For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Audi A4 Allroad have pretensioners to tighten the seatbelts and eliminate dangerous slack in the event of a collision and force limiters to limit the pressure the belts will exert on the passengers. The Cadillac XT4 doesn’t offer pretensioners for its rear seat belts.
The A4 Allroad’s pre-crash front seatbelts will tighten automatically in the event the vehicle detects an impending crash, improving protection against injury significantly. The XT4 doesn’t offer pre-crash pretensioners.
Both the A4 Allroad and XT4 have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The A4 Allroad has power child safety locks, allowing the driver to activate and deactivate them from the driver's seat and to know when they're engaged. The XT4’s child locks have to be individually engaged at each rear door with a manual switch. The driver can’t know the status of the locks without opening the doors and checking them.
The A4 Allroad has a standard Audi Backguard System, which use a specially designed headrest to protect the driver and front passenger from whiplash. During a rear-end collision, the Audi Backguard System moves the headrests forward to prevent neck and spine injuries. At the same time the pretensioning seatbelts fire, removing slack from the belts. The XT4 doesn’t offer a whiplash protection system.
The A4 Allroad has a standard Secondary Collision Brake Assist, which automatically applies the brakes in the event of a crash to help prevent secondary collisions and prevent further injuries. The XT4 doesn’t offer a post collision braking system: in the event of a collision that triggers the airbags, more collisions are possible without the protection of airbags that may have already deployed.
To provide maximum traction and stability on all roads, All-Wheel Drive is standard on the A4 Allroad. But it costs extra on the XT4.
The A4 Allroad’s standard lane departure warning system alerts a temporarily inattentive driver when the vehicle begins to leave its lane. A lane departure warning system costs extra on the XT4.
Both the A4 Allroad and the XT4 have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver and front passenger knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, height adjustable front shoulder belts, plastic fuel tanks, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, rearview cameras, available blind spot warning systems, around view monitors and rear cross-path warning.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does side impact tests on new vehicles. In this test, which crashes the vehicle into a flat barrier at 38.5 MPH and into a post at 20 MPH, results indicate that the Audi A4 Allroad is safer than the Cadillac XT4:
|
|
A4 Allroad |
XT4 |
|
|
Front Seat |
|
| STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
| Hip Force |
308 lbs. |
328 lbs. |
|
|
Into Pole |
|
| STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
| Max Damage Depth |
12 inches |
13 inches |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.
For its top level performance in IIHS driver and passenger-side small overlap frontal, moderate overlap frontal, side impact, roof strength and head restraint tests, its standard vehicle-to-vehicle front crash prevention system, its standard vehicle-to-pedestrian front crash prevention system, and its available headlight’s “Good” rating, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety grants the A4 Allroad the rating of “Top Safety Pick” for 2022, a rating granted to only 155 vehicles tested by the IIHS. The XT4 has not been fully tested, yet.