How to Measure a Audi A6 for a Car Cover (Step-by-Step Guide + Diagram)

Measuring your Audi A6 wrong by even two or three inches is the difference between a cover that hugs the body and one that flaps around in a parking lot at 2 AM. This guide walks through exactly how to measure an Audi A6 for a car cover, generation by generation, with a diagram you can reference while you're out at the car with a tape measure in hand.

Why Exact Measurements Matter for Your Audi A6

A cover that's a few inches short at the rear leaves the bumper exposed to rain and bird droppings. One that's too long bunches up, flaps in wind, and wears through at the seams faster than it should. Neither is a hypothetical problem. It's what happens when someone grabs a cover based on "my car's a mid-size sedan" instead of actual numbers.

The A6 makes this trickier than most cars because Audi has sold it across three generations, C6, C7, and C8, and in both sedan and Avant wagon body styles. A cover cut for a C7 sedan will not sit right on a C8, and it definitely won't fit an Avant. Even within the same generation, minor facelifts changed bumper depth and mirror housings enough to matter.

Custom-fit and semi-custom covers depend on getting these numbers right, since they're built to a specific body style and year. But even if you're buying a universal cover, you still need to know where your A6 falls in the size range, or you're guessing. And here's the good news: none of this requires a shop visit. Learning how to measure an Audi A6 for a car cover is a 10 minute job with a tape measure and a notepad, done right in your driveway.

Tools You'll Need Before You Start

Skip the metal tape measure from your toolbox. It won't curve around a bumper or a folded mirror without kinking, and you'll end up with a number that's close but not accurate. Grab a fabric or flexible tape measure instead, at least 20 feet long, so you can run one continuous line from front to back without stopping to reposition.

Keep your phone or a notepad nearby and write down every measurement the second you take it. Memory is unreliable after the fourth or fifth number, and jotting things down in both inches and feet saves you a conversion headache later when you're comparing sizes on a product page.

Before you pick up the tape, park the A6 on level ground and fold in the side mirrors if they're power-folding. Mirror position changes your width reading more than people expect. And have your exact model year and body style, sedan or Avant, confirmed before you start. Audi shifted bumper and mirror dimensions across the C6, C7, and C8 generations, so "it's an A6" isn't specific enough once you start shopping.

Step-by-Step: How to Measure Your Audi A6 (With Diagram)

Here are the four points you need, labeled A through D in the diagram below.

Point A, overall length. Measure from the tip of the front bumper to the furthest point of the rear bumper in a straight line. Don't follow the curve of the body. Run the tape parallel to the ground beside the car, or have a second person hold one end steady while you walk it back.

Point B, width. Measure from the outer edge of one folded mirror to the outer edge of the other. Write this down separately from the body-only width, since some sizing charts ask for one or the other and you don't want to guess which.

Point C, height. Measure from the ground to the highest point of the roofline. On the A6, that's typically just behind the windshield, where the roof starts its slope toward the trunk or the Avant's rear hatch.

Point D, ground clearance. Measure from the ground to the lowest point of the rocker panel, the sill beneath the doors. This tells you how far down the cover needs to hang to fully enclose the car, which matters more than people think when it comes to keeping wind from getting underneath.

(Diagram: side and front profile of the Audi A6 with arrows marking Points A through D)

Take each measurement twice. If the two readings differ, record the larger one. A slightly generous measurement gives you a safer margin than one that's too tight, and it's a lot easier to deal with a little extra fabric than a cover that won't close around the car.

Audi A6 Measurement Notes by Body Style and Generation

The sedan and the Avant are not the same car when it comes to cover sizing. The Avant runs longer overall, and that extra length sits mostly in the rear overhang, which changes how much material a cover needs back there to avoid gapping.

Generation matters just as much. The C7 (2012-2018) has a more traditional sedan roofline, while the C8 (2019-present) leans into Audi's fastback-style rear end, with a sharper slope and a noticeably different roof height profile. A cover built around C7 proportions will sit wrong on a C8, even though both are technically "A6 sedans."

If you've got a cover from a previous A6 and you're hoping it carries over to your new one, don't assume it does. Even minor mid-cycle facelifts changed bumper depth enough to throw off length measurements by an inch or two, which is enough to matter at the corners. Re-measure every time you change model years. Once you've got your numbers, the Audi cover page is a good place to see what's actually available for your specific year and body style.

Common Measuring Mistakes That Lead to a Bad Fit

The single most common mistake: measuring width with the mirrors extended instead of folded. It overstates the number, and the cover ends up loose and bunched at the sides where the mirror pockets are supposed to sit snug.

A close second is skipping the height measurement entirely because "it's a sedan, they're all about the same." The A6's roofline has a sharper curve than a lot of its competitors, and that curve affects how a cover drapes over the top. Guessing here shows up later as excess fabric pooling behind the windshield.

Some people round measurements down "to be safe," thinking a smaller number means a snugger fit. It's backwards. Always round up to the nearest inch on length and width. A cover that's slightly generous still protects the car. One that's slightly short doesn't cover it at all.

And don't measure on a slope or a driveway incline. It throws off your ground clearance reading, and you won't notice the problem until you're trying to fit the cover later and it won't reach the bottom of the doors. Get the car on flat ground first. If you skip this step, all the careful work you did on points A through C gets undermined by one bad number at the bottom. Fitting the cover properly afterward is covered in our installation guide, but it starts here, with an accurate measurement in the first place.

Custom-Fit vs. Universal: Which Cover Fits Your A6 Measurements Best

If your measurements put your A6 right between standard sedan size brackets, which happens more often than you'd think with the C8's fastback shape, a custom-fit cover built to your exact model year and body style is going to sit tighter and look better than anything from a size range. It's built around your car specifically, not an average.

Universal and semi-custom covers work off your length, width, and height falling inside a labeled range. They're the more budget-friendly option, and they still do the job, but expect more slack around the mirrors and bumpers since the pattern isn't cut for the A6 specifically.

If you're still not sure which bracket your numbers land in, our sizing guide walks through how the size ranges are defined. And if you already know you want that tighter, factory-line fit, the custom-fit cover guide is the next place to look, or you can run your numbers through the Coverfinder tool to match them straight to an in-stock option.

Next Step: Find the Right Cover for Your Audi A6

Before you go shopping, make sure you've got four numbers written down: overall length, width at the mirrors, roof height, and ground clearance. Those four measurements are what every sizing chart and every custom-fit listing is going to ask for, and having them ready saves you from bouncing back and forth to the car mid-purchase.

Getting the measurement right the first time is the whole game here. It's a lot less hassle than ordering a cover, finding out it's an inch too short at the bumper, and going through a return. Take the ten minutes now, write the numbers down, and you'll only have to do this once. If you want more on car care and cover maintenance in general, it's worth poking around our other guides while you're at it.