The $134,900 3- litre turbo diesel 257kW AudiA6 Allroad sits in perhaps the most crowded area of the motoring market. Competing with luxury SUVs it also competes with the dying (but never more  attractive than now) luxury wagons. 

But perhaps it’s greatest and closest true competitor is the high-riding Volvo V90 Cross Country that at $103,900 is $30,000 less than the Audi.  

The A6 Allroad is a sleek car with attractive styling. I couldn’t tell the A6 from the A4 wagon at first when it came to Parihoa in early March.  The Allroad gains an extra 60mm of height over the standard wagon, or Avant as Audi calls this body style. 

The engine is refined and has 700Nm of torque at 2500-3100rpm. This is enough to propel it to 100km/h in 5.2 seconds, which is rapid given the “Q car” nature of this vehicle. The dynamic mode makes the car feel sporty. In the other modes it feels comfortable and not as agile. 

Hopping on the configurator, it’s not an exhaustive list of options to propel the car to a stratospheric price as it’s already well equipped. There are 10 metallic colours and two solid colours and the pallet has a lot of silvers and greys as expected. I would spec the Carat Beige Metallic, a gold colour, at no cost .  

It comes standard with 20in wheels of two choices. I would pick one of the two choices of the 21in wheels, being the Audi Sport five spoke cast alloy, for an extra $3000. 

The interior is simple in Valcona leather in grey with no options. Ditto with safety equipment there are no options and it’s well specced with lane departure, adaptive cruise control and 360 degree cameras. The beautiful HD matrix LED headlights are standard. 

I wouldn’t add the $2000 for power latching for the doors, the $2200 four zone climate system but I would add the $1000 seat heaters for rear and front (which, in my opinion, should be standard). 

The inlays in the interior are in aluminium but for $1000 can be up specced to fine grain birch.  The interior looks great but the challenge is so do all Audi interiors these days. 

With its touchscreens, it looks up to date but when I’m driving, I have a problem with the centre screen controls as I find them fiddlier. The virtual cockpit for the key dials works great. I would add the flat bottomed steering wheel for $500.

I would add the Bang & Olufsen 3D sound system for $2000 but would refrain from the top range system costing an extra $17,000. 

All in, my specced car would be $143,600. That’s a lot of kit for the money.  

For me the A6 Allroad is an effortless practical tourer.  I would prefer this over a Q7 or Q8 as it holds the road better and in a solid way like I feel in my Bentley Continental GT. I don’t get that solid feel in all cars. 

The greatest challenge of the A6 is that there are so many other cars competing for your attention at this price point. After assessing the options, would you decide on this? It’s a difficult question and the answer is probably no. 

However, if you have two or three kids, like to carry a surfboard every now and then, enjoy long drives but also like looking good in the city, this could be the car for you. 

And if not, you could save money and buy the Volvo V90 Cross Country. It’s not as powerful and not as modern, although in my view the interior of it is still superior. Your choice!