Audi RS4 vs Audi RS6

What's the difference?

Practicality, performance and polish, all in one very handsome wagon shape. The Audi RS4 Avant is welcome reminder of the days before SUVs ruled the world, and it leaves you wondering how we ever allowed that take-over to happen at all.

To me at least, the RS6 is pretty much the ultimate fast and practical car. One which is just as comfortable plodding around town as it is tearing it up on the track. Keep in mind, too, this may be one of your last chances to have a car which looks like this, equipped with a V8 engine. So, have I convinced you? Would you consider one of these over a performance SUV? Tell us what you think in the comments below.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with travel, accommodation and meals provided.

I think it looks fantastic; a tough, low-slung performance wagon that makes you long for the days when SUVs were only for people who wanted to climb mountains, not driveways. 

Looking at it straight-on, the Audi RS4 Avant looks wide and mean, with its blacked-out mesh grille that's kind of folded in the middle, giving it a sharp ridge that juts out in front of it. Interestingly, Audi's Single Frame Grille treatment is now a kind of no-frame grille, with the body colour extending all the way to beginning of the meshing.

Those 20-inch alloys perfectly fill the swollen wheel arches, with the red of the massive brake calipers peeking out from behind the spokes, while at the rear, two massive exhaust exits frame the rear end. 

Inside, it's a blacked-out, leather-wrapped space that feels both tech-savvy and well constructed. There's ridged leather on the seats, and a satisfying chunkiness to both the flat-bottomed steering wheel and the sizeable gear shifter. 

I've heard people complain about the positioning of the 10.1-inch centre screen, perched as it is above the dash a little like an afterthought, but I really don't mind it. Its big, clear, and positioned where it is, easy to both read and reach.

At a distance the RS6 is just an unassuming station wagon, but the closer you get, the more apparent it becomes how mean it is. It’s wide, it’s chiselled, it’s not just good looking, it’s iconically Audi.

The stance is so wide, its ride height so low, and its wheels are so massive that any keen eye will be able to spot where the difference is between this and any old family hauler.

Wagons may not be trendy, but there’s something undeniably cool about having the hauling capacity of an SUV at the ride height of a sedan.

Of course, if you want to look even more svelte and don’t need the boot space, the RS7 is always lurking around at a slight price premium.

Inside, the RS6 has all the modern amenities of the Audi range. Expect the usual sharp screens, lovely sports seats, and a tasteful application of textures throughout.

There’s a blend of carbon-look finishes, chrome, leather and gloss black. Perhaps a little too much gloss black to keep clean, but the aesthetic is suitably upmarket. 

You can go to town on customisation, and the car we primarily tested had stitching and colour in the carbon patterns to match its 'Ascari Blue' exterior, but you can pick whatever shade or combination of colours your budget allows.

Audi’s software is pretty good these days, with an attractive theme and fast hardware to back it, and the brand’s ‘Virtual Cockpit’ is still one of the most aesthetically pleasing and customisable digital instrument systems on the market, despite being one of the first.

Ah, the practicality of a wagon, remember that? Honestly, I'm sometimes surprised that SUVs have managed such a hostile takeover, especially when I climb out of a well-sorted estate, like the RS4 Avant.

It measures 4782mm in length, 1866mm in width, and 1438mm in height, making it slightly longer - but much lower - than the Audi Q5.

But while Audi's SUV manages a commendable 463L of luggage space with the rear seats in place, the RS4 Avant delivers 495L, with the that number swelling to 1495L with the second row folded flat.

The point is, it delivers the perks of a sizeable SUV, without ever feeling so big. 

Up front, riders will share cupholders, bottle holders in the doors, and multiple USB and power connection point, along with storage cubbies of various sizes and shapes. 

In the back, rear seat riders get the same premium interior treatment as the driver, and get their own air vents with digital climate controls, bottle holders in their doors, USB connection points, and ISOFIX attachment points at each of the window seats in the back. 

Okay, I promised a car with the practicality of an equivalent SUV, but it’s not quite there. The trade-off is still worth it, I promise, but there are a few areas where the RS6 isn’t as practical as you think it’s going to be, particularly for front occupants.

Yes, it’s a big wide car, with large but supportive seats and plenty of headroom, but the issue for those travelling in the front two seats is the surprisingly limited amount of storage.

Yes, there are two bottle holders in the centre console with a folding tray lid to hide them away, but they aren’t huge. Bigger bottles would have to go in the door bins, but even then they’re a bit height-constrained.

There’s a decent glove box on the passenger side, but even the centre console box is very shallow, with more than half of it taken up by a wireless phone charger.

