2020 Citroen C5 vs 2021 Audi A4

What's the difference?

The C5 Aircross might seem like a niche European 'alternative' SUV, but I wish it wasn’t. The more mainstream players could learn a lot from how brilliantly this Citroen is packaged.

It is truly class leading in terms of passenger comfort and even luggage space, even shipping with great multimedia and safety in this base Feel grade.

Unless you really need to be towing, performance (or in this case, lack thereof) should be low on your SUV priority list anyway.

The Audi A4 allroad 40 TDI quattro S Tronic is a nice-looking wagon that’s fun to drive.

It’s packed with tech, adequately functional for daily life and it’s also capable enough off-road as long as the driving surface is nothing more challenging than well-maintained gravel or dirt tracks in dry weather, and you’re not planning a rough-and-tumble expedition into remote bushland.

As I mentioned earlier, the great thing about adventures is that you can scale them to suit you and your vehicle and the allroad offers a nice stepping-stone for people who’d like to experience the outdoorsy lifestyle, before perhaps diving deeper into it.

It wouldn’t be a French car without a solid dollop of style, and the Aircross has heaps of it.

From the orange paint, to its floating rear light fittings and chevron emblazoned grille, the Citroen is nothing if not unique.

Just like the C4 range before it, the C5 Aircross inherits the plastic 'airbump' fittings under the doors, with the plastic-clad soft-roader look continuing over the wheelarches and across the C5’s front and rear.

There’s a lot going on, on both the front and rear of this SUV, but somehow it’s not really over-complicated, all the flourishes and highlights manage to flow into each other to maintain some semblance of consistency.

The C5’s rear is a little more tame, with body coloured panels contrasted with the plastic strip, gloss black highlights, and dual-square exhaust facades. The floating gloss-clad roof rails are a flashy if silly touch.

I’d personally argue it’s a better-looking car than its Peugeot 3008 sibling, although it looks built entirely for city-slickers rather than the adventurous type.

Inside it’s normal. For a Citroen. Gone are the days of floating steering wheels or overtly wacky instrument clusters, it’s all quite tame and that’s for the betterment of the brand.

That’s not to say it’s not a cool place to be, and I was surprised to find myself surrounded by classy fittings, quality soft-touch materials and an understated blocky design theme. The C5 gets a small, oval steering wheel which feels great in the hands.

Those awesome memory foam seats are finished in a slightly odd grey synthetic denim kind of material. Some hated it, but I thought it contrasted the car’s exterior and interior schemes well. The raised centre console gives front passengers an extra secure premium sort of feel.

The grey materials will be slightly divisive, but the number one annoyance for me was the complete lack of tactile buttons for adjusting the climate control or media functions. Is a volume knob too much to ask?

Other than that, the C5 has one of the most tame, practical interior treatments on any Citroen… possibly ever… without managing to be boring.

The allroad’s overall look is part of a range-wide refresh and it certainly fits in with the line-up’s updated aesthetic.

Because I’m a bloke who spends the bulk of my time in 4WDs – traditionally bulkier vehicles rather than slim city-friendly wagons – I’m not totally enamoured of the Audi’s style, especially in terms of trip-packing practicality. However, I can certainly appreciate the appeal of its quite low, sleek and streamlined appearance, which its tweaked chunkier grille adds some gravitas to. It’s just not my cup o’ tea.

The C5 Aircross is one of the most practical SUVs you can buy in this segment in terms of interior space. There’s just loads of it, and plenty of smart features to back it up.

In the front you get some small trenches in the doors, lovely big cupholders in the centre console, along with a top-box which was a little shallow, but still handy, as well as a small cavity (seemingly designed to hold the key) and a big bin for stowing your wallet or phone.

Back seat occupants get decent leg and headroom, but what’s really special here is each passenger gets their own memory foam seat with enough width to travel in decent comfort. The centre passenger’s legroom isn’t even impeded by a big transmission tunnel.

Rear passengers also get pockets on the back of the front seats, dual air vents, small cupholders in the doors, and a 12-volt power outlet. With no drop-down armrest, it would be nice to see more practical cupholders in the door cards.

