2009 Audi A4 Avant: Conestoga Wagon?

I love how this car looks but those cargo numbers are pitiful. My WRX wagon has 27.9 cubic feet with the back seat up and 61.6 with the seat down. The previous incarnation of the A4 had pretty similar numbers as my WRX, so Audi really crippled the Avant variant when they redesigned it for 2009.

The A4 wagon has always sacrificed some if its wagon-ness by having a sporty sloped roof and rear hatch. It's about looking sporty more than providing as much usable space as possible. As such, it's a poor choice to use it as the wagon standard-bearer when comparing usable space to an SUV/CUV. Wagons which aren't trying to be sports-sedans are better Conestoga successors.

I think the point of A4 Avant is to provide much more flexibility in loading cargo vs. A4 sedan. That's it.

A better comparison would be Jetta Wagon vs. Audi Q5. Because that's what Q5 is based on. Jetta sedan has an enormous trunk. Audi A4 sedan has a very small trunk. This translates directly into large cargo area in Tiguan/Q5/Jetta Wagon vs. small cargo area in A4 Avant.

When I was buying my BMW 328xiT the first thing I did was to check if my baby stroller will fit. People who buy a compact sportwagon know what to expect.

The current A4 barely counts as a wagon. The rearmost side windows are so short relative to the others that it's more like the previous Subaru Impreza 5-door, or the Mazda Protégé5, than a wagon. The rearmost side window should be the same length as the rear passenger windows to really count as a wagon.

Actually, it was the Passet/A4 that were sisters...they've since parted platforms but a Jetta wagon comes in with 32.80 cubic feet of cargo space while the Passet wagon has 35.8 cubic (double that of the Avant). And both bigger than the Q5...

I don't understand why the cargo capacity of wagons these days has to be so pinched. They build the sides of the trunk up with flat slabs of cardboard and carpet that make the trunk too narrow to fit anything in across it. Golf clubs? nope.

I had a '93 Escort wagon that swallowed everything and was listed at 30.6 cubic feet. That was not a big car.

I'll take the A3. The A4 is barely a wagon - in fact, remove that window behind the rear door and lose only 100mm I'd be calling it a hatch.

"So let's agree that a wagon is usually more fun to drive than a crossover, but let's also recognize that it can't measure up to the crossover when it comes to, you know, Euclidean geometry. A wagon is a sedan with an extra dimension of usefulness; it's not a Conestoga wagon, no matter what the marketing message might be."

I think this is the third time you or one of the other staffers has tried to make this argument, and it's just as misguided now as it was the first time. You choose one of the few wagons on the market that clearly wasn't designed for cargo and make that your straw man to knock down.

Pick almost any other wagon (except, maybe, the CTS) and it doesn't work, because jacking up a wagon on stilts, giving it AWD, and calling it a "crossover" has nothing to do with cargo space. The previous, smaller A4 Avant carried more cargo, 27.8/59 cubic feet seat up/down, or about the same as the larger Q5 "crossover."

The current A4 Avant's deficiencies as a cargo carrier are peculiar to its unique design, mostly its steeply-sloped backlight, and not to its identity as a station wagon instead of a "crossover."

My '05 A4 Avant can has a maximum of 61ft. Capacity. That stylishly sloping roofline has it's price (although I think B6 Avants are handsome things.)

I also think this was kind of a silly comparison, because the A4 Avant places form over function. My wife's E63 wagon has a spacious cargo hold with nifty storage cubies built into the floor. On top of this the car sits low enough that you don't have to lift things up to get them in. This makes getting kids in and out of their safety seats much easier.

E63 AMG wagon:
Length: 192.3 in
Cargo Space Rear Seat Up: 24.4 cu ft
Cargo Space Rear Seat Flat: 69 cu ft

ML350 4MATIC:
Length: 188.2 in
Cargo Space Rear Seat Up: 29.4 cu ft
Cargo Space Rear Seat Flat: 72 cu ft

That is darn close in my book, and the E's performance potential more than makes up for the difference.

