For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Audi A4 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 BMW 3 Series Sedan doesn’t offer pretensioners for its rear seat belts.
For enhanced safety, the front seat shoulder belts of the Audi A4 are height-adjustable to accommodate a wide variety of driver and passenger heights. A better fit can prevent injuries and the increased comfort also encourages passengers to buckle up. The BMW 3 Series Sedan doesn’t offer height-adjustable seat belts.
Both the A4 and 3 Series Sedan have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The A4 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 3 Series Sedan’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.
To provide maximum traction and stability on all roads, All-Wheel Drive is standard on the A4. But it costs extra on the 3 Series Sedan.
When descending a steep, off-road slope, the A4’s standard Hill Descent Control allows you to creep down safely. The 3 Series Sedan doesn’t offer Hill Descent Control.
The A4’s standard lane departure warning system alerts a temporarily inattentive driver when the vehicle begins to leave its lane and gently nudges the vehicle back towards its lane. A lane departure warning system costs extra on the 3 Series Sedan.
Both the A4 and 3 Series Sedan offer rear cross-traffic warning, but the A4 with Rear Cross-Traffic Assist also has Automatic Brake Activation (automatically applies the brakes) to better prevent a collision when backing near traffic. The 3 Series Sedan’s Cross Traffic Warning doesn’t automatically brake.
Both the A4 and the 3 Series Sedan have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver and front passenger knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, plastic fuel tanks, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, post-collision automatic braking systems, daytime running lights, rearview cameras, available blind spot warning systems and around view monitors.
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 is safer than the BMW 3 Series Sedan:
|
|
A4 |
3 Series Sedan |
|
|
Rear Seat |
|
| STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
| HIC |
277 |
305 |
|
|
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.