2021 Audi A4

2021 sits inside the B9 generation (US 2017-2025, facelifted for 2020) but is not a pure carry-over: for 2021 the base 40 TFSI moved to the EA888 evo4 2.0T with a 12V mild-hybrid belt alternator rated 201 hp (up from the 188 hp FWD 40 TFSI ultra it replaced), and quattro became standard. The volume configuration is the Premium 40 TFSI quattro at 201 hp - modest for a compact luxury sedan and behind the BMW 330i (255 hp) and Mercedes C 300 (255 hp) base engines.

The 40 TFSI's 236 lb-ft arrives from 1,450 rpm, so the car feels stronger in traffic than its horsepower suggests, but the absolute figure is mid-pack for the compact luxury class. The optional 45 TFSI raises it to 273 lb-ft.

Audi quotes 6.3 seconds for the 201-hp 40 TFSI quattro - respectable but the slowest way into a 2021 A4, and behind a 330i or C 300. Stepping up to the 45 TFSI cuts it to a claimed 5.2 s.

The mild-hybrid 2.0T is quiet and smooth at cruise with strong low-rpm response from the 1,450-rpm torque plateau, and reviewers describe the power as pouring on responsively. It falls short of the top band because the four-cylinder gets coarse when extended and the 201-hp tune leaves the car merely adequate rather than eager when pushed.

The 7-speed S tronic dual-clutch is the only transmission on the 2021 A4 and shifts crisply and quickly once moving, with usable paddles. It sits mid-band because dual-clutch low-speed manners - hesitation off the line and occasional jerkiness in stop-and-go creep - remain the common complaint in reviews of this generation.

2021 is the year quattro all-wheel drive became standard across the entire US A4 sedan line - the front-drive 40 TFSI ultra was dropped - so every trim gets AWD with no option box to tick. It stops short of the very top because the 40 TFSI's quattro ultra system is an on-demand setup without a low range, terrain modes, or the sport rear differential reserved for the S4.

The 2021 A4 sedan offers two states of tune of one engine - the 201-hp 40 TFSI and the 261-hp 45 TFSI, both the same 2.0L turbo four with a 12V mild-hybrid belt alternator, both paired to the same 7-speed dual-clutch and quattro. There is no hybrid, plug-in or electric A4, and 2021 actually narrowed the range by deleting the front-drive variant; the 12V MHEV is a refinement device, not a separate electrified powertrain choice.

The volume 40 TFSI quattro rates 28 MPG combined on premium fuel - a real gain over the 27 MPG the 2020 45 TFSI quattro managed, helped by the new EA888 evo4 engine and 12V mild-hybrid coasting, but only average for a gas compact sedan since the band spans the whole class rather than just luxury rivals.

25 MPG city with standard all-wheel drive and stop-start is competent for a turbocharged luxury compact but unremarkable against the sedan class as a whole, where hybrids set the ceiling.

34 MPG highway is the A4's strongest efficiency number - the tall 7th gear and low drag suit steady cruising, and it is 3 MPG better than the 45 TFSI S line variant.

EPA publishes a 428-mile total range on the A4's 15.3-gallon tank at the 28 MPG combined rating. That is a mid-pack figure for a sedan - the modest tank keeps it from converting good economy into long legs, though highway cruising stretches it past 500 miles.

EPA puts annual fuel cost at $2,700 at 15,000 miles a year. Decent MPG does not rescue it: the premium-fuel requirement adds roughly 10% per gallon, so the A4 lands well above a regular-fuel sedan of the same economy.

Every 2021 A4 requires premium unleaded - the EPA ratings themselves are certified on premium, and the high-compression turbo engine is specified for 91 octane or better. That is a standing cost penalty with no regular-fuel alternative anywhere in the range, which puts it in the bottom band.

NHTSA tested the 2021 A4 4-door AWD directly — quattro is standard on every 2021 A4 — and awarded 5 stars overall. Frontal is the weak leg at 4 stars for both driver and passenger; side barrier, side pole and rollover all earned 5.

The 2021 A4 is an IIHS Top Safety Pick with a clean crashworthiness sheet — Good in all six evaluations, including roof strength and head restraints. Two caveats keep it off the top of the band: the award applies only to cars with the Prestige trim's Good headlights, and the side and moderate overlap results are the original tests, not the tougher updated versions IIHS introduced for 2022-23.

