For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Audi RS 6 have pretensioners to tighten the seatbelts and eliminate dangerous slack in the event of a collision. The Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio doesn’t offer pretensioners for its rear seat belts.
The RS 6’s pre-crash front seatbelts will tighten automatically in the event the vehicle detects an impending crash, improving protection against injury significantly. The Stelvio Quadrifoglio doesn’t offer pre-crash pretensioners.
Both the RS 6 and Stelvio Quadrifoglio have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The RS 6 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 Stelvio Quadrifoglio’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.
In the past twenty years hundreds of infants and young children have died after being left in vehicles, usually by accident. When turning the vehicle off, drivers of the RS 6 are reminded to check the back seat if they opened the rear door before starting out. The Stelvio Quadrifoglio doesn’t offer a back seat reminder.
The RS 6 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 Stelvio Quadrifoglio 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.
Over 200 people are killed each year when backed over by motor vehicles. The RS 6 has a standard Maneuver Assist that uses rear sensors to monitor for objects to the rear and automatically applies the brakes to prevent a collision. The Stelvio Quadrifoglio doesn’t offer backup collision prevention brakes.
Earlier warning of stopped traffic, traffic signals, dangerous road conditions, weather, or accidents, can keep driver's safer and prevent crashes. The RS 6 has Car-to-X Services, a system that seamlessly communicates important warnings to the driver about impending danger, if they're available. The Stelvio Quadrifoglio doesn’t offer a system that can receive automated systems from infrastructure.
A passive infrared night vision system optional on the RS 6 helps the driver to more easily detect people, animals or other objects in front of the vehicle at night. Using an infrared camera to detect heat, the system then displays the image on a monitor in the dashboard. The Stelvio Quadrifoglio doesn’t offer a night vision system.
The RS 6 has a standard Top and Corner View Cameras to allow the driver to see objects all around the vehicle on a screen. The Stelvio Quadrifoglio only offers a rear monitor and front and rear parking sensors that beep or flash a light. That doesn’t help with obstacles to the sides.
Both the RS 6 and Stelvio Quadrifoglio offer rear cross-traffic warning, but the RS 6 with Rear Cross-Traffic Assist also has Automatic Brake Activation (automatically applies the brakes) to better prevent a collision when backing near traffic. The Stelvio Quadrifoglio’s Rear Cross-Path Detection doesn’t automatically brake.
Both the RS 6 and the Stelvio Quadrifoglio 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, four-wheel antilock brakes, all wheel drive, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, rearview cameras and available blind spot warning systems.
The Audi RS 6 weighs 674 pounds more than the Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio. The NHTSA advises that heavier cars are much safer in collisions than their significantly lighter counterparts.