The boot is truly gigantic. Like, biggest in the segment gigantic. At a minimum it weighs in at 580L (VDA), but as an added boost, the rear passenger seats can be slid forward on a rail to grant a whopping 140 extra litres of space to 720L. With the rear seats down you’ll be able to make use of 1630L.

A power tailgate, able to be operated by waving a foot under the car is also standard, revealing a totally unimpeded aperture. So, not only does it have a class leading luggage area, but it’s also easy to use.

I’ll answer that question as a politician would – without actually answering the question.

The allroad’s interior looks good and certainly feels open and spacious, although the driver’s seat tends to feel a bit more snug as the dash is angled towards that position.

The new 10.1-inch touchscreen, home for most upfront functions, dominates the dash, in a good way.

The front seats are electrically adjustable with lumbar and driver memory.

There are plenty of places in which to put your everyday bits and pieces (including a decent storage bin/arm-rest), as well as charging points, including two USB ports, for your devices.

Need somewhere to put a cold beverage, mate? There are two cup-holders between driver and front-seat passenger, two in the fold-down centre arm-rest for the back-seat passengers, and bottle holders in all doors.

Back-seat passengers also get air vents, climate control, mesh seat-back pockets and grab handles. 

There is a 495-litre cargo space when the rear seats are in use, but that increases to 1495 litres when those seats – 40:20:40 split folding – are stowed away in the floor.

The Audi A4 allroad 40 TDI quattro S Tronic has a MSRP of $69,900 (plus on-road costs).

It has a 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine unit (140kW/400Nm), a seven-speed S tronic automatic transmission, and Audi’s quattro all-wheel drive system. 

In standard guise this allroad’s features list includes a new 10.1-inch touchscreen (with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto), DAB+ digital radio, an Audi 10-speaker stereo, wireless charging for Qi-enabled smartphones, Audi’s Virtual Cockpit (a 12.3-inch digital display), smart key with push-button start, leather trim, three-zone climate control, as well as LED headlights, 18-inch alloy wheels, illuminated door sills, and overall tweaked exterior and interior styling.

It also has AEB with pedestrian detect, lane change warning, rear cross-traffic alert, front and rear parking sensors and a reversing camera.

But our test vehicle has a few different features and a fair few extras. Our allroad has a ‘price as tested’ of $75,681 (plus on-road costs), because it has Assistance plus package ($2900), which includes a raft of driver-assist tech, such as adaptive cruise control, active lane assist, collision avoidance assist, high beam assist, head up display, park assist (helps to steer the vehicle into a parallel or perpendicular parking space), as well as a 360-degree-view cameras 

It also has 19-inch Audi sport alloy wheels in 10-Y-spoke design ($1350), instead of the standard 18-inch alloy wheels in 5-V-spoke design, and metallic paint (Mahattan grey, $1531).

Note: when we were conducting this test, Audi announced that, among other things, it would release a new-gen A4 allroad quattro 40 TDI in early 2021 that would have an extra 10kW more than our test vehicle, so it’ll be a 150kW/450Nm machine.

For those of you into hot laps, the current-generation achieves 0-100km/h times of 7.9 seconds; the new A4 allroad quattro 40 TDI is claimed to achieve that mark in 7.3 seconds.

Pricing for the upcoming 150kW A4 allroad quattro 40 TDI as standard was set to be $70,700. 

The C5 Aircross is powered by just one powerplant no matter which grade you pick. It’s a 1.6-litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine, producing 121kW/240Nm.

It shares this engine with the Peugeot 3008 and the outputs compare well with the Renault Koleos’ Nissan-sourced 2.4-litre four-cylinder engine (126kW/226Nm) considering it’s much smaller and (theoretically) less thirsty.

The ever-smart Skoda Karoq is tough to beat in this segment with its 1.5-litre engine (110kW/250Nm) putting strong torque figures on the board.

The C5 Aircross sends power to the front wheels only via a six-speed automatic transmission, for a comparison the Koleos has a lackluster CVT auto, while the Karoq benefits from a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic.

The Audi A4 all road 40 TDI quattro S Tronic has a 2.0-litre, four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine, producing 140kw at 3800-4200rpm and 400Nm at 1750-3000rpm.

