2022 Audi A4

2022 is a carry-over year within the B9 generation (2017–2025 US, facelifted for 2020) — Wikipedia records no powertrain change for 2022, and the year's only revisions were Black Optic appearance packages and standard sport suspension on 45 TFSI cars. The volume configuration is the Premium 40 TFSI quattro: a 2.0L turbo four with a 12V mild-hybrid system rated at 201 hp. Modest for a compact luxury sedan and behind the base engines of the BMW 330i and Mercedes C 300.

236 lb-ft from the 40 TFSI's 2.0L turbo, on a broad low-rpm plateau that makes the car feel stronger around town than its horsepower suggests. Mid-pack for the compact luxury class.

Audi's own estimate for the volume 40 TFSI quattro is 6.3 seconds — squarely mid-pack for the segment and noticeably behind a BMW 330i. Stepping up to the 45 TFSI drops the claim to 5.2 s, with independent tests of that powertrain as quick as 4.8 s.

The 2.0T with 12V mild hybrid is quiet and smooth in ordinary driving and the restart from stop-start is barely felt, but reviewers of the 2022 car split on low-end response — the 45 TFSI is described as pulling away with no lag and stellar midrange, while others note the engine wants more kick off idle despite its low torque peak, and the four gets coarse near redline. Good rather than class-leading against the BMW B48 and Mercedes M254 fours.

The seven-speed S tronic dual-clutch is quick and clean once rolling — smooth, prompt shifts with rev-matched paddle downshifts — but low-speed manners are its weak point, with delayed take-up and jerky engagement when creeping or parking. That is the known wet-clutch DCT trait and it puts the A4 behind the 3 Series' ZF torque-converter eight-speed.

quattro all-wheel drive is standard on every 2022 US A4 — there is no front-drive variant — with the part-time-decoupling quattro ultra system on the 40 TFSI and a mechanical center differential with torque vectoring on the 45 TFSI. Sophisticated for on-road use; short of the top band only because there is no low range or terrain hardware, which nothing in this segment offers.

Two states of tune of one engine — the 2.0L turbo four as 40 TFSI (201 hp) or 45 TFSI (261 hp), both with a 12V mild hybrid and the same seven-speed DCT and quattro. No hybrid, plug-in or electric A4 sedan for 2022; the S4's 3.0T V6 and the e-tron cars are separate nameplates, and the diesel and Avant variants are not sold in the US.

The volume 40 TFSI quattro rates 29 MPG combined — decent for a compact luxury sedan with standard all-wheel drive, helped by the 12V mild hybrid, but ordinary against the gas-sedan field as a whole and a point behind the same car in later model years.

26 MPG city is respectable for standard quattro AWD — the 12V mild hybrid's stop-start and coasting functions do real work in traffic — but well short of what a full hybrid rival returns.

34 MPG highway is the A4's strongest efficiency number, with the seven-speed DCT's tall top gear and quattro ultra's ability to decouple the rear axle paying off at a steady cruise.

EPA total range of 444 miles from the 15.3-gallon tank. Mid-pack for a compact sedan, and it is the small tank rather than the engine that caps it — the same drivetrain would clear 500 miles with a segment-average fill.

$2,600 a year at EPA assumptions. The MPG figures are middling rather than bad; it is the mandatory premium grade that pushes the running cost well clear of a mainstream sedan's, and EPA flags $2,000 in extra fuel spend over five years versus the average new vehicle.

Premium unleaded is required on every 2022 A4 drivetrain, with no lower-grade, flex-fuel or plug-in alternative — a fixed surcharge of roughly 60–80 cents a gallon over regular that puts this in the item's bottom band. Standard for the compact luxury segment, but the item grades the requirement itself rather than the peer group.

NHTSA tested the 2022 A4 4-door AWD directly and awarded 5 stars overall. Frontal is the weak leg at 4 stars for both driver and passenger, while side barrier, side pole and rollover all earned 5.

The 2022 A4 is a genuine IIHS Top Safety Pick with a clean sheet — Good in all six crashworthiness evaluations, including the roof strength and head-restraint tests the later years' pages no longer surface. 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.