The touch panel for the climate unit looks impressive but still can’t match having physical dials. It has clicky haptic feedback to your individual presses, and all the functions are permanently accessible instead of hidden in sub-menus, so if you’re going to make climate a touch-based interface, it doesn’t get much better than this.

Where the RS6 shines is in the back seat. Despite those big bucket front seats, I had heaps of room behind my own seating position (at 182cm tall), with lots of headroom and sufficient width in the cabin to spread out.

You sink into the rear seats, which are heavily contoured so riding in the back is a pretty good experience even on the track.

Rear passengers get four adjustable air vents in both the B pillars and in the centre, as well as their own touch panel for the rear climate zone.

USB power outlets are also available, and there are netted pockets on the front of both back seats, with a further two bottle holders in the drop-down armrest.

The centre seat is probably only good for kids, because there’s a very tall raise in the centre required for the driveshaft, eating all the legroom.

The boot is fairly large at 548 litres which is in mid-size SUV territory, although I will admit some performance SUV rivals offer closer to 600L.

Space expands to 1658L with the second row folded flat.

Let’s start with the bad news. Most people can’t afford one of these. The RS6, in all of its muscular glory, is more expensive than ever before. Now wearing a before-on-roads price-tag of $241,500, it’s hardly your average mum and dad family hauler. But then, there’s nothing average about the RS6.

It’s so well regarded amongst enthusiasts for multiple reasons. It’s the biggest meanest wagon you can buy, and somehow Audi has managed to make this version more powerful and even faster than before.

In fact, it’s one of the few normal looking combustion cars out there which can still hold a candle to many electric cars, with its whomping V8 helping it warp from 0 to 100km/h in just 3.4 seconds.

More on those performance specs later. If you’re wondering what else you get for your near-quarter-of-a-mill it’s pretty much every spec item Audi currently offers.

There are now lighter 22-inch alloy wheels, adaptive air suspension, a high-performance braking system, an RS-specific exhaust system, matrix LED headlights with adaptive high beams, a 10.1-inch multimedia touchscreen with navigation and wireless phone mirroring and one of the best digital instrument clusters on the market.

It also features Valcona leather interior trim, sporty bucket seats with perforated trim, honeycomb stitching, as well as ventilation and heating, additional cabin trim in synthetic suede (comprised of 45 per cent recycled fibres), ambient interior lighting and a panoramic sunroof.

It’s a lot of stuff, but one thing you get a little less of is sound insulation. Audi has chosen to remove some of it this time around so you can hear the V8 better from behind the wheel.

It's a beast of a power plant - a twin-turbo 2.9-litre six-cylinder TFSI that will deliver 331kW at 5700rpm and 600Nm at 1900rpm, sending it thundering to all four wheels (because quattro) via an eight-speed tiptronic automatic.

That's enough, says Audi, to deliver a 0-100km/h sprint time of 4.1 seconds, which is plenty quick. 

The RS6 is still packing eight cylinders in 2023, producing a massive 463kW/850Nm, somehow an increase (+22kW/50Nm) over the previous iteration.

Audi’s signature ‘Quattro’ all-wheel drive system is present alongside a limited-slip differential and four-wheel steering.

Air suspension and performance brakes and exhaust also feature, alongside an aggressive Continental SportContact 7 tyre package.

The 0-100km/h sprint time is now just 3.4 seconds, allowing you to show up even some electric cars, and the RS6 features 48-volt mild hybrid technology with a cylinder-on-demand system which can shut half the block down for more efficient coasting.

The transmission is an eight-speed torque converter unit which is smooth and effortless.

Audi says you'll get 9.5L/100km on the combined cycle, and emit 218g/km of CO2. But not if you drive it like you'll want to drive it. Get a little too familiar with the accelerator and you can expect that number to climb.

The RS4 Avant is fitted with a 58-litre fuel tank.

Officially, the RS6 and its eight cylinders drink a combined 11.8L/100km, although even with its fancy hybrid system and cylinder deactivation, my time with the car saw 15.0L/100km. The RS6 has a 72-litre fuel tank and takes only the finest 98RON unleaded fuel.

It's a thundercat, the RS4 Avant, and might well be among the world's most undercover sleepers, given its ability to deliver near-supercar pace from its fairly understated station wagon body shape. 

Sink into the driver's seat, grip the chunky, leather-wrapped steering wheel and kick over the engine, and the low rumble of then exhaust immediately informs you that you're in something with some serious performance potential.