It has a seven-speed S tronic automatic transmission and all wheel drive.

The 1430kg C5 is rated to consume 7.9 litres of mid-grade 95RON unleaded per 100km.

That’s about on-par for the segment, and in practice I managed a figure of 8.6L/100km. A litre over isn’t too bad for truly mixed driving.

The mid-grade fuel requirement is a bit of an annoyance, but it’s also to be expected from a small capacity turbocharged European engine. It’s primary competitors (with the exception of the Koleos) drink the same.

It has claimed fuel consumption of 5.2L/100km (combined), but we recorded actual fuel consumption on test of 8.4L/100km – driving in soft sand likely negatively impacted that figure.

It has a 61-litre fuel tank.

Straight up, the C5 Aircross is not the most exciting car you can drive. It’s not even exciting for the segment, with the focus being refreshingly distant from sporty.

You’ll be getting sluggish acceleration comprised of an occasionally lazy six-speed auto transmission and a dollop of turbo lag every time you depress the accelerator pedal.

But the C5 Aircross is, refreshingly, not about being sporty at all. I’d argue Citroen is one of the few carmakers that really ‘gets’ what driving an SUV should be about. Comfort.

See, this SUV more than makes up for its lackluster performance by being possibly the nicest place to be behind the wheel in the segment.

We’ve covered how unreal the seats are in terms of their quality memory foam padding, but it doesn’t end there. The C5 has the same excellent well balanced steering from the rest of the Citroen and Peugeot passenger car ranges, as well as sensibly-sized tyres on small alloy wheels and the hydraulic cushion suspension.

It all adds up to a ride that’s quiet and makes most road corrugations, imperfections and potholes a complete non-issue.

The suspension does have its limits, hitting a particularly sharp bump or pothole will have the car bouncing off its shocks, but it’s simply awesome on 90 per cent of Australian urban roads. I wish more SUV mid-sizers rode like it.

It’s also super quiet thanks to “extra insulation” in the engine bay and the small alloy wheels.

For a bloke who spends a lot of time in big, tall and bulky 4WDs, I felt like I was driving a go-kart. It’s that low, but it’s also that much fun – and it’s a very different driving experience to what I’m used to.

The allroad is 4762mm long, 1847mm wide and 1430mm high, and has a listed kerb weight of 1720kg. So relative to the 4WDs I usually steer around, this is light and low slung. It’s more car than SUV, that’s for sure.

Acceleration is rather punchy (the engine and auto are a decent match-up), steering is light but precise, and you can cycle through drive modes (efficiency, comfort, auto etc) to set up vehicle characteristics to suit your driving style and conditions.

The quattro all-wheel drive system helps to keep the allroad planted and composed at all times. 

Ride is on the sharpish side of firm and you do tend to feel every irregularity in the road surface – it is long and low and on low-profile rubber afterall.

The virtual cockpit plus – a 12.3-inch high-resolution colour display – offers a comprehensive read on all things to do with the allroad.

Throw around your superlative of choice – “sporty” and “dynamic” fit this allroad well – but I’m loathe to gush about its on-road performance much more than that because I reckon if any motoring journos are reading this – many of whom spend the lion’s share of their time swanning about in sports cars – they would have already choke-spat out their dirty chai with surprise by now.

The Audi A4 all road 40 TDI quattro S Tronic has the maximum five-star ANCAP safety rating.

It has eight airbags (dual front, front side, side bags front and rear, and curtains front and rear), as well as AEB with pedestrian detection, lane change warning, rear cross-traffic alert, a reversing camera, and front and rear parking sensors.

All current Citroens are covered by a five-year/unlimited kilometer warranty, matching the widely accepted industry standard.

That’s all well and good, but it’s the very erm… European service pricing which is the killer here.

The C5 Aircross is covered by a capped price servicing program which costs between $458 and $812 per yearly visit, for an average of $602 per year for the life of the five year warranty.

It’s a bit of a let down given the Citroen’s cheapest fixed-price service is the equivalent to an expensive service at more mainstream brands.

This Audi has a three-year/unlimited km warranty. Service intervals are recommended every 12 months or 15,000 km, whichever comes first.