Audi S5 2025 review – BMW M340i rival is better than ever but still leaves you cold

evo Verdict

Audi’s warmed-over small saloon and estate now wears an S5 badge, with S4 (and A4) retired for now. Yet in spite of it stealing the identity of Audi’s bygone sexy svelte two-door coupe, the new S5 isn’t flush with the kind of passion and personality it needs to set our neck hairs standing on end. In spite of this its reasonable performance, deft body control, pleasing balance and quality cabin are deserving of acclaim. This is not a poor alternative to the BMW M340i, even if it’s still not as inherently thrilling.

Background and model range

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If nothing else, we know by now that no coupe is sacred, with the S5 the latest two door nameplate to be redeployed in another, now as Sportback and Avant S4 replacements for 2025. An identity crisis? It’s debatable. Some will miss the svelte coupe that was always cheaper than it looked.

They were the first and final performance-oriented combustion cars to come from Audi in its short-lived twin-pronged era. The plan was to have the odd-numbered Audis be combustion- and hybrid-powered, with even-numbered Audis going all electric. The result was A4 customers looking confused at the configurator, not knowing they’d be quite happy swapping into the A5 that they hadn’t noticed had become the long-serving saloon’s direct successor. Now what was to become the A7, has stayed A6, with the A5 and S5 now the only models to be badge-bent.

So yes, these S5s exist to battle the Mercedes-AMG C43 and BMW M340i saloons and estates, rather than the Mercedes-AMG CLE 53 and BMW 440i coupes. When it arrives, the RS5 flagship (in both Sportback and Avant form) will face off against the BMW M3 and M3 Touring, as well as Mercedes-AMG’s C63.

The S5 looks good from the front, with the bespoke diamond pattern within its single frame grill and aggressive flanking intakes making it identifiable if not overtly obvious as the ‘hot’ one. That said, spec it wrong (as Audi did with their Avant in what we christened ‘old man red’ with silver grille accents and brightwork) and it does look a little staid.

The rest of the car, especially round the side, is a bit too lozenge-like, with not enough three-box heritage shining through. It’ll impress in terms of drag coefficient, but doesn’t have the confident lines you look for in a premium performance car, that you find in abundance on its big siblings, the Audi RS7 and e-tron GT. There’s a bit of arch going on but obviously, there’s headroom here that’s being left for the pumped up RS5 that by the looks of the prototypes, will be fully explored. For now, the S5 Avant is definitely the looker of the two.

Engine, gearbox and technical highlights

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The head of the range and of the most interest to evo is of course the warm S5 Sportback and Avant, with a 3-litre turbocharged V6 engine. Familiar to the old S4s it may be but, as per the rest of the new A5 engine range, it’s been given the once over. It now features a revised combustion process and a variable geometry turbo, as well as Audi’s new MHEV plus 48-volt mild hybrid system. The system in the S5, so Audi says, saves up to 17g/km of CO2.

Power is sent to all four wheels via an S-tronic dual-clutch transmission and quattro all-wheel drive, with clutch-adjustable torque-vectoring differential at the rear. The S5s and the diesel A5s were the only A5s available with quattro all-wheel drive before the plug-in hybrid arrived.

> Audi RS5 Avant and saloon spied testing: 500bhp of V6 hybrid power expected

The new A5 and S5 are the first Audis to use the Premium Platform Combustion architecture, which is a heavily revised version of the MLB Evo platform that underpinned the last-generation A4, A5, S4 and S5. Audi’s goal with the new A5 and S5 has been to combine the practicality and versatility of the outgoing A4 range, with a premium, performance-positive driving feel and presence, for a more upmarket positioning.

That approach permeates everything, from the styling, to the cabin, to the dimensions, chassis and suspension setup. Audi has in particular concentrated on developing a neutral handling balance for the A5 and S5, with stiffer axle bearings and drop link stabilisers installed to improve the steering. Another goal has been to broaden the talents of the modes within the Drive Select driving modes.

Power, torque and 0-62mph

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The new Audi S5’s mild hybrid turbocharged V6 develops 362bhp between 5500 and 6300rpm, with 405lb ft being delivered between 1700 and 4000rpm. The S5 replaces the S4 directly, which in its final iteration was a diesel. More comparable is the pre-facelift S4, which also used a turbocharged petrol V6, with 349bhp at 5400rpm and 369lb ft at 1370-4500rpm. These are figures on which the new S5 improves nominally.

