Underneath all of the driveline technology, the A6 50 TFSIe is a simple sort of executive car built for covering big distances in comfort. It’s a traditional kind of Audi with an old soul. It does almost nothing for effect, it isn’t interested in party tricks and it’ll deal effortlessly with bad weather and heavy traffic and keep the hustle and grind of the daily drudge at least an arm-and-a-half’s length while it’s doing so.
It steers through a big-diameter rim and a progressively paced rack that isn’t slow geared between locks, at just 2.25 turns, but is eerily consistent in its filtered, medium-light weighting. You can work that tiller as gently as it seems geared to allow, and relax in the car’s laid-back demeanour. Alternatively, you can work it a bit harder and cover ground more quickly, but the car’s character seldom changes much.
The harder you point the chassis, the harder the car turns, up to a point, but it’s always a big, slightly reserved, hefty-feeling car that never swivels or feels agile or keen. It almost always finds traction, it never becomes excitable or nervous, and it sticks to a chosen cornering line with unerring consistency and security but little natural poise or flourish.
This car is at its best on wide, smooth roads and at continent-crossing pace. Seek out tighter corners and testing surfaces and you’ll find that body control is respectable but not deft or clever, the car staying level, steady and stable when cornering, and resisting pitch and heave fairly well at pace. Its damping reveals itself to be a bit ordinary when given complex problems to solve: it can feel a little firm and wooden over sharper inputs, turning tetchy and recalcitrant as it encounters bigger lumps and bumps that it would seem to prefer to reprofile rather than flow over.
