Audi A4 review – Reliability & safety
It hasn't all been plain sailing for Audi owners, and the A4’s five-star Euro NCAP rating is outdated
The Audi A4 is a staple model for the brand and despite being near the end of its life cycle, it came in 44th place out of the top 50 cars rated by owners in the 2024 Driver Power customer satisfaction survey. Owners rated its running costs and economy figures highly, as well as value for money, but while its interior has impressed in earlier editions, it’s perhaps too outdated now.
Audi A4 reliability
The Audi A4 came an unimpressive 46th out of 50 cars for reliability in the 2024 Driver Power customer satisfaction survey. Audi as a manufacturer also performed poorly overall in 2023’s brand-specific survey, coming in a miserable 30th out of 32 manufacturers. Reliability across the brand was mediocre, with 23% of Audi owners reporting an issue with their car in the first year of ownership.
Safety
When it first launched, one of the A4's strong points was its range of advanced technology to help keep you safe while driving. The car's adaptive cruise control is so clever that the A4 can almost drive itself in stop-start traffic. The car will also keep itself in lane on the motorway, as long as you periodically place your hands on the steering wheel. Also available on higher-spec cars are Audi's 'Matrix' LED headlights, which dim automatically when on full beam to avoid dazzling the drivers of oncoming cars.
While the aforementioned features were impressive before, and contributed towards the A4’s five-star safety rating in 2015, the testing criteria have become much more stringent in the years since. Euro NCAP now considers the A4’s rating as expired, given it no longer reflects the harsher regime the institution puts the latest cars through.