2022 predates the MY2024 change that made adaptive cruise and Audi active lane assist standard across the A4 range. On the volume Premium 40 TFSI the standard sheet is thin for a $41k luxury sedan — pre sense city AEB with pedestrian detection, lane departure warning and a rearview camera — while ACC, active lane assist, blind-spot, rear cross-traffic and even 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 the pedestrian sheet is spotless, avoiding the collision outright in every crossing-child and crossing-adult run. It stops short of the top band only because IIHS never ran a nighttime pedestrian or updated vehicle-to-vehicle 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 and memory seats rather than a standalone safety choice. It does bring pre sense rear (rear automatic braking) with it, and becomes standard from Premium Plus up, so coverage exists on every trim; it just isn't fitted to the car most buyers actually order.

The volume Premium gets lane departure warning only — it will beep, but nothing steers. Audi active lane assist (the prevention half) and the Traffic Jam Assist centering that goes with it require Premium Plus, and even where fitted reviewers call the tuning mid-pack rather than class-leading. This is two model years before Audi made active lane assist standard across the A4 line.

The system itself is good — full-speed-range stop-and-go ACC with Traffic Jam Assist layering lane centering on top, and it reviews well. The problem for 2022 is that the volume Premium cannot be equipped with it at any price; buyers must move to Premium Plus. A luxury compact sedan whose entry trim offers only fixed-speed cruise control lands mid-band no matter how polished the optional system is.

No hands-free highway driving is offered on the 2022 A4 at any trim — there is no Audi analogue to GM Super Cruise, Ford BlueCruise or Tesla FSD Supervised in the US lineup. Traffic Jam Assist is explicitly a hands-on system requiring the driver to keep the wheel held.

This is the 2022 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, with high-beam visibility inadequate on both sides of the straightaway. Premium Plus is Acceptable and only Prestige earns Good — which is why the Top Safety Pick award is headlight-restricted. IIHS notes this Marginal variation applies to 2020-22 models specifically, so it is a defect of these years rather than the generation as a whole.

The B9 body gives typical compact-luxury sightlines — 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 thinner in 2022 than it later became: the volume 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 genuinely easy to live with — IIHS rates LATCH ease of use Good on the tested 2.0T Premium, with visible lower anchors that need zero pounds of attachment force and clearly labelled tether anchors in all three positions. 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 behind a tall front occupant tight.

Conventional five-seat compact luxury sedan layout across all six 2022 A4 sedan configurations — no four-seat variant. 2022 is a carry-over year inside the B9 generation (US 2017–2024, facelifted for 2020), so the body and seating layout are unchanged.

38.9 inches is the Audi-published no-sunroof figure carried unchanged through the B9 generation and is the value this item asks for. Worth knowing that no US A4 is actually sold without a sunroof, so the practical figure every buyer experiences is the ~37 in aggregators list.

41.3 inches is adequate rather than roomy — the A4 sets the driver low and close in the German idiom, and the figure trails mid-size sedans by two to three inches. Tall drivers fit, but the front footwell is snug next to the wider-bodied cars a shopper cross-shops.

37.4 inches of second-row headroom is mid-pack for a compact sedan. Six-footers clear the headliner, but Edmunds notes the rear seat runs short on head as well as leg room for anyone at or above six feet, because the roof tapers hard over the outboard positions.

35.7 inches is the A4's clearest packaging weakness and is flagged in essentially every 2022 review — adults fit behind average-height front occupants but not behind a tall driver, and it is roughly two inches down on a BMW 3 Series.

12.0 cubic feet is small for the class — a 2022 BMW 3 Series carries 17 — so a full-size stroller plus a weekend's luggage is a genuine squeeze. Edmunds partly forgives it: the aperture is generous and shaped with useful cutouts, and the 40/20/40 seatback swallows long items the raw number would not suggest.

Everyday storage is tidy but tight and offers nothing inventive — Edmunds calls out a shallow, awkwardly square tray ahead of the shifter that holds a phone poorly and a shallow bin under the center armrest. The volume Premium makes it worse than later years: the Audi phone box wireless charging cradle is a Premium Plus item, and Audi's own chip-shortage bulletins confirm very few 2022 cars were even built with it. No underfloor tray, no fold-flat surfaces, no onboard AC power.

Front seats are a genuine strength — real leather and heating are standard even on the base Premium, with 8-way power adjustment, and both Consumer Reports and Edmunds describe them as firm in the German manner yet comfortable across a full day. The rear bench is the limiter: nicely finished but short on legroom and with a shallow thigh cushion for taller passengers.