Mercedesfan, I was under the assumption the E63's rear cargo floor had the ability to slide rearward (power operated of course) out of the tailgate for easier loading. Correct me if Im wrong.

I'm with bc1960 on this one. You create these straw men, perhaps for lack of anything more constructive to say. Rigid categories exist only in people's minds, not in reality. A wagon is what exactly? It's mostly what you define it to be, no? The Avant is certainly modest in capacity, but so what? It surely suits any number of people. Want more space? So buy one with more. Simple as that. I have the '09 sedan, and can tell you that it has less ability to accomodate odd-shaped stuff than does the wagon. But it's fine with me since I don't carry much stuff. See the point?

I would say this is not a straw-man arguement because they are comparing Audi to Audi.

Someone used their WRX as an example. If you want to compare that to a crossover, I suggest the CR-V. (wheel base within 1/2 an inch)

CR-V
Read leg Room: 38.5 inches
Cargo Room: 37.5 ft^3
Cargo (2nd row down): 72.9 ft^3

CR-V
Read leg Room: 33.5 inches
Cargo Room: 19.0 ft^3
Cargo (2nd row down): 44.4 ft^3

The person who mentioned the Jetta wagon hit it right. The Jetta Wagon TDI is cheaper, has a more comfortable backseat, a bigger trunk and gets much better fuel economy.

As for mentions of crossovers...they're not fun to drive. Enough said. The wagon has the utility but still some fun to drive. The crossover is all utility and zero fun to drive. I'd rather take a bullet to the head than drive a CR-V over a Jetta TDI, A3, A4 avant, GTI, etc. Essentially the CR-V, Rav, etc = "I've given up on driving fun and my only goal is utility."

I agree with mercedesfan (and envy his E63 wagon), in that the A4 is a fairly small and impractically shaped wagon. A larger wagon would probably work just fine for a family of four or fewer. See Volvo V70 vs. XC60, or Toyota Venza vs. Highlander.

hondacura4- I have also heard about the power rear cargo floor, but I think that might only be available on Euro-spec cars. At any rate, my wife's does not have that feature. Instead it has two very large under-floor storage cubbies (because we opted out of the 3rd row seat). They are extremely useful and I certainly don't miss having an electric cargo-floor.

"I would say this is not a straw-man arguement because they are comparing Audi to Audi."

And if he were arguing that the Q5 was a better family choice than the A4 Avant, that might be the case--although it might be because Audi wants to steer families toward the slightly more expensive Q5 while creating a "sporty" aura around the Avant.

But he is, in fact, arguing that "crossovers" are better family vehicles than "station wagons," going from the specific to the general by choosing a specific example that supports his point. There are others, like the BMW 3-Series Sports Wagon vs. the X3, and, I suspect, the Cadillac CTS vs. the SRX, if either actually make it to production.

But there are plenty of counter examples, such as the first-generation Mazda6 wagon vs. the first-generation CX-7, Hyundai Elantra Touring vs. Hyundai Tuscon, VW Jetta SportWagen vs. VW Tiguan, or Volvo V70 vs. XC70. Pick one of those specifics, and you can "prove" that station wagons are more suitable family vehicles than crossovers.

But neither statement is true. A vehicle's cargo capacity depends on how its cargo compartment is designed, not on where it fits in somewhat arbitrary and fluid marketing categories.

i, as an owner of a B8 Avant, know all too well the sacrifices in utility made in the name of style. the cargo space is so woefully inadequate you can barely fit a stroller and some bags in the cargo space.

so what did i do? go out and purchase an SUV/CUV? NEVER, i am a wagon man till the end. and now i have a Volvo V70R wagon to reclaim what a sport wagon is truly about: performance AND function. the exterior dimensions are surprisingly close the B8 Avant, but 37/71 cubic feet of glorious space in the rear.

If you want to talk strictly about volume, I only understand in units of plastic crates and boxes of girl scout cookies.