2021 is three model years before Audi made adaptive cruise and active lane assist standard across the A4 range. On the volume Premium 40 TFSI quattro the standard sheet is thin for a ~$40k luxury sedan — pre sense city AEB with pedestrian detection, lane departure warning, rearview camera and automatic high beams — while ACC, active lane assist, blind-spot, rear cross-traffic and parking sensors all sit behind either the $1,800 Convenience package or the step up to Premium Plus.

Pre sense city takes Superior in both IIHS front crash prevention evaluations run on this car — vehicle-to-vehicle and daytime pedestrian — and 2021 is the first year the uprated optional pre sense front (standard on Premium Plus and Prestige) also earns Superior. It stops short of the top band only because IIHS never ran a nighttime pedestrian test on the B9 A4.

Audi side assist is alert-only — a mirror-mounted LED with no steering or braking intervention — and on the volume Premium it is a $1,800 option bundled with keyless entry, memory seats and a heated wheel rather than a standalone safety choice. It does bring pre sense rear (rear automatic braking) with it, and is standard from Premium Plus up, so coverage exists on every trim; it simply isn't fitted to the car most buyers order.

The volume Premium gets lane departure warning only — it warns, but nothing steers. Audi active lane assist (the prevention half) and the Traffic Jam Assist centering that accompanies it require Premium Plus, and where fitted reviewers describe the tuning as mid-pack rather than class-leading.

The system itself is good — full-speed-range stop-and-go ACC with Traffic Jam Assist layering lane centering on top — but on the 2021 A4 the volume Premium cannot be equipped with it at any price; buyers must step to Premium Plus. A luxury compact sedan whose entry trim offers only fixed-speed cruise lands mid-band however polished the optional system is.

No hands-free highway driving is offered on the 2021 A4 at any trim — Audi had no US analogue to GM Super Cruise, Ford BlueCruise or Tesla's supervised system in this model year. Traffic Jam Assist is explicitly hands-on, and the Premium Plus driver-attention system actively watches for hands on the wheel.

This is the 2021 A4's weakest safety result and it lands squarely on the volume trim: the Premium's LED projector low beams with LED reflector high beams rate Marginal. Premium Plus is Acceptable and only Prestige earns Good — which is why the Top Safety Pick award is headlight-restricted. IIHS scopes the Marginal variation to 2020-22 models, so it is a defect of these specific years rather than the whole B9 generation.

The B9 body gives typical compact-luxury sightlines — a low cowl and reasonably slim A-pillars ahead, a rising beltline and thick C-pillars that pinch the over-shoulder view behind. Camera and sensor compensation is thin on the 2021 volume trim: the Premium ships with only a rearview camera, since front and rear parking sensors sit in the optional Convenience package and the top view 360-degree system requires Premium Plus.

The hardware is easy to live with — IIHS rates LATCH ease of use Good, with visible lower anchors in both outboard positions and clearly labelled tether anchors. What caps the score is space rather than hardware: only the two outboard positions carry complete LATCH, and a compact sedan's rear legroom makes a rear-facing infant seat tight behind a tall front occupant.

Conventional five-seat compact luxury sedan layout across the whole 2021 A4 sedan range — there is no four-seat variant. 2021 sits inside the B9 generation (US 2017–2024, facelifted for 2020), so body and seating layout are unchanged from the facelift.

38.9 inches is the published no-sunroof figure for the B9 A4 sedan, which is the measurement this item asks for. In practice no 2021 US A4 was sold without a sunroof — the Premium already includes one — so the figure buyers actually experience is the ~37.3 in aggregators list.

41.3 inches is adequate rather than generous — the A4 seats the driver low and close in the German idiom and gives up two to three inches to mid-size sedans a shopper may cross-shop. Tall drivers fit; the footwell is simply snug.

37.4 inches of second-row headroom is mid-pack for a compact sedan — six-footers clear the headliner, but the roof tapers hard over the outboard positions and 2021 reviews describe the rear seat as tight overall rather than merely short on legroom.