The standard suspension on the volume 40 TFSI Premium — riding on 17-inch wheels — is unusually well judged for an Audi: Consumer Reports calls it supple and controlled and explicitly more compliant than the Audi norm, and Edmunds finds it controls body motions over broken pavement without turning harsh. The S line's sport suspension and larger wheels give up some of that compliance.

One of the 2022 A4's most-praised traits — Consumer Reports records impressively hushed wind and road noise and credits the quiet with masking long-distance miles. It stops short of the top band because at least one review found more wind and tire roar than expected for the class, and the acoustically-insulated front side glass that would fix it is Prestige-only.

Standard content is decent — tri-zone automatic climate control with rear vents, genuine leather and heated 8-way power front seats on every trim, plus app-based remote start through Audi connect. But 2022 sits two model years before Audi made the heated steering wheel standard across the A4: here it is buried in the $1,800 Convenience package on the Premium, and ventilated front seats are an option even on the top Prestige sedan. Key comfort kit costs extra, which is squarely the middle band.

The entry 2022 A4 is the 201-hp 40 TFSI Premium, and quattro AWD plus the 7-speed dual-clutch are standard on every A4 — so this is an AWD price where a 2022 BMW 330i ($42,395 delivered) and Mercedes C 300 start rear-drive. It sits mid-band for the sedan normalization range and roughly $2k under the entry 2024 A4.

Premium Plus is the volume A4 trim and the one worth buying — it is where Virtual Cockpit Plus, the top-view camera and (chip supply permitting) adaptive cruise with Traffic Jam Assist and active lane keeping live. Split between the 40 TFSI and the 261-hp 45 TFSI and adding the typical package or metallic paint puts real orders near $46,900, about $1,400 below the equivalent 2024 car.

Nothing is included — the first paid service lands at 10,000 miles — and years 4–5 fall outside the 4 yr/50,000 mi warranty, exactly when a turbo four with quattro hardware starts presenting bills. RepairPal's $925/yr average for the 2022 A4 quattro alone compounds to ~$4,600 in repairs before scheduled maintenance, tires or brakes.

Real 2022 cars are now four years old and grade out around 52% of base MSRP privately, which points to the high-40s at the five-year mark. MY2022 residuals got early support from the inflated 2022–23 used market, but that has since normalized, and the A4 depreciates faster than its own class average.

Audi's 4 yr/50,000 mi bumper-to-bumper matches BMW and Mercedes for 2022 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 dropped its separate longer powertrain warranty from MY2020, so the 2.0T and S tronic on a 2022 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-year powertrain coverage from Hyundai, Kia and Genesis.

No complimentary scheduled maintenance whatsoever on a 2022 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 with the warranty plus short Audi connect trials, which leaves the owner paying from the first 10,000-mile service and trails the included-maintenance programs at Genesis, Volvo, Jaguar and BMW's then-current Ultimate Care.

$46,900 volume-trim price minus its estimated resale value after 5 years (48% retained, or about $22,512) leaves about $24,388 in depreciation. Add the projected $7,800 in 5-year maintenance and repairs, and owning this vehicle for 5 years costs about $32,188 in total.

Model-level and brand-level signals disagree, and the model-level ones are the more favorable: Consumer Reports rates the 2022 A4 as more reliable than the average 2022-model-year car, and J.D. Power's predicted-reliability score of 79/100 lands in its "Average" band (70-80). Pulling against that, the 2022 model year is precisely the cohort surveyed by the 2025 VDS, where Audi posted 273 PP100 against an industry average near 200 — so the car scores above the fleet on its own record while carrying a brand that does not.

Audi's dependability standing across this era is poor and the surveys only partly disagree. The 2025 VDS — which measures exactly this car's model year at three years old — put Audi at 273 PP100, the worst of the three German luxury brands and well off an industry average near 200, and Audi finished dead last in the 2025 Initial Quality Study at 269 PP100. Consumer Reports is kinder, placing Audi in the upper-middle of its brand rankings ahead of Mercedes-Benz and Land Rover but behind BMW and Lexus, and the 2026 VDS shows a 29-point recovery to 244 PP100 — still above average, i.e. still worse than average.

Three NHTSA campaigns on a car that has been on the road four years — typical activity for the segment rather than a systemic problem, but a clear step down from the 2023-2025 A4s, which carry none at all. Two are FMVSS 111 rear-visibility compliance recalls (21V825000, a software fault that can blank the reversing image; 22V806000, an infotainment head unit that fails internally at shutdown and requires unit replacement), and both are fleet-wide VW Group campaigns rather than A4 design faults. The third is the substantive one: 22V368000 replaces an engine control unit whose semiconductor can short and stall the engine.

