Audi A7 Sportback Review 2023

If you want the kind of attributes that a luxury saloon gives you, but you want them served up in a package that’s a bit less staid and a bit more stylish, then the Audi A7 Sportback will be a very solid choice. 

It’s glamorous enough and desirable enough to draw admiring glances from passers-by. And to be fair, you don’t really sacrifice too much in the way of practicality to get it: rear headroom is a fraction tighter than in a saloon, but it is only a fraction. It also gives you the impeccable build quality, generous equipment list, strong safety record and excellent refinement that you expect from a high-end Audi.

The trim level we recommend is the entry-level Sport. It comes with all the luxury kit you’d need, but more importantly, it has a more forgiving suspension than S line and Black Edition models, so it’s more comfortable. The Vorsprung models have an air suspension as standard, which is a bit better, but these are too pricey to recommend.

On the engine front, we reckon most folks will be fine with the entry-level diesel, which has enough go, but if you want more poke - which in a glamorous car like the Audi A7 Sportback, you might well go for one of the smooth and powerful V6 diesels. We’ve not tried the 45 TDI yet, but the more powerful 50 TDI really is something special.

The Audi A7 Sportback's most direct rival is undoubtedly the Mercedes-Benz CLS, which is absolutely bang-on for size, price and ethos. Once upon a time, the BMW 6 Series Gran Coupe would’ve been a rival too, although BMW ditched that model around the time that this version of the A7 was released. 

The 6 Series Gran Turismo remains, which is another car that puts a slightly different stylistic take on the executive saloon formula, but that looks more like an SUV than a coupe. There’s the BMW 8 Series Gran Coupe but that’s a lot more expensive than the A7, as is Germany’s other big four-door coupe, the Porsche Panamera.

You’d expect any Audi to deliver cabin quality worthy of the brand and the Audi A7 Sportback delivers. Every surface has bags of sensory appeal so even if you hunt around in the lower reaches of the cabin trying to find materials that let the side down, you’ll emerge empty-handed.

The way it’s all assembled is equally impressive. Every panel fits together perfectly and there’s no hint of movement in any of the joins. This gives the car a wonderfully substantial, solid feel. And while different versions might give you the odd interior styling tweak here or alternative trim piece, the quality is a constant throughout all versions, so they all feel pretty much as posh as each other.

As we’ve already discovered, the Audi A7 Sportback’s dashboard has two screens housed within its centre console. The 8.6-inch one on the bottom handles the air-conditioning system, the various driving modes and a few other miscellaneous functions, while the top one - all 10.1 inches of it - takes care of everything else.

It all looks great and delivers a really high-tech feel to the cabin. The graphics are super-sharp and the responses are fast and consistent, so there are no annoying pauses or glitches. However, the system has so much going on that finding your way around it can be a bit difficult and takes quite a bit of time to master.

And like with any touchscreen, it’s more distracting to use while driving than traditional knobs and buttons would be, because you have to concentrate so hard on hitting exactly the right part of the screen, which you can’t find by touch alone.

All the functionality you’d expect is covered, though, including navigation, DAB radio, Apple Carplay/Android Auto and wireless phone charging. Upgrade to the Vorsprung model, meanwhile, and you also get an upgraded Bang & Olufsen 3D sound system.

Compared with a regular saloon car, the Audi A7 Sportback’s coupe-like styling will obviously sacrifice a wee bit of cabin space at the altar of style, but it still does a really good job. At 4969mm long, 2118mm wide and 1422mm tall, up front, there’s as much room as you’d find in any limo, while in the back, legroom is also very generous. 

And while the swooping roof does mean a shade less headroom, there’s still enough for six foot adults to sit comfortably, although you might find your bonce brushing the ceiling if you’re much taller than that. You won’t want to squeeze a third person onto the rear bench either, due to limited shoulder room, a narrow middle seat and a shortage of foot space. You won’t have any issues fitting a pair of bulky child seats in though.

The boot is big at 535 litres, slightly bigger than a Mercedes CLS’s, and because the A7 is a hatchback rather than a saloon, you get much better access to the space available, although you will have to muscle heavy items over a fairly big load lip. The rear seats drop in a 40/20/40 format, maximising boot space to 1390 litres, although the backrests do lie at a slight angle, meaning your extended load area has a small slope.

If you ignore the high-performance S7 and RS7 versions (which we will), the Audi A7 Sportback comes with three diesel engines and two petrols. The entry-level diesel is a 2.0-litre four-cylinder unit - badged as the 40 TDI - and is the only engine available with a choice of front or four-wheel drive (the rest all get four-wheel drive). 