35.7 inches is the A4's clearest packaging weakness and the one thing nearly every 2021 review flags — adults fit behind average-height front occupants but not behind a tall driver, and it trails a 3 Series by roughly two inches on a 111-inch wheelbase shared with far roomier rivals.

12.0 cubic feet is small for the class — a contemporary 3 Series carries 17 — so a full-size stroller plus a weekend's luggage is a genuine squeeze. The 40/20/40 seatback and a wide, well-shaped aperture recover some real-world usability the raw number hides.

Everyday storage is tidy but tight and offers nothing inventive: a shallow square tray ahead of the shifter, a shallow bin under the center armrest, no underfloor tray, no fold-flat surfaces and no onboard AC power. 2021 does at least deliver what it promises — the Audi phone box wireless charging cradle on Premium Plus and up was actually built, a year before the chip shortage made it a lottery on 2022 cars.

Front seats are a real strength — heated, 8-way power and trimmed in genuine leather even on the base Premium, and 2021 reviews call them among the most comfortable and supportive in the class with room for tall occupants. The rear bench is the limiter: nicely finished, but short on legroom with a shallow thigh cushion.

The volume 40 TFSI Premium's standard suspension is unusually well judged for an Audi — described as supple and composed, finding the middle ground between comfort and control without turning harsh over broken pavement. It sits just below the top band because that compliance comes with slightly more body lean than a BMW or Alfa of the same era, and the S line's sport setup and larger wheels give some of it back.

Among the 2021 A4's most consistently praised traits — reviewers record a very quiet cabin that makes it well suited to long drives. It stops short of the top band because the extra acoustic glazing that would seal it is a Prestige item; the volume Premium gets the standard package.

Standard content is decent for the segment: tri-zone automatic climate with rear vents, genuine leather and heated 8-way power front seats on every trim, heated mirrors and a sunroof on the base Premium, plus heated rear seats newly added to the Prestige for 2021. What keeps it mid-band is that the heated steering wheel is buried in the $1,800 Convenience package rather than standard — three model years before Audi made it standard across the A4 — and ventilated front seats are not part of the 2021 A4 sedan's equipment at any trim.

2021 is the year quattro became standard on every US A4, so unlike the 2020 car this entry price already includes all-wheel drive and the mild-hybrid 201-hp 40 TFSI — it buys more than the $38,395 front-drive 2020 Premium did despite costing $1,750 more. It undercuts a 2021 BMW 330i xDrive by $3,600 and sits mid-band for the sedan normalization range.

Premium Plus is the volume A4 trim and the one worth buying — it is where the 12.3-inch Virtual Cockpit, Audi side assist blind-spot monitoring, wireless charging, keyless entry and the LED headlights that earn the car its IIHS Top Safety Pick all become standard rather than a $1,800 Convenience package add-on. Splitting between the 40 and the 261-hp 45 TFSI and adding metallic paint or a typical pack puts real 2021 orders near $45,800 — between the 2020 car's $45,600 and the 2022 car's $46,900.

Nothing is complimentary on a 2021 A4 — the owner pays from the first 10,000-mile service — and years 4 and 5 fall outside the 4 yr/50,000 mi warranty, which is exactly when a turbo four with quattro hardware and a dual-clutch starts generating bills. RepairPal's $925/yr for the 2021 A4 quattro compounds to roughly $4,600 in repairs alone before scheduled service, tires or brakes.

2021 is the one A4 model year that can be measured at exactly the five-year mark rather than back-cast or forecast, and the answer straddles a wide gap: KBB books a Premium Plus at about 41% of its delivered MSRP private-party, while dealer retail asking prices — the basis iSeeCars uses — imply closer to 50%. 47% is the convergence, and it lands a point under the 2022 car because MY2021 was bought at the opening of the chip-shortage seller's market with no discount cushion under it.

Audi's 4 yr/50,000 mi bumper-to-bumper matched BMW and Mercedes for 2021 and beats the 3 yr/36,000 mi mainstream standard, but trails Genesis and Jaguar at 5 yr/60,000 mi. Mid-band for the segment.

Audi publishes no standalone powertrain warranty, so the mild-hybrid 2.0T, the 7-speed S tronic and the newly standard quattro hardware on a 2021 A4 are covered for exactly as long as the trim panels. That falls below the floor of the 5–10 year band this item normalizes against and is a fraction of the 10 yr/100,000 mi powertrain coverage from Hyundai, Kia and Genesis.

