A6 Avant BE 3.0 272ps vs 320ps

[AudiNow]

Hello All

I am looking at both these cars and cant decide on which one to go for

I wondered if any of you have had the chance to drive both of these cars and which one you would go for or had decided to buy?

The 320 has more power but not quite as good MPG

BUT in real world am I going to really seen the benefits of the 320 over the 272 in the power and actually by getting the 272 I will have a better MPG?

Would be great to hear your thoughts and advice

Many thanks in advance

[MAVAV]

Personally you can never have too much power. The thing I like about my bi turbo is it's Jekyll and Hyde personality. The car is giving me about 45 mpg on the motorway at cough cough 70 mph, so I can't complain about mpg, and when I want to be a lunatic and put my foot down I just get a smile on my face with all that torque.

[Whippy53]

Chalk and cheese, I've recently had both out for a test drive and while the 272 is superb (it's what I will go for) the 320 is epic! So much more torque. For me I can't justify the extra power (country lanes mostly) but if you have the choice you should go for it, in reality it ain't that much more. MPG? Lotsa people are saying there isn't a lot to choose in real life. Read Jamie's threads for tuning options as well.

[AudiNow]

Personally you can never have too much power. The thing I like about my bi turbo is it's Jekyll and Hyde personality. The car is giving me about 45 mpg on the motorway at cough cough 70 mph, so I can't complain about mpg, and when I want to be a lunatic and put my foot down I just get a smile on my face with all that torque.

Do you do much driving on A roads?....45mpg on motorways is fantastic but the majority of driving will be on A roads and some city driving

What do you reckon I should get with those roads?

[ukgroucho]

I do a lot on B roads and A roads with occasional longer trips. And this is an allroad (313) so will be worse than a saloon or avant.

Overall 36 - 37 mpg
Driving at 70 and being gentle on the motorway I get better than 50 mpg
"Normal" motorway speeds will be 43 / 44 MPG which ties in with what MAVAV is seeing.

[AudiNow]

I do a lot on B roads and A roads with occasional longer trips. And this is an allroad (313) so will be worse than a saloon or avant.

Overall 36 - 37 mpg
Driving at 70 and being gentle on the motorway I get better than 50 mpg
"Normal" motorway speeds will be 43 / 44 MPG which ties in with what MAVAV is seeing.

Thats very positive reading indeed the 320 will be slightly better than what you get and it sounds like you do very similar drives to me

Going by this i should be getting an average of 37 or even 38 which I would be delighted with I must say. Ok the 272 might well average 44 but I feel the fun you will get and the extra power is worth it if I can get those sort of figures

[ukgroucho]

And, of course, the sound from the exhaust :)

[belly buster]

Thats very positive reading indeed the 320 will be slightly better than what you get and it sounds like you do very similar drives to me

Going by this i should be getting an average of 37 or even 38 which I would be delighted with I must say. Ok the 272 might well average 44 but I feel the fun you will get and the extra power is worth it if I can get those sort of figures

I don't really understand why anyone thinking about buying either of these cars cares too much about MPG. There's only going to be £250 a year in it at the pumps. More to the point is the £5k more the 320 costs.

[AudiNow]

I don't really understand why anyone thinking about buying either of these cars cares too much about MPG. There's only going to be £250 a year in it at the pumps. More to the point is the £5k more the 320 costs.

That is a very fair point....

[lostscot]

The additional 5k put me off, that's why I went for the 272. I loved the 320 but the budget line had to be drawn somewhere. I'm happy with my choice.

[AllotmentChap]

When I was looking at the Allroad, I test-drove the BiTDI and was blown away. I didn't actually buy a car until 5-6 months later, and the one I test-drove and bought was the 245, and I was still blown away - and per lostscot, I simply couldn't justify another £5-8k on a used car, just to knock a second off the 0-60 time. ;)

Basically, it's got nothing to do with MPG as has already been said. If your budget is up to the BiTDI, then you probably don't care about a few extra quid in the tank, unless you're doing stellar mileage annually. The fact that either of these cars will comfortably hit 30-35mpg even when 'pressing on' means they're superb machines.

Drive both, look at how much you're prepared to spend, and then buy the one you like. If you really cared about fuel consumption, you'd be buying a Tesla (which isn't that far off your budget... ;)).

[jetbean]

Besides the power difference, which is quite substantial, and the mpg, which is minimal, the price which is significant - it's worth mentioning the gearbox is also very differenct between the two.

The zf 8 speed auto in the biturbo is simply magnificent. For me much better than the dual clutch stronic in the 272 - others will disagree. Although, if you are talking about a new car, the stronic has now been updated and is apparently better because of it.

Test drive both definitely. They are different

[AudiNow]

Besides the power difference, which is quite substantial, and the mpg, which is minimal, the price which is significant - it's worth mentioning the gearbox is also very differenct between the two.

The zf 8 speed auto in the biturbo is simply magnificent. For me much better than the dual clutch stronic in the 272 - others will disagree. Although, if you are talking about a new car, the stronic has now been updated and is apparently better because of it.

Test drive both definitely. They are different

That is sound advice and I plan to do so...

[ukgroucho]

I simply couldn't justify another £5-8k on a used car, just to knock a second off the 0-60 time.

It's not just the 0 - 60 of course, it's also the in gear acceleration when overtaking. When I picked up my BiTdi my audi dealers closing words before we said goodbye and I left were "It's REALLY quick from 30 to 90 so watch yourself..."