Performance figures for the new S5 are competitive, with the 0-62mph sprint taking just 4.5sec on the way to a limited 155mph top speed. That's 0.2sec quicker than the petrol version of the B9 S4, which is impressive given the S5 is just under 400kg heavier. The BMW M340i by comparison has near identical power and less torque but thanks to being almost 200kg lighter, gets to 62mph 0.1sec quicker, in 4.4sec.

Driver’s note

‘The engine is surprisingly musical and reasonably strong, neatly surging you up the road to a pleasant six-cylinder tune.’ – Ethan Jupp, evo web editor, who tested the S5 both on the international launch and on the road in the UK.

Performance, ride and handling

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How fast does the Audi subjectively feel? It’s brisk but so refined is the S5 and so isolated are you from the sensory stimuli that ordinarily come with a rapidly rising speedo needle, that it feels in a way procedural. The engine is more musical than you’d expect but the volume isn’t high. 

What you will hear is the whine of the mild hybrid system as it discharges and recoups energy. Again, it’s subtle – this is no Ferrari 499P on the brakes into Mulsanne corner – but the presence of the technology is tangible. So it is in the response too, with its added shove appreciable. At low speeds in town, the engine isn’t shy about shutting off and handing over to the power generator, either.

The S5 will avoid firing up the engine in low speed manoeuvring situations like parking, setting off slowly from traffic lights and so on. It’ll also ‘sail’, which sees the engine turn off and the motor take over, when you’re moving but speed maintenance is low effort and you’re basically off throttle. The handover once the engine does cut in is seamless too.

The S5 springs to life in Dynamic, the standard-fit adaptive dampers rocksteady in their platform control at speed without crashing across harsher surfaces, while Comfort slackens everything off nicely. How comfortable, refined and controlled the S5 is deserves special mention. 

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On our initial drive in France on the Col de Vence we wondered whether the sense of refinement and control would translate on the UK’s rutted roadways. It does, and becomes even more impressive as the surface worsens. The tyres can be loud and you’re not totally isolated from the very worst thuds but it is really quite good overall. 

With great body control comes a bit of athleticism in the S5 courtesy of its torque-vectoring quattro sport differential. Turn-in on power is keen, while the amount the S5 is happy to send power to the outside rear wheel and spit itself sideways seems to directly correlate with how much steering angle is on. You won’t hold it for long in a balletic graceful drift, though. This simply isn’t in the S5’s nature. It’s happiest cultivating positive neutrality with the occasional flourish of rear-driven personality, without the natural, always rear-lead feel of a longitudinally-engined xDrive BMW.

The balance is good and the damping is great, so you do eventually find yourself pushing on a bit. Do so and the S5’s weight starts to make itself felt. The tyres wince and the sense of mass around you becomes palpable. You’re less enjoying the way the S5 controls itself and more impressed by the fact it’s managing at all. The S5 Avant is nominally heavier than its Sportback sibling and that extra mass is all at the rear with the extra bodywork. If anything, it adds to the sense of agility with momentum with more of a sense the rear wants to chase you under deceleration.

Slightly disappointing is the progressive-rate steering, which doesn’t quite deliver on the promise of improved feel. It’s precise off centre, certainly, but the rack doesn’t accumulate the natural sense of mass you’re looking for until you’re really pushing on. Nor does it quite have the tightest ratio, with some corners requiring more lock to find your desired line than you initially expect.

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A note for the braking too, which of course incorporates a regenerative element. As is often the case, the handover to friction braking isn’t perfectly resolved at low speeds but it’s fine when driving enthusiastically. It’s far from the worst out there.

By and large the range does deliver on its promise of pushing upmarket in terms of driving feel, from where the A4 and S4 left off. It’s impressive but stops short of emotionally stimulating. Could the S5 do with more of a sense of humour? Perhaps. There’s definitely bandwidth for it, that we can hope will be explored in the upcoming 2025 Audi RS5. Truthfully, the S5 is all the car it needs to be and that its customers ask it to be – the reserved sub-RS fast Audi.

Driver’s note

‘It’s very impressive and enormously capable. The ride and body control are great. But it’s just not engaging and compelling in the way you want a proper performance car to be. It’s no RS6 but a strong base for the forthcoming hybrid RS5.’ – Stuart Gallagher, evo editor-in-chief, who drove the new Audi S5 on the road in the UK.

MPG and running costs

If you dig into the Audi S5’s power reserves you’re going to be seeing averages a lot lower than the 35mpg claim on the spec sheet. That said, over 30mpg is very possible on a swift cruise.