The engine is the stronger half. Both 2022 outputs — 40 TFSI at 201 hp and 45 TFSI at 261 hp — are the EA888 evo4 2.0T with 12-volt mild-hybrid assist, a fourth-generation refinement of a family in continuous production since 2008 whose early oil-consumption and chain-tensioner faults were engineered out generations ago; B9 examples routinely pass 125,000 miles without major powertrain work. What holds the score to the middle band is maintenance-sensitive hardware now surfacing on cars this age: the plastic water-pump housing that commonly fails around 60,000 miles ($1,100-$1,700), intake-valve carbon buildup inherent to direct injection at 70,000-90,000 miles, and the DL382 seven-speed S tronic — a wet-clutch dual-clutch, far better than VW's dry DQ200, but with mechatronic and shudder complaints on cars whose "lifetime-fill" gearbox fluid was never changed.

The B9.5 cabin is a segment benchmark and 2022 is squarely inside it: soft leather upholstery and heated power front seats are standard, the dash top and most of the door panels are soft-touch, and reviewers consistently call the cabin the reason to choose an A4 over a 3 Series or C-Class. It stops short of the top band only for the cost-downs Car and Driver singles out at this price — a hard glovebox door and hard console sides.

Physical assembly is a genuine strength — reviewers describe interior fit and finish on the Ingolstadt/Neckarsulm-built A4 as excellent, with tight panel gaps, solid switch action and little rattle reported in early ownership. The drag is electronic rather than structural: MMI head-unit faults on this model year were serious enough to produce two separate rear-camera recalls including a physical unit replacement, and infotainment is the single worst category in Audi's J.D. Power initial-quality result, which is what keeps this out of the 80s.

Roughly 300-315 franchised US Audi dealers cover all 50 states and reach metro and suburban buyers comfortably, but the footprint is visibly thinner than BMW's (~340) or Mercedes-Benz's, and rural owners can face long drives to a certified shop. Service satisfaction is mid-pack for a luxury brand in the J.D. Power CSI studies of this period — competent and well-equipped, but nowhere near Lexus, which topped the 2022 luxury CSI ranking.

Parts flow reliably through VW Group's US supply chain and the EA888 has broad enthusiast aftermarket support, but this is an expensive car to keep and a 2022 is now past its 4-year/50,000-mile warranty, so the bills land on the owner. RepairPal puts the A4 at $739 average annual repair and maintenance cost — and the quattro variant, which is what every 2022 A4 is, at $925 against a $652 all-vehicle average. Major-repair probability runs 13% versus a 12% norm, and headline jobs are dealer-priced: the common water-pump housing alone runs $1,100-$1,700.

The B9's 10.1-inch MMI touch response display is standard across the 2022 range and is also the ceiling — there is no upgrade path at any price. Well integrated and crisp, but small against the 12-inch-plus panels rivals were already fitting in 2022.

MMI touch response is quick, logically laid out and backed by haptic click confirmation, and — critically for 2022 — Audi kept a separate physical climate panel below the screen rather than burying temperature in menus. Held out of the top band by the small display and by the deletion of the old rotary controller, which made inputs on the move easier than reaching for glass.

Phone projection is standard on every 2022 A4, but only half of it is wireless: Apple CarPlay connects over the air while Android Auto is wired across the range. That asymmetry is exactly the item's middle band, and it is a real 2022-specific limitation — Audi did not have both protocols wireless on this car.

Audi's natural-language voice assistant handles destination, phone and climate requests conversationally and was better than segment average in 2022, but factory navigation is not on the volume car — MMI Navigation plus costs $1,500 as the Navigation package and is standard only on Prestige. Most 2022 A4 buyers navigate through CarPlay, which is exactly 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.

This is the sharpest 2022-versus-later difference in the category: the volume Premium still has an analog gauge cluster with a small colour driver information display between the dials, and Audi's 12.3-inch virtual cockpit plus only arrives with Premium Plus. The cluster itself, once you have it, remains one of the sharpest and most configurable on sale — 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 2022 A4 owners. Infotainment-data-only capability, at the low end of that band because even the map updates depend on an Audi connect subscription after the trial.

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 sits mid-band because there is no phone-as-key on the A4, Audi offers no key-fob remote start (app only), and the app itself has a long-standing owner reputation for slow refreshes and login trouble.