No complimentary scheduled maintenance at all on a 2021 A4 — Audi Care is a prepaid plan bought on top of the car, and Audi Signature Care (3 yr/30,000 mi included service) did not arrive until MY2026. What is included is 4 years of Audi 24-Hour Roadside Assistance running alongside the warranty plus short connected-service trials, so the owner pays from the first 10,000-mile service. That trails the included-maintenance programs Genesis, Volvo, Jaguar and BMW (Ultimate Care, 3 yr/36,000 mi) all offered in 2021.

$45,800 volume-trim price minus its estimated resale value after 5 years (47% retained, or about $21,526) leaves about $24,274 in depreciation. Add the projected $7,700 in 5-year maintenance and repairs, and owning this vehicle for 5 years costs about $31,974 in total.

Model-level predictions for the 2021 A4 are squarely average and a shade softer than the years either side of it: Consumer Reports calls it "about average reliability compared to other cars from the same model year" — a step down from the 2020 car, which CR rated more reliable than its model-year average — and J.D. Power's quality-and-reliability score of 74/100 sits in the middle of its 70-80 "Average" band, below the 79/100 the 2022 A4 earns. The wider drag is that 2021 is the cohort the 2024 Vehicle Dependability Study actually measured at three years old, and Audi placed second from last there. Against that, the A4's own service pattern is genuinely light — RepairPal logs 0.4 unscheduled shop visits a year versus a 0.6 luxury-midsize average — and the 2021 model year's NHTSA complaint file is unusually quiet, so the model reads better than the badge does.

Audi's multi-year dependability standing is the weakest part of this scorecard, and the survey that matters most here is the one that sampled exactly this car's cohort: the 2024 VDS, built from 2021 model-year owners at three years, put Audi at roughly 275 PP100 against a 190 PP100 industry average and second from last overall — behind Land Rover, and far behind BMW's 190 and Porsche's 175. That was a deterioration on Audi's own 2023 result (252 PP100), and the brand went on to finish last in the 2025 Initial Quality Study. Consumer Reports is materially kinder, keeping Audi inside its top ten brands and near the top of the luxury group, so the signals genuinely conflict rather than converge — but two of the three point down, and one of them is cohort-exact.

Four NHTSA campaigns, none powertrain and none an A4-specific design fault — every one is a fleet-wide Volkswagen Group action sweeping in a dozen or more Audi lines at once. The substantive pair is the rear-axle chain carried over from 2020: a trailing-arm lock nut that can break from stress corrosion and misalign the axle (21V295000), then a follow-up for cars whose alignment was never re-inspected after that repair (22V034000). The other two are a rear seat-belt automatic-locking retractor that can deactivate early and fail to secure a child seat (21V606000) and an FMVSS 111 rear-camera software fault that can blank the reversing image (22V742000). What lifts this above the 2020 car despite the higher campaign count is the field record: 2021 draws only 11 NHTSA complaints across all components, against 127 for the 2020 A4, so the spontaneous MMI-reboot cluster that defined the MIB3 launch year did not repeat at anything like the same rate.

The hardware is proven; the year is the wrinkle. Both 2021 US engines — 201 hp 40 TFSI and 261 hp 45 TFSI, each up 13 hp on 2020 — are EA888 evo4 2.0-liter fours, a family in continuous production since 2008 whose Gen 1/2 oil-consumption and plastic chain-tensioner failures were engineered out by Gen 3; the seven-speed S tronic dual-clutch and quattro driveline behind them are equally well-travelled, and B9 examples routinely clear 125,000 miles without major powertrain work. The caution is that 2021 is the first US A4 model year with the 12-volt mild-hybrid belt-alternator-starter fitted across the line, and that subsystem has its own emerging complaint pattern — premature lithium-ion auxiliary battery failure, mild-hybrid warnings, degraded or non-restarting stop-start — where a failed starter-generator or its control module costs far more than a conventional starter. Carbon buildup on the intake valves and cracked plastic water-pump housings remain the familiar EA888 long-term bills.