The mild hybrid system becomes very useful when in slow rubberbanding traffic, the car eager to stay engine-off for impressively long periods, as you’d hope given the generator has a whole 1.7kWh battery to draw from. It should have had a positive impact on emissions but with the S5 producing just under 180g/km of CO2, it’s no cleaner than the BMW M340i. The S5 is still in the band that will cost buyers £2190 to first register it.

Interior and tech

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Inside the 2025 S5, Audi’s new ‘Digital Stage’ of crisp OLED screens takes over from the quality-feeling clicky buttons of the outgoing S4s and S5s. The 2025 S5’s can be counted on one hand which is a shame, as the clicky rotary controls of Audis over the last decade were almost without peer, with a feeling of quality spanning all the way from the A1 hatch to the R8 supercar. 

The S5’s HMI screen is canted towards the driver within its panel, meaning it is easier to read and navigate than some other touch-heavy efforts. The UI is also responsive and relatively intuitive. A bit more variety in terms of the digital cockpit dial options wouldn’t have gone amiss, though. And the revs rising and falling on a small straight line in the bottom left of the driver’s display, rather than in a traditional counter graphic, can mean you lose track of them.

The wheel, as with the recently updated Audi e-tron GT, also features haptic touch controls. They’re far from the worst but do suffer from the same issue of susceptibility to being unintentionally operated, as many others do. You also lose the feeling of individual clicks from individual buttons, the panel instead operating on a rocker (that’s not as tactile).

Clicky physical control cull notwithstanding, the S5’s cabin is as you’d expect, nicely put together with quality materials and stylishly designed – the red leather of the S5 Avant we sampled was particularly arresting. The sports seats are comfortable and reasonably supportive too, and their diamond stitching is always a nice tell that you’re in the warmed-over ‘S’ model.

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The OLED rear lights are cool, with their dynamic signatures. This uses second-generation digital OLED tech, with 60 segments per digital OLED panel. As Audi says, we’re at the point that this is as much an information display, as it is a light. At rest, Launch Edition cars shimmer at the rear, giving the light bar a ‘lake surface under moonlight’ vibe.

Seats and boot space

The S5 makes a decent fist of the practical stuff. For front occupants, it’s as spacious and comfortable as you could want. In the back it’s a little hemmed in with the tradeoff from the svelte glasshouse being a bit of a gloomy feeling for rear occupants. Head and legroom are passable in the Sportback with the former improved in the Avant. 

In terms of boot capacity the Audi S5 packs a decent 417 litres, and because the saloon is now a Sportback, it has a hatch opening rather than a tight saloon boot aperture. The Avant therefore isn’t necessarily such a massive leap in terms of practicality, adding 31 litres of capacity and a bit of rear headroom.

Prices and buying options

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The full fat 365bhp S5 is only available in full-spec Edition 1 trim and starts from a sturdy £69,825 for the Sportback and £71,725 for the Avant. That’s a jump of just under £1.5k since its launch as of mid-2025. It’s expensive compared to a BMW M340i xDrive. Though the BMW comes with significantly less standard equipment, it’s still a little cheaper than the S5 spec for spec.

Audi will do a £5k contribution on PCP, to an overall £19k deposit, with 48 months of ownership for 10,000 miles a year priced at around £850pm, on the cheapest possible example of a Sportback.

Equipment and specs

As above, standard spec is good on the S5. Matrix LED lights with their eight light signatures are standard on the S5, as they are all Edition 1 spec A5s. The only major options are fancy paint (£1495 for Ascari blue), a tow bar (£1160) and carbon mirrors and interior trim, together for less than £1000. 

Obviously, there are extended warranties too but the point is, a standard S5 is always well equipped, coming (whether you want them or not) with an electric panoramic roof, a Bang & Olufsen sound system and heated and cooled power adjustable sports seats.

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The story is as it ever was with Audi’s D segment sports saloon and estate. That it’s now known as S5, rather than S4, almost isn’t of consequence. As ever, we suspect a more engaging rival can be found in the equivalent BMW and perhaps a more luxurious rival can be found in the equivalent Mercedes. But the S5 is an impressive thing, from chassis its powertrain, to its build quality and technology.

Rivals

The BMW M340i xDrive starts from £62,080, while the C43 AMG starts from £69,960. The BMW doesn’t come with as much standard equipment, which informs the significant discount by comparison. A basic M340i doesn’t come with adaptive dampers or a premium audio system as standard, for instance. Likewise, high-spec C43s can reach beyond £80k.