The acceleration is properly addictive, with the RS4 piling on speed on the exit of corners, shrinking the gap between bends so much that you're hurriedly standing on the brakes again as you barrel into the next turn before you know it.

It feels properly, properly sporty, and you can't help but feel a little smug about the fact you can effectively pour an entire Bunnings into the massive boot, where people in true supercars are lucky if they can fit even fit themselves in them. 

And I think that's the magic of a car like this, that straddles that line between practical and potent with such aplomb, it feels like it you're not making much in the way of sacrifices, and you can knock off the school run or a hill sprint with equal ability.

Downsides? Well, even in its angriest settings, the gearbox felt a little fidgety at pace, shifting up or down at strange moments on the way into or out of corners. You can take control via the paddle shifters, of course, but it wasn't the most intuitive gearbox I've experienced. The steering, too, felt a little - and I  mean a little - disconnected, even in its sportiest settings.

As you might have guessed from its impressive engine and performance equipment, the RS6 is a certified weapon on road and track.

On the road you can expect a quiet, refined cabin, superbly balanced steering for low and high speeds and a gentle ride quality courtesy of the pricey air set-up.

It’s as noisy or as quiet as you want it to be, with the cylinder deactivation toning things down at low speeds, and the engine roaring to life under heavy acceleration, or when the 'Dynamic' drive mode is selected.

It can at times be alarming how much the RS6 leaps to life, as it feels so cushy in a city, its width and cabin giving the feel of a luxury car rather than a performance one.

Make no mistake, though, the RS6 is properly quick, and when you give it a kick, it’s the roaring, aggressive machine the spec sheet suggests.

The best place for this? The track, of course. The big V8 and the capability of the all-wheel drive system are truly best explored at velocities impossible to legally achieve on the road.

Once you get past the bark and snarl of this wagon’s eight-cylinders at full force, and the lightning-fast shifts of its eight-speed automatic, you’ll have a moment to appreciate the way it simply holds to the tarmac when you tilt it into the corners, providing a balance when loaded up which only air suspension can provide.

The steering is awesome, communicating the texture of the road nicely to the driver, and requiring just the right amount of force to keep the car pointing where it needs to go.

The grip level is astounding with the huge tyres and the four-wheel steer system lets this hefty wagon take corners at a tighter angle than your brain initially allows.

Thankfully, the four-wheel steer system isn’t weird, either. While it can have a strange effect on some cars, in the RS6 it only bends your mind slightly when you tip it into a hairpin. Otherwise it feels pretty normal.

When everything is warmed up, it can let its guard down slightly and allows the driver to eke out a slide at the rear here and there for extra fun-factor

Jeez. What a machine. I guess this is what a quarter of a million dollars buys. A car that can do it all. Take the kids to the school in comfort and tear it up on the track like few other passenger cars on the same day.

There’s a caveat, though. A small one which looks like it will turn into a big one for cars like this in the near future.

I had the opportunity to drive the RS e-tron GT around the same circuit and it was better. Much better.

It was faster, more accurate, more composed. It was so effortless, I didn’t realise exactly how much quicker than the RS6 it was until I drove them back-to-back.

It’s a good sign for the future, but also a reminder a V8 like this isn’t the performance pinnacle it once was.

Like its standard cabin equipment, the RS6 has had the entire catalogue thrown at it for active safety gear. Included is freeway-speed auto emergency braking with pedestrian, cyclist, and intersection detection, lane keep assist with lane departure warning, blind-spot monitoring with rear cross-traffic alert, an exit warning system, and adaptve cruise control with traffic jam assist.

Elsewhere the RS6 gets dual front, dual side, and head curtain airbags, with ISOFIX points on the outer two rear seats as well as three top-tethers across the rear row.

The RS6 is not safety rated by ANCAP, but the rest of the A6 range was awarded a maximum five stars in 2018. 

Audi vehicles are covered by a three-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty, which is feeling more than a little underdone when compared to some competitors.

Services are due every 12 months or 15,000kms, and Audi allows you to pre-pay your service costs for the first five years, at a cost of $3,050.

Five years and unlimited kilometres is the warranty length, and Audi’s ownership program includes invites to events like the one we were able to experience for the launch of this car. A track-test of the RS6 and the RS e-tron GT.

If you own one, I recommend them, you’ll learn a thing or two about the car and possibly yourself while you’re at it.

Servicing is required once every 12 months or 15,000km, and a service pack covering the first five years or 75,000km can be purchased alongside the car at a cost of $4360.

It works out at $872 per year, which isn't economy car cheap, but with such a complex drivetrain, what did you expect?