based on data from the front camera, cruise control and radar sensors, Audi says this system computes a recommended driving line within a fraction of a second. As the first line of action, the assistant alerts the driver to the danger with a steering wheel warning jolt. As soon as the driver steers, the system helps to change lanes by intervening in the power steering system.

The line-up is rounded out by other assistance systems such as Turn Assist, Park Assist, Cross Traffic Assist, Collision Avoidance, Traffic Sign Recognition, Audi Active Lane Assist and Audi Side Assist, all of which helpfully bridge the gap between the cars of today and the autonomy that is set to arrive in years to come.

Our average consumption 50.2mpg
Mileage 2,145

4th report - Virtual reality

When Audi first launched its Virtual Cockpit in the TT back in 2014, we all swooned over the sophisticated and modern display of Audi's next-generation trip computer.

It was without a doubt the best system at the time and although the market has caught up, it's still up there with the very best. It forms part of our car's optional Technology Pack priced at £1,395 and is well worth the investment in our book.

The pack also includes the upgraded 8.3-inch infotainment screen, wireless charging, a touch-sensitive control pad via the rotary dial (which admittedly we've found too fiddly to use), Wi-Fi capabilities and voice-recognition functionality.

Essentially, the Virtual Cockpit mimics most of the information available through the car's main infotainment screen, but one of the great things is that you can view functions simultaneously without having to keep reverting back to different screens.

For example, you could keep the sat-nav on the main infotainment screen giving you directions while you find the person you want to call in your contacts via the Virtual Cockpit - no need to keep swapping screens. It's safer for the driver too because you don't need to divert your eyes away to the centre screen to access controls, and even technophobes will find this system easy to use - you just use the arrow buttons on the steering wheel to navigate around the different tabs.

We've only found one downside: the system doesn't link up with Apple CarPlay properly yet. You can still skip tracks if you're using Spotify, but you can't scroll through your playlists or view the Google Maps from your phone. That said, Audi's own sat-nav is very good too and, as we've already explained, you could use the main screen for Apple CarPlay and utilise the Virtual Cockpit for other functions if needed.