Two front USB ports are the whole standard provision on the volume Premium — no wireless charging, no second-row outlets, no household AC power. Wireless charging is nominally a Premium Plus item, but 2022 is the year that promise broke: Audi's own chip-shortage deletions meant very few cars were actually built with the phone box, so even buyers who paid for the trim frequently did not get it. That supply reality is what pulls this below the 2024 car.

Push-button start is standard on every 2022 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, two model years before Audi made them standard across the A4 line. Premium Plus is where it gets good, with the top-view surround camera standard and Parking System Plus included; park assist automated parking stays a Prestige item.

A head-up display exists on the 2022 A4 but only as standard equipment on the top Prestige trim — it cannot be added to the Premium or the 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 needing no attachment force 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 with its narrow aperture struggles with a full-size stroller plus a week's gear. Edmunds' verdict is the fair one: workable for one child, not for family logistics.

The crash credentials are strong — NHTSA 5 stars overall and IIHS Good in all six crashworthiness tests for a genuine Top Safety Pick — but 2022 is two model years before Audi made adaptive cruise and active lane assist standard on the A4, and this item grades what the trims families actually buy carry. On the volume Premium the standard sheet is AEB, lane departure warning and a rearview camera; blind-spot monitoring, adaptive cruise and lane centering are unavailable or optional, and the Premium's headlights rate Marginal, which is why the TSP award is headlight-restricted.

Four adults travel in genuinely quiet, well-damped comfort, with tri-zone climate reaching the second row on every trim and a ride Consumer Reports credits with keeping fatigue at bay. Capacity and rear amenities are what cap it: 35.7 inches of rear legroom, no rear entertainment, rear USB outlets only on upper trims, 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 controls, standard quattro for bad weather and excellent forward ergonomics. Two things hold it to the middle for 2022: the volume Premium offers only fixed-speed cruise control, since adaptive cruise with stop-and-go cannot be ordered on that trim at all, and the seven-speed S tronic's low-speed take-up is jerky exactly where a commuter spends its time.

29 MPG combined is respectable for a compact luxury sedan with standard all-wheel drive and a 12V mild hybrid, but every 2022 A4 requires premium unleaded, which is what does the damage — EPA puts the annual fuel bill near $2,600 and flags roughly $2,000 in extra fuel spend over five years against the average new vehicle. Add Audi dealer service rates with no complimentary maintenance and the per-mile commuting cost is well above class-average.

A compact 188-inch footprint is easy to place, but the A4 fights back in two ways. Its 38.1-foot turning circle is wide for the size — a consequence of the longitudinal engine pushing the front axle rearward — 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. That is a notably thinner parking aid set than the same car carried by 2024.

Audi publishes no US tow rating for the A4 sedan, and 2022 makes the point emphatically: the chip shortage meant every 2022 A4 and S4 was delivered without a factory tow module, so even the European trailer hardware was off the table. With a 12 cu ft trunk behind a narrow aperture and no open cargo area, this is not a work vehicle in any meaningful sense.

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 a repair bill history that RepairPal puts near $925 a year. 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, no factory roof rails on the sedan, and — uniquely for 2022 — no factory hitch on any car built that year. 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 explicitly credited with masking long-distance miles, the front seats hold up over a full day, and 444 miles of EPA range is decent. What keeps 2022 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 up to Premium Plus, and even there Traffic Jam Assist is hands-on only.

Standard quattro all-wheel drive is a real asset on gravel, snow-covered forest roads and boat ramps, and it comes on every 2022 A4 rather than as an upcharge. Everything else is against it: roughly five inches of ground clearance, low-profile tires, no factory roof rails on the sedan, no 120V outlet, and — specific to 2022 — no factory hitch available on any car built that year, so a bike or ski rack has to go aftermarket.

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 Edmunds credits the trunk with a generous opening and useful cutouts. But the raw figure is near the bottom of the class, there is no underfloor storage, and for 2022 there is no factory hitch or roof rail path at all — so bulky gear has nowhere to go once the trunk is full.

Standard quattro and a well-sorted B9 chassis give the A4 secure, composed cornering with genuinely good body control — 2022 reviews describe it as handling slickly and nimbly with a firm-yet-supple ride. It stops short of the class benchmark because the consensus is competent rather than involving: the nose-heavy longitudinal layout and safety-first tuning keep it behind a 3 Series or G70 for a driver who wants to be part of it.

