Video: 2025 Audi A5 and S5 Review: Liftbacks for All

I'm here in Colorado getting my first chance to drive the new A5 and S5 and see if more means better. After spending time behind the wheel of both the A5 and S5, the answer is yes, emphatically so. The consolidation of the previous A4 and A5 sedans into one liftback sedan that retains the A5 name feels smart in this SUV-heavy era. And the larger premium platform combustion architecture provides a host of improvements. In the A5, the added length and longer wheel base, along with increased height, turned the backseat from a penalty box into a usable space for adults. At six foot one, I used all of the available headroom, but this is a compact luxury sedan where I can actually fit in the backseat behind my own driving position. The dramatic interior improvements in both models don't stop with just increased space however. The new Audi stage system, the 11.9 inch virtual cockpit instrument panel, and 14.5 inch touchscreen display is a massive improvement over the previous Audi MMI system. At this trim level, exterior lighting is adjustable with eight choices of patterns for both the LED headlights and available OLED taillights. It's cool, but it's not particularly useful. Materials quality, however, is excellent in both the A5 and S5, with the A5 a more refined and luxurious space with wood accents. While the S5 replaces the wood with carbon fiber and adds sueded trim. The sportier front seats in the S5 were a bit too aggressively bolstered for my tastes and not as comfortable for longer driving stretches as the ones in the A5. We are in the A5 now, and the changes really benefit you in terms of comfort. It is a very, very comfortable ride. There's great isolation from bumps. The revised steering and front suspension keep things nice and stable. They don't give you a lot of unnecessary feedback or vibration from road impacts, and instead help you communicate and know where you're going, where your tires are, give you great feel for the road. 268 horsepower and 295 pounds feet of torque from the turbocharged two liter four cylinder is a modest improvement, but the refinement from a turbo four cylinder is much more impressive. You do have enough power for highway merges and passing, but it's not very sporty feeling. It's not as responsive as the S5, nor should it be. You're paying a premium to get the S5 performance level. It should be a little bit better in that regard. Ride is very comfortable. The seats are a lot more comfortable than the S5's. The S5 seats are heavily bolstered. Here, they're just nice and comfortable. You have on this trim level manual extending thigh support in the front seats, which is a nice touch. Also at this level, this is the prestige trim level, you get a front passenger screen. And the thing about that is, I don't know why. I've never understood the point of a front passenger screen. And here, unlike in say, our long-term Jeep Grand Cherokee where it was totally invisible to the driver, here, Audi uses something called active shuttering. So you can look at things like the nav or audio or whatnot, and I, in the driver's seat can see it, and that's a little bit distracting to me. But if you were to go for something like YouTube or the games that are available on that, something visually distracting, as long as we're moving, it's completely blank to me. Still don't really understand the point, especially in the era of smartphones where presumably if your passenger can look at that screen and not get sick, they probably have a phone they can look at too. But it does come with the prestige package so you don't really get much of a choice in the matter. Like the S5, you have three drive modes. You can use the drive select button down here to select them. You have balanced, dynamic, and comfort. Comfort is comfortable. Balanced is in between comfort and dynamic. And dynamic is sportier, but it doesn't really feel all that sporty. Just sort of tightens up throttle response a little bit. The steering feels a little bit tighter, a little bit heavier, but it's about it. Again, most of the performance goodies and performance feel are saved for the S5. So we are in the S5 right now, which is the sportiest of the sedans that I got to drive, probably my favorite vehicle as well that I got to drive on this program. Had a lot of fun on the twisty roads. With the S5, you get an available adaptive air suspension. It's a sportier suspension, the car rides lower. We're in dynamic mode now, which is the most sporty of the three drive modes available, and it's still fairly comfortable. This road is pretty pitted and bumpy, and it's not bad. There's really, really good isolation in the cabin and the revised steering rack and front suspension helps keep all these bumps from transmitting to the wheel. So I have a lot more control and feel as we're going along. The real star in the S5 is the three liter turbocharged V6 engine under the hood, which for 2025 in this version is upgraded to 362 horsepower. That's 13 more than the previous S5 and 406 pounds feet of torque, which is 37 more. And while that's not a huge increase, it is more, so Audi's quoting a time from zero to 60 of 4.3 seconds. I believe it. It's very responsive, especially in dynamic mode. You can just hit the gas and go. You have passing power, merging power. Again, ride quality in dynamic, not the best, but you can change that real easily. The biggest issue with driving the S5 is probably the touch-sensitive controls on the steering wheel. If you're gonna be doing canyon carving, driving on mountain roads like we were in this car, it's not great to have controls that you can brush easily and then do something while you're driving and get distracted. So my drive partner consistently turned up the volume as we were going around corners, which is not ideal. And then you get thrown off, you lose focus, and here, there's not a lot of forgiveness if you do that. So not my favorite. I wish Audi had not upgraded this, upgraded to these touch-sensitive controls and instead had stuck with physical ones on the steering wheel. But the rest of the experience is just fantastic. This is not an RS performance car. This is the S5. So it's sort of in the middle of that Venn diagram where the A5 is comfortable. An RS5 would be a high performance car comparable to an M3 or an AMG C63. This is more in the middle and it's a really, really good balance of performance and luxury and comfort. The all new 2025 Audi A5 and S5 are significant improvements over their predecessors, whether those predecessors' names ended in a four or a five. Now the price you pay for those improvements are some confounding controls, but it's worth it. For my full review of the 2025 Audi A5 and S5, head to cars.com/news.