The B9.5 cabin was the material benchmark of the compact luxury sedan class and 2021 sits in the middle of that run: leather is standard across the range and pairs with real wood or aluminum inlays, the dash top and most of the door panels are soft-touch, and switchgear damping reads a grade above the contemporary 3 Series or C-Class. Reviewers are close to unanimous that the interior is the reason to buy this car. It stops short of the top band only for the cost-downs Car and Driver singles out at this price — a hard glove-box lid and hard console sides on a car well into the $40,000s.

Physical assembly is a real strength — the Ingolstadt-built A4 draws consistent praise for tight panel gaps, solid switch action, a quiet cabin and an absence of rattle and squeak reporting, and Consumer Reports calls its fit and finish outright excellent. The 2021 car also has the cleanest early-ownership record of the late B9 years, with only 11 NHTSA complaints logged against 127 for the 2020 model. What keeps it out of the 80s is electronic rather than structural quality: the MMI head unit still generated an FMVSS 111 rear-camera software recall on this model year, and that class of defect is exactly what depresses a car in initial-quality surveys — consistent with Audi's poor standing in J.D. Power's IQS over this period.

Audi runs a little over 300 franchised US dealers covering all 50 states — comfortable metro and suburban reach, but visibly thinner than BMW's network and a real inconvenience for rural owners, which matters on a car whose recurring faults are fixed by dealer-only software campaigns. Service satisfaction itself is the better half of the story: Audi sits mid-pack to slightly below the premium average in J.D. Power's Customer Service Index through this era, well clear of the bottom of the luxury field but never near Lexus or Porsche at the top.

Parts flow reliably through VW Group's US supply chain and the EA888 has deep independent-specialist and enthusiast aftermarket support, but this is an expensive car to keep and a 2021 is now years past its 4-year/50,000-mile warranty. RepairPal puts the A4 at $739 average annual repair and maintenance — level with the luxury midsize average but well above the $652 all-vehicle figure — and the quattro variant, which every 2021 A4 is now that front-drive is gone, at $925. Major-repair probability runs 13% against a 12% norm. The structural problem is that the B9 is a longitudinal MLB Evo car rather than an MQB one, so it shares far less hardware volume with high-volume VWs than an A3 does: quattro driveline parts, LED lighting units, the MMI head unit and now the mild-hybrid starter-generator are all dealer-priced, and the common water-pump housing job alone runs four figures.

The B9 facelift's 10.1-inch MMI touch response display is standard across the 2021 range and is also the ceiling — there is no larger screen at any price. Crisp and well integrated, but modest against the 12-inch-plus panels rivals were already fitting.

MMI touch response is quick, logically organized and backed by haptic click confirmation, and — importantly for 2021 — Audi kept a separate physical climate panel below the display rather than burying temperature in menus. Held out of the top band by the small screen and by the deletion of the old rotary controller in the 2020 facelift, which had made inputs easier on the move.

Phone projection is standard on every 2021 A4 and wireless Apple CarPlay is the headline tech addition for this model year, but only half the pairing is cordless: Android Auto is wired across the range. That asymmetry is exactly this item's middle band and is a real 2021 limitation, not a trim-level one.

Audi's natural-language MMI assistant handles destination, phone and climate requests conversationally and was better than segment average in 2021, but factory navigation is not on the volume car — MMI Navigation plus comes in the Navigation package and is standard only on Prestige. Most 2021 A4 buyers navigate through CarPlay instead, which is precisely what this band describes.

The standard 10-speaker system with HD Radio is clean if unremarkable, and the Bang & Olufsen 3D setup — 19 speakers, optional on Premium Plus and standard on Prestige — is one of the better premium systems in the compact luxury class. Points come off because the good system is an upcharge or a top-trim item rather than something the volume buyer gets.

The volume Premium still runs a partly analog gauge cluster with a small colour driver information display between the dials; Audi's 12.3-inch virtual cockpit plus only arrives with Premium Plus. The cluster itself, once you have it, is among the sharpest and most configurable on sale at 1,920×720 — which is why this sits at the top of the "full digital on upper trims only" band rather than the bottom.

