Tested: 2025 Audi S5 Is Worse Than It Was Five Years Ago

• The new Audi S5 replaces the old S5 Sportback and S4 sedan.
• Although it features an all-new interior with fresh technology, the power and driving experience remain largely unchanged.
• At the Edmunds test track, this new generation S5 underperformed compared to its predecessor.

Our Prestige test car comes with just about every option you can throw at the car. Including the upgraded adaptive suspension and the Edition One visual package, which adds a weird mix of black and lightly bronzed metal trim. Throw in the $595 Ascari Blue paint, and our car comes in at just under $74,000 all in. This car occupies a unique niche with few competitors at this point. The closest rival is the BMW M440i Gran Coupe that offers similar specs for about the same money. 

Compared to its predecessor, the new S5 had worse performance figures in almost every single category we test. On our acceleration straight, we launched the S5 with launch control activated and saw a best result of 4.6 seconds to 60, a step backward from the old car's 4.5-second run. In the quarter mile, the new S5 hit 12.9 seconds with a finishing trap speed of 106.5. Just 0.1 second quicker than the 13.0 seconds set by the 2020 S5.

Our 60-0 mph braking run shows a worse regression in performance for the S5. In 2020, the car stopped in a respectable 106 feet. This time around, the new car took 114 feet. That might also be due to the nearly 400-pound weight gain compared to the old model. Finally, on the 200-ft skidpad, the new S5's 0.94 g figure is decent, but again worse than the 0.97 g figure from the 2020 S5. You get the picture; the numbers don't tell a great story.

Interestingly (or worryingly, if you're Audi), this is the second time in recent memory we've tested an S-badged Audi sedan that did worse than the car that came before it. The last S6 failed to impress or improve on its V8-powered predecessor. 

Even with our extremely thorough testing process, we still think that a car is more than just a sum of its performance figures. So did the S5 redeem itself on our handling circuit? Sort of. The S5 carried impressive speed through the majority of our test track, but the car felt like it was constantly trying to figure out where to send the power. Sometimes it decided to understeer and push forward despite our demands at the wheel, and sometimes it wanted to kick its tail out — every lap was a bit different from the one before it.

Our road test editor Gabriel Vega remarked, "It seems to be tuned to work around bad driving, but it just manages to get in its own way."

We wouldn't be surprised to see the return of the higher-performance RS 5 at some point with this generation, and that would be a warm reception. Because the S5 just doesn't cut it in terms of performance or driving experience — not when we strapped our gear to it, and not from the seat of our pants.