Audi A4 TDIe 2010 review

IN this country, you might as well market a car without wheels as one with a manual transmission.  Australian drivers have become shiftless slobs for whom changing gears is as inconceivable as flicking channels without a remote. But would you  (re-)learn the art of stick-shifting to save the planet?

I ask because the leanest-running sedan in the country is not Toyota's taxpayer-underwritten fleet machine, the Camry Hybrid. It's one that, while $10K more expensive, plays in a different class and benefits from an exemption to Kevin Rudd's idiotic luxury car tax.

Bizarrely overlooked by certain media outlets at its launch, the `e' version of Audi's A4 diesel can, in ideal conditions, return a Prius-approximating 124g of CO2 per kilometre and 4.8L per 100km — 1.2 better than the stolid Camry.  More tangibly (and perhaps more impressively, after spending last week solely in Sydney's ever more appalling traffic), we averaged 7.7L per 100km.

A small part of that is due to the "stop-start'' system that switches off the engine when you're halted, gearstick in neutral. It re-starts seamlessly when you depress the clutch (automatically, when it feels it has been off for too long) — a system compatible only with a manual transmission.

Other consumption-enhancing tweaks are a lowered ride height; a higher final-drive ratio; low-resistance tyres; a system that recovers energy lost under braking; and an instrument-panel readout that tells you when to change up for optimum economy.

Although a petrol-electric hybrid will almost always drink less in the city, the Audi would always do better on the open road.  The A4 TDIe's eco-friendly tweaks do nothing to compromise its driveability, which is acceptable for a front-wheel-drive diesel, rather than exceptional. Steering feel is, as ever, Audi-lite.

As an engaging experience, the A4 isn't within a bull's roar of BMW's 320 diesel. For that matter, it isn't up to the Mazda6 oiler either, but the former is unacceptably expensive and neither runs as lean as the Audi. And, objectivity out the window, neither looks nearly as cool.

Even more to the point for an Audi buyer, the luxury packaging and quality feel it does almost peerlessly is present and correct.  No doubt some will complain of the diesel's noise, and they'd have a point if you could drive with your ear pressed to the bonnet.

It's refined and smooth, with all the mid-range punch of the conventional A4 two-litre diesel.  A pity, then, that the only real caveat goes to the heart of the TDIe's manual operation.

We've asked before, we'll ask again: what is it with positioning the pedals so far to the right? This is especially noticeable with the constant early shifting required to obey the dash display. Nor is there sufficient room in the footwell.  Then again, this is for the planet, people — so harden up and stop being a soft cog.

Audi A4 TDIe

Price: $49,900
Engine: 2L/4-cylinder 100kW/320Nm turbo diesel
Transmission: 6-speed manual, FWD
Thirst: 4.8L/100km (claimed)
Rivals: BMW 320d ($58,300); Mazda6 Diesel Sports Hatch ($42,815); Toyota Camry Hybrid Luxury ($39,990)