Precision is not in dispute — 2022 reviewers agree the rack is ultra-precise and tracks faithfully, if a little light. Feedback is: Edmunds singles the steering out as a letdown for telling the driver nothing 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 that 2022 reviews call responsive, with no regen-blending awkwardness since the 12V mild-hybrid system does not alter pedal feel. Instrumented stops in the 111-foot range from 60 mph for the B9 A4 sit comfortably inside class norms; fade resistance is untested at length on the volume 40 TFSI's smaller rotors.

Once rolling, the 201-hp 2.0T with its 12V mild hybrid is smooth and hushed and the stop-start restart is barely felt. Against that, Edmunds and owners of 2022 cars report delayed throttle and transmission 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 2022 A4's reputation for a remarkably 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 188-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 — Consumer Reports finds most drivers can get well-situated behind the wheel, helped by a wide range of seat and tilt/telescoping adjustment, a low cowl with clear forward sightlines and logically grouped controls. Crucially for 2022, 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 something 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 2022 gained standard sport suspension — or the S4.

The base 40 TFSI Premium is well stocked for the class — quattro AWD and the 7-speed dual-clutch standard on every A4, a 10.1-inch MMI touchscreen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto (one of the largest standard screens in the segment), LED headlights, power sunroof, tri-zone climate, leather seating and heated front seats. What pulls the 2022 car below its 2024 successor is the chip shortage: Audi's Semiconductor Shortage Package stripped side assist, rear cross-traffic warning, adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning and wireless charging from a large share of MY2022 builds, and Virtual Cockpit was still a Premium Plus item.

At $40,995 delivered with quattro standard the A4 undercuts a rear-drive 2022 330i and a C 300 by a couple of thousand dollars for comparable content, and the 261-hp 45 TFSI at $42,000 before destination is one of the segment's better power-per-dollar plays. The value case is real but not a bargain: content-deleted cars and 2022's no-discount market meant many buyers paid full sticker for less equipment than the window label implied.

Six sedan configurations for 2022 — Premium, Premium Plus and Prestige each offered with the 201-hp 40 TFSI or the 261-hp 45 TFSI S line — spanning roughly $40k to $52k delivered, with the 349-hp S4 above them and the A4 allroad wagon alongside. The new-for-2022 Black Optic package extended to every trim. Wide and well-spaced; the only real gap is that quattro is mandatory, so there is no cheaper front-drive entry point.

2022 was the A4's last steady year: 16,444 US deliveries, essentially flat against 2021's 16,263 and holding up better than Audi's 5% brand-wide decline, but already 37% below the 26,072 of 2019 and well behind the BMW 3 Series and Mercedes C-Class. A stable mid-pack seller in a shrinking segment rather than a leader — and the collapse to 10,848 in 2023 and 5,992 in 2024 was still ahead.

The four rings carry genuine aspirational pull in the US — design-led, tech-forward, with quattro as a real brand asset rather than a marketing word — and in 2022 Audi was still riding the e-tron halo. It sits a step behind BMW and Mercedes on outright luxury prestige and on resale support, which is why this is a strong score rather than a top one.

2022 was the worst year of the chip-shortage seller's market and the A4 buyer got essentially nothing: inventory was thin enough that buyers travelled hundreds of miles and paid full MSRP, lease programs carried no incentive cash, and when Audi ran an autumn program worth up to $7,500 across the range the A4 line drew just $750. Scored on buyer benefit, that is close to the floor — the opposite of the run-out A4's 2024–25 discounting.

2022 is the sixth model year of the B9 generation launched for 2017 and two years past its 2020 facelift — squarely mid-cycle, with the current 10.1-inch MMI touch interface but an older platform underneath. Crucially for a 2022 buyer, no successor had been announced: Audi did not confirm the A4-to-A5 renaming until March 2023, so this year lacked the imminent-replacement overhang that drags the 2024 and 2025 cars.

The 2022 A4 was the best-received year of the late B9 run: U.S. News ranked it #1 in Luxury Small Cars at 8.4/10, and Edmunds called it one of its favourites among European luxury compacts for cabin quality, standard AWD and its driver-aid suite. It still was not the class's comparison-test winner — the 3 Series takes it on driver engagement and it drew no 10Best or NACTOY nod for 2022 — but this is clearly stronger standing than the #5 ranking the nameplate had fallen to by 2024.