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Bought the Audi Q5 instead of the XUV 700 & Tucson: My quick review

20th August 2024, 14:05 by Ananth Iyer

On a side note, we have decided to not sell Verna, as