The B9's MIB3 head unit pulls navigation map and connected-services data over the air through Audi connect, but there is no whole-vehicle OTA on this platform — control-module and feature updates need a dealer visit, and Audi shipped no feature-adding software drops to 2021 A4 owners. Infotainment-data-only capability, and at the low end of that band because even the map refresh depends on an active Audi connect subscription.

myAudi with Audi connect CARE covers the core set — remote lock/unlock, remote engine start, vehicle status, stolen-vehicle locator and emergency call — and CARE runs complimentary rather than subscription-gated. It stays mid-band because there is no phone-as-key on the A4, Audi offers no key-fob remote start (app only, and it requires accepting Audi connect terms), and the app has a long-standing owner reputation for slow status refreshes.

Two front USB ports are the whole standard provision on the volume Premium — no wireless charging, no second-row outlets, no household AC power, with extra USB ports listed as an option. Unlike the 2022 cars, though, 2021 buyers who stepped to Premium Plus actually received the phone box wireless charging pad, so the upgrade path was real rather than nominal.

Push-button start is standard on every 2021 A4, but proximity entry is not — Audi advanced key sits inside the $1,800 Convenience package on the Premium and only becomes standard from Premium Plus up, so the entry car still needs the fob in hand. Remote start is app-only, and there is no digital or phone key on this platform at any trim.

The volume Premium ships with a rearview camera and nothing else — front and rear acoustic parking sensors require the $1,800 Convenience package, three model years before Audi made them standard across the A4 line. Premium Plus is where it gets good, with the top-view surround camera and Parking System Plus standard; automated park assist stays a Prestige item.

A head-up display exists on the 2021 A4 but only as standard equipment on the top Prestige trim — it cannot be added to the Premium or Premium Plus at any price, so the buyer of the car most people order has no path to it. Textbook "HUD limited to top trims" placement.

The hardware is easy — IIHS rates the A4's LATCH ease of use Good, with visible lower anchors and clearly labelled tethers — but the packaging fights it. With 35.7 inches of rear legroom a rear-facing seat pushes the front seatback forward, and the 12 cu ft trunk struggles with a full-size stroller plus a week's gear. Wide-opening rear doors and a flat-ish floor keep it from falling lower.

Crash credentials are strong — NHTSA 5 stars overall and IIHS Good crashworthiness results — and 2021 is the year Audi made lane departure warning standard alongside AEB and the rearview camera. But this item grades what the trims families actually buy carry, and on the volume Premium adaptive cruise, lane-keep assist and traffic-jam assist all still require the step to Premium Plus, three model years before Audi made them standard on the A4.

Four adults travel in genuinely quiet, well-damped comfort, with tri-zone climate reaching the second row on every trim and a ride reviewers credit with suiting long drives. Capacity and rear amenities cap it: 35.7 inches of rear legroom, no rear entertainment, rear USB outlets only via the optional extra-port provision, and a 12 cu ft trunk that cannot hold four people's luggage without folding a seatback.

Much of the commuter case is strong — quiet cabin, compliant ride, light low-speed steering, quattro standard for the first time in 2021 on the 40 TFSI, and excellent forward ergonomics. Two things hold it mid-band: the volume Premium offers only fixed-speed cruise control, since adaptive cruise with stop-and-go cannot be ordered on that trim, and the seven-speed S tronic's low-speed take-up is jerky exactly where a commuter lives.

28 MPG combined is respectable for a compact luxury sedan with standard all-wheel drive and a 12V mild hybrid, but every 2021 A4 requires premium unleaded, and that is what does the damage — the EPA puts the annual fuel bill near $2,700. Add Audi dealer service rates with no complimentary maintenance and the per-mile commuting cost is well above a mainstream sedan's.

A compact 187.5-inch footprint is easy to place, but the A4 fights back twice. Its 38.1-foot turning circle is wide for the size — the longitudinal engine pushes the front axle rearward and limits lock — and the volume Premium ships with a rearview camera alone, with front and rear parking sensors locked inside the $1,800 Convenience package and the top-view camera reserved for Premium Plus.

Audi publishes no US tow rating for the A4 sedan, so there is no capacity figure to grade at all. With a 12 cu ft trunk behind a narrow aperture, no open cargo area and no payload provision beyond passengers and luggage, this is not a work vehicle in any meaningful sense — the 201-hp 2.0T is unstressed but has nothing to pull.

