First drive: Audi A4 Avant 3.0 TDI Quattro

More LEDs than Oxford Street at Christmas – it’s a new Audi estate, isn’t it?

Quite right: welcome to the new Audi A4 Avant. Of course, you’ve met the front two-thirds of this A4 before: it’s based on the VW Group’s MQB chassis platform, it’s up to 120kg lighter than the previous model, though you can weigh it back down with tech that even the current A8 can’t match. It also brandishes an interior so delightfully contemporary you feel like taking your shoes off when you climb in.

You can read Paul Horrell's review of that 3.0-litre V6 TDI saloon here to get the full lowdown. So, if you don't object, we’ll focus on the Avant bit: the 505-litre boot.

Audi’s estates haven’t always been the roomiest on sale, have they?

Correct. The last-gen A4 Avant’s boot was actually smaller in raw, honest literage than a VW Golf Estate, or, fact fans, a Dacia Logan MCV’s. The overall 26mm increase in length ups space from the old car’s 490 litres to 505, which is, um, still less than the enormous VW. But hey, neither BMW or Merc’s rivals can crack 500 litres…

As such, Audi claims the new car has the biggest seats-up boot in its class (the seats not-quite-flat total is 1,510 litres), and while that does give the Mercedes C-Class and BMW 3-series a bloody nose, you could get into a Skoda Superb Estate for thousands of pounds less and have over 650 litres to swing your cats in. Depends how badge-snobby your pets are, I suppose.

Having said that, few people simply read a spreadsheet of estate car volume and pick the largest number. The A4’s load bay is perfectly usable – there’s a low (though not quite flat) loading sill, little wheelarch intrusion and enough cargo restraining lashing hooks and nets to moonlight as a fishing trawler. Not much in the way of hidden storage lockers though, if we’re being really picky. Naturally, we now find sensors under the rear bumper which command the electric tailgate with a little Kankan kick, but (would you believe it), that’s one of the many, many optional extras.

I ought to have no sweat fitting my Outdoor Lifestyle Equipment inside then. What about if I have friends?

Even if your mates are NBA basketball stars, they should be comfortable in the much roomier new A4. There’s ample head and kneeroom, and the concave door trims make the whole interior feel much less oppressive than the (admittedly saloon-only) Jaguar XE.

Okay, but if passengers aren’t complaining, is the driver?

Certainly not for pace where this 3.0 V6 TDI Quattro version is concerned. Even more impressive than the deeply tractable engine is the gearbox. It’s so fast to swap cogs I assumed it was a newly sharpened version of the seven-speed, dual-clutch S-tronic gearbox. Wrong. Cruising at 70mph, the car dropped into eighth gear, indicating this is actually the eight-speed, torque-converter automatic. On top form, too. Combined with all-wheel drive traction, it’s the sort of supremely capable, untaxing car you’d feel very smug about tackling a slippery, traffic-choked British commute in.

Where Audi has come on in leaps and bounds since the last A4 is nailing the differentiation between adaptive damping settings. Most of the time, it’s safe to leave it in auto mode, but comfort mode has a handily long-travel, supple quality about it. The adaptive dampers are almost a grand though, so regular four-cylinder models will probably be better off in S-line trim with the sports suspension-delete box ticked.

It’s also exceptionally refined. The A4 pulls off the same trick the Q7 astounded us with earlier in the year, being so very quiet. It’s easily one of the most hushed compact execs around, with proper plutocrat-limo levels of road, wind and engine noise.

The overall effect is oh-so calming. We’d like the hear the driver’s excuse the first time you see one of those zig-zaggy LEDs five centimetres off your back bumper on the outside lane of the M1, because it’s not going to be a lack of peace that’s wound Mr. T. Gater up.

Perhaps because he’s not having as much fun as a BMW driver who’s taken the twisty way home?

True, it’s not that engaging. The steering is incredibly accurate – the A4 is a large car but doesn’t feel its size at all – but none of its controls feel connected to anything mechanical. The whole car is an exercise in isolating you from what’s going on under the bonnet, or on the road surface.

And yet, an Avant is surely bought because you’ve got children, pushchairs and pets to cart around, so sacrificing ultimate chuckablity isn’t a dealbreaker.

It’ll be interesting to see how (or if) Audi turns this A4 Avant into a driver’s car when the twin-turbo S4 and RS4 estates arrive over the next couple of years.

I feel a summing-up on the way…

What it comes down to is this: if you want a small estate in which you arrive at your destination satisfied that you’ve been the commanding force, buy a BMW 3-Series Touring. Or, if you want to arrive at said destination having barely noticed the journey at all, I’d plump for the A4.