With 204PS, the performance it gives should be adequate enough for most drivers. You’re pulled around with a reasonable amount of urgency and decent low-rev pull means it’s pretty flexible, too. However, we reckon many buyers will be looking for something stronger in a glam car like the A7. And for that, either the 45 TDI or the 50 TDI should fit the bill.

Both are 3.0-litre V6s with 231PS and 286PS, respectively. We haven’t tried the former but its performance figures indicate that it’s much quicker than the 40 TDI, while the 50 TDI is quicker still. It feels properly strong in the lower half of the rev range, too, so much so that you’ll be pelting along at a serious pace without really trying.

We haven’t tried the entry-level petrol, the 45 TFSI, which uses a 2.0-litre four-cylinder unit with 245PS. We have tried the 55 TFSI, though, which has a 3.0-litre V6 petrol with 340PS. Again, it’s quick, even quicker than the 50 TDI against the stopwatch. However, you do have to work it harder for best effect, so the performance, although very strong, doesn’t feel as effortless.

However, while all the engines on offer are really good, we can’t say the same about the automatic gearboxes. Depending on the version you pick, you either get a seven-speeder or an eight-speeder. Both are very slow to respond to requests for more speed via a prod of the accelerator pedal. That’s the case whether you’re pulling away or trying to build speed on the move and it can get really frustrating.

This is an area the Audi A7 Sportback does well in. All the engines are impressively quiet in most circumstances, that they also send very little vibration through to the cabin. Wind noise and road noise are filtered out really effectively, too, so life also stays quiet and serene on the motorway. 

The only thing that really gets in the way is the gearbox: that reticence to kick down - and the fact that when it finally does, the revs are sent sky high, lurching you forwards untidily - can make it quite difficult to drive the Audi A7 Sportback smoothly.

The Audi A7 Sportback has achieved the highest five-star rating in Euro NCAP crash tests and that should provide plenty of peace-of-mind when ferrying around your family. 

As well as all the usual airbags and electronic aids to maximise traction and stability, all versions have automatic emergency braking, lane departure warning and LED lighting at both ends of the car. From S line trim upwards, you get cleverer Matrix Beam LED headlights. 

Range-topping Vorsprung cars come with a few more safety-focused bits on top. These include a head-up display, camera-based traffic sign recognition and a semi-autonomous adaptive cruise control system. Further autonomous features can be found on the options list, along with a wide variety of other gear.

The Audi A7 has proved a reliable car and over on HonestJohn.co.uk there have been few problems reported by owners although Audi as a brand hasn't performed especially well in the annual Satisfaction Index, coming 21st out of 30 manufacturers in the latest index. It's not a cheap car when it comes to servicing or maintenance either.

Insurance companies classify cars in any one of 50 groups, group one being the cheapest and group 50 being the priciest. Depending on which version of the Audi A7 Sportback you buy, it will sit somewhere between groups 40 and 50. Premiums are never going to be cheap, but if you’re wealthy enough to buy an Audi A7, insurance costs are unlikely to worry you.

This is nice and easy, because all versions of this generation of Audi A7 Sportback will cost you exactly the same to tax. That’s because the car was introduced after April 1st 2017, when new rules came in that applied a flat rate of £150 for petrol and diesel cars, and a five-year surcharge of £325 was applied to cars that cost over £40,000 when new. 

As all A7s cost more than that threshold, then used buyers (having already dodged the exorbitant ‘showroom tax’ first-year fee that buyers of brand new examples pay) will fork out £475 between years two and six of the car's life, thereafter it’ll divert back to the £150 annual rate.

A posh - not to mention expensive - car like the Audi A7 Sportback needs to have lots of creature comforts and you won’t feel short-changed. Even entry-level Audi A7 Sportback Sport trim comes with two-zone climate control, leather upholstery, cruise control, LED ambient lighting, keyless go, heated front seats, a powered tailgate and automatic lights and wipers, on top of all the infotainment and safety gear we mentioned earlier. 

Audi A7 Sportback S line cars add the sports suspension along with sports front seats in leather and Alcantara, while the Audi A7 Sportback Black Edition models add nothing except a few visual upgrades.

The range-topping Audi A7 Sportback Vorsprung model, meanwhile, comes fully loaded, with four-zone climate control, a panoramic roof, heated rear seats, power-closing doors, air suspension and all-wheel steering.