The EA888 2.0T is a well-proven engine, but everything wrapped around it is luxury-oriented and expensive to abuse: genuine leather upholstery with no wear-friendly alternative offered, low-profile tires, roughly five inches of ground clearance, and Audi-dealer repair economics. There is no fleet or commercial version of the A4 and no work-spec interior.

Effectively nothing to work with: no onboard AC power, no bed or open cargo area, no tie-down system beyond trunk hooks, and no factory roof rails on the sedan body. There is no upfitter ecosystem for a compact luxury sedan, and the carpeted trunk and leather cabin are the opposite of washable.

This is still the A4's best use case — the cabin is hushed, the ride is composed enough to mask miles, the front seats hold up over a full day, and roughly 428 miles of combined range (about 520 at the highway rating) is decent for a 15.3-gallon tank. What keeps 2021 out of the upper band is the driver-assist half of the item: the volume Premium has no adaptive cruise at any price, so the fatigue reduction a modern tourer relies on requires stepping to Premium Plus.

Standard quattro all-wheel drive is a real asset on gravel, snow-covered forest roads and boat ramps, and for 2021 it comes on every A4 rather than as an upcharge now that front-drive versions are gone. Everything else is against it: 5.2 inches of ground clearance, low-profile tires, no factory roof rails on the sedan, no 120V outlet and no published tow rating for carrying toys.

The 40/20/40 split-folding rear seatback with a center pass-through handles skis and long boxes better than 12.0 cu ft implies, and the trunk has a generous opening with useful cutouts. But the raw figure is near the bottom of the class, there is no underfloor storage, and the sedan offers no factory roof rail path — so bulky gear has nowhere to go once the trunk is full.

Newly standard quattro and a well-sorted B9 chassis give the 2021 A4 secure, surefooted cornering with genuinely good body control — reviewers call the handling nimble and precise and credit the suspension with balancing ride and grip. It stops short of the class benchmark because the consensus is competent rather than involving: the nose-heavy longitudinal layout and safety-first tuning leave it behind a 3 Series or G70 for a driver who wants to be part of it.

Precision is not in dispute — 2021 reviewers agree the rack is accurate and well weighted at speed and pleasantly light around town. Feedback is the problem: the steering is repeatedly described as direct but notably muted, telling the driver little about surface or available grip. Accurate but numb is the definition of the middle band, and it is the A4's clearest dynamic weakness.

Brakes are a strong point: a firm, progressive pedal with no regen-blending awkwardness, since the 12V mild-hybrid system recovers energy without altering pedal feel. Instrumented stops around 111 feet from 60 mph for the B9 A4 sit comfortably inside class norms; fade resistance under repeated hard use is untested at length on the volume 40 TFSI's smaller rotors.

2021 is the year the 40 TFSI gained the 12V mild hybrid and 13 extra horsepower, and once rolling the 201-hp 2.0T is smooth and hushed with a restart you barely feel. Against that, the seven-speed S tronic shows delayed responses off idle and abrupt engagement while creeping — the known wet-clutch DCT trait — which is what keeps this out of the 80s despite good manners at speed.

The 2.0T stays distant and inoffensive at a cruise and is well isolated through the controls, contributing directly to the 2021 A4's reputation for a very quiet cabin. It loses points for character rather than volume: the four turns coarse and thrashy near redline, and there is nothing to enjoy in the sound when you use the revs.

38.1 feet is a wide circle for a 187.5-inch compact sedan — the longitudinal engine layout pushes the front axle rearward and limits steering lock. It costs the A4 real maneuverability in parking structures and U-turns against transverse-engine rivals of the same footprint.

A genuine strength — 2021 reviews credit the A4 with great visibility, comfortable supportive seats and room for tall drivers, helped by a wide range of seat and tilt/telescoping adjustment, a low cowl and logically grouped controls. Crucially for 2021, Audi kept a separate physical tri-zone climate panel below the display rather than burying temperature in the touchscreen. Ingress and egress are easy for a low sedan.

In volume 40 TFSI form the A4 is polished and satisfying without being a car enthusiasts seek out: 201 hp and a 6.3-second 0–60 give it no urgency, the steering withholds feedback, and the character is quiet competence rather than appetite. Buyers who want the entertaining version of this chassis go to the 261-hp 45 TFSI S line — which for 2021 still required the optional sport suspension rather than getting it as standard — or to the S4.