[AudiNow]

It's not just the 0 - 60 of course, it's also the in gear acceleration when overtaking. When I picked up my BiTdi my audi dealers closing words before we said goodbye and I left were "It's REALLY quick from 30 to 90 so watch yourself..."

I would agree with you, I would say acceleration followed by MPG are the most important thing. That excites me though what the dealer said to you

[belly buster]

It's not just the 0 - 60 of course, it's also the in gear acceleration when overtaking. When I picked up my BiTdi my audi dealers closing words before we said goodbye and I left were "It's REALLY quick from 30 to 90 so watch yourself..."

Well that has something to do with power, not much to do with mpg, but ...

272 has 580 torques. 320 has 650 torques. 70 more torques!

[ukgroucho]

Well that has something to do with power, not much to do with mpg, but ...

272 has 580 torques. 320 has 650 torques. 70 more torques!

Yup and it is not that simple / linear either.
OK so 70 extra vs 580 is only, what 12%? Well not so much.
But it's actually quite a bit more

An A6 probably needs 400 torques (nm) to get it to move like a "spirited" family car (the 2.0 Ultra has about 400 nm)... so
the 272 is +45% with 580
but the 320 is +62% with 650

That's why the difference feels as big between the 272 and the 320 as it does... You have to consider it relative to the torque / power that you would find in a "regular" A6 (and I accept that the A6 ultra is by no means a slow car) - so you are judging the performance based on what you have experienced...

[fest0r]

Keep in mind the facelift BiTDI didn’t gain as much as the 272ps version so it closed the gap a little:

1790 kg
6.1 secs
245ps / 241 bhp
580 Nm

1855 kg
5.1 secs
313ps / 308 bhp
650 Nm

Facelift

1835 kg
5.5 secs
272ps / 268 bhp
580 Nm

1900 kg
5.0 secs
320ps / 315 bhp
650 Nm

[ukgroucho]

Eeew that was confusing you listed them in opposite order... tricky :)

Understood but once again I'll emphasise.. IN GEAR is what matters (for most driving) - not off the line.
The s-Tronic in my limited experience (in my brothers S4) bites much better off the line ... the ZF tiptronic fitted to the BiTdi in audi 'software' setup is somewhat slushy off the line. You can defeat that with some abuse (hence I posted a 0-60 of 4.9 in my allroad... but you would not want to do that all the time)
However, IN GEAR doing 30 to err whatever, the BiTdi will monster it.
I'm absolutely certain that the 272 (268bhp) is a very quick car but don't get confused by the 0 - 60 figures as that does not represent the real on road performance.

[AudiNow]

Eeew that was confusing you listed them in opposite order... tricky :)

Understood but once again I'll emphasise.. IN GEAR is what matters (for most driving) - not off the line.
The s-Tronic in my limited experience (in my brothers S4) bites much better off the line ... the ZF tiptronic fitted to the BiTdi in audi 'software' setup is somewhat slushy off the line. You can defeat that with some abuse (hence I posted a 0-60 of 4.9 in my allroad... but you would not want to do that all the time)
However, IN GEAR doing 30 to err whatever, the BiTdi will monster it.
I'm absolutely certain that the 272 (268bhp) is a very quick car but don't get confused by the 0 - 60 figures as that does not represent the real on road performance.


Thats really my problem I want good MPG and a quick car....to be honest thats why I think, especially after some helpful comments from the forum the 320 is the best bet for me

[Scott K]

I test drove both and they are both brilliant cars but the biturbo felt much quicker and I preferred the gearbox. Whichever one you get you will love it but if you think the biturbo is the one for you then you should get it - you know it will niggle if you don't!
Remember and set the speed warning when you first get it-it is incredibly easy to get into 3 figures very quickly.

[fest0r]

Does anyone have any mid-range acceleration figures for comparison? I can’t find anything :confused:

On a separate note, I suspect Audi may be understating the figures for the 272… possibly for sales reasons?

These are the figures for a 245ps and 313ps (unmodified) at a local dyno:

280.4 bhp / 284.29 ps
479.8 ft-lb / 650.52 nm

327 bhp / 331.5 ps
516 lb-ft / 699.6 nm

Regardless of the accuracy it should show the gap correctly as it was an average over numerous runs on the same rolling road. Keep in mind this was the older 245ps/313ps versions. I would love to see the figures from the newer 272ps/320ps models.

Get an extended test in both if possible ;)

[Whippy53]

It's the torque that makes the difference "horsepower for show, torque for go", as the saying has it.

[Splash]

I don't really understand why anyone thinking about buying either of these cars cares too much about MPG. There's only going to be £250 a year in it at the pumps. More to the point is the £5k more the 320 costs.
Wading in a little late; lets not forget that you won't lose all of that c.£5k premium because there should still be some premium in the residual value. The relative depreciation between the two variants also plays a part. There are some whole life cost forecasts for all manner of cars somewhere on the Fleet News website as its what Fleet Managers benchmark on and directly influences lease rates. Although the %RV can fluctuate due to experience of more cars in the market etc. etc. the values agreed at inception prevail unless you break the agreement.

So unless you intend to own the car, then if you've got acceptable monthly figures already agreed you can indeed ignore them and concentrate on the difference in MPG as the RV will already be factored in.