2021 is the year the base A4 got materially better stocked: quattro all-wheel drive and the 7-speed S tronic became standard on every US car (the front-drive 40 TFSI was dropped), both engines gained a 12-volt mild-hybrid system worth 13 hp, and lane departure warning joined a base list that already carried a 10.1-inch MMI touch display, LED headlights, a power sunroof, leather, heated front seats, tri-zone climate, high-beam assist and Audi pre sense city. It scores above both the 2020 car (which charged up to the 45 TFSI for AWD) and the 2022 car (whose Semiconductor Shortage Package deleted content), but short of generous because blind-spot monitoring, keyless entry, memory seats and parking sensors are still bundled into an $1,800 Convenience package and Virtual Cockpit remains a Premium Plus item.

This is the strongest value year of the late B9. At $40,145 delivered with quattro standard the A4 undercuts a 2021 BMW 330i xDrive by $3,600 and even beats the rear-drive 330i by $1,100 — so the AWD content BMW and Mercedes charge a premium for is simply in the price — and both engines added mild-hybrid assistance and 13 hp at no cost over 2020. Held back from a standout score by the same packaging tax as its siblings: common driver aids sit behind the Convenience package, and the volume Premium Plus still lands near $45,800.

Six sedan configurations for 2021 — Premium, Premium Plus and Prestige, each with the 201-hp 40 TFSI or the 261-hp 45 TFSI S line — span roughly $40,145 to $51,700 delivered, with the 349-hp S4 above them and the A4 allroad wagon alongside. Wide and well-spaced, but a step below the 2020 car: making quattro standard removed the cheap front-drive entry point that used to open the range about $1,750 lower.

16,263 US deliveries in 2021 made the A4 a steady mid-pack seller but continued an unbroken slide — down 11% on 2020's COVID-depressed 18,341 and 38% on 2019's 26,072, and behind the BMW 3 Series and Mercedes C-Class in a segment being drained by compact luxury SUVs. Some of the 2021 shortfall is chip-constrained supply rather than demand, since Audi's brand-wide volume actually set a record that year, but the nameplate trend is clearly downward and the collapse to 10,848 in 2023 was still ahead.

The four rings carry real aspirational pull in the US — design-led, tech-forward, with quattro as a genuine engineering asset rather than a marketing word — and 2021 was Audi of America's best sales year ever, delivered on the back of the e-tron rollout and a reputation for the best cabin in the compact luxury class. Making quattro standard on the A4 leaned directly on that brand asset. It still sits a step behind BMW and Mercedes on outright prestige and on resale support, which is why this is a strong score rather than a top one.

Scored on buyer benefit, 2021 was a year of two halves and lands squarely between the giveaway pricing of 2020 and the take-it-or-leave-it market of 2022. A buyer shopping in the spring still found ordinary pre-shortage discounting and manufacturer support on a slow-selling sedan; by the autumn the chip shortage had emptied lots, industry incentives hit a record low and luxury buyers were paying over sticker. Timing, not negotiation, decided what a 2021 A4 buyer got.

2021 is the fifth model year of the B9 launched for 2017 and one year past its 2020 facelift, but it is not a carry-over: standard quattro, a new 12-volt mild-hybrid system and 13 hp more from both engines make it a genuine update rather than a colour-change year. The platform underneath was already four years old and the 10.1-inch MMI dates to the facelift, so this is a well-sustained mid-cycle car — and crucially for a 2021 buyer, no successor had been announced, since Audi did not confirm the A4-to-A5 renaming until March 2023.

Well-reviewed and safety-decorated without being the clean sweep. Consumer Reports put the 2021 A4 at the top of its sports sedan class, above the BMW and Mercedes rivals, praising the nimble handling, supple ride and very quiet cabin, and IIHS named it a Top Safety Pick. Against that, U.S. News rated it 8.2/10 and ranked it #2 in Luxury Small Cars — a step down from the 8.6 and #1 the refreshed 2020 car earned — and the A4 took no 10Best or NACTOY nod for 2021, with the 3 Series still ahead of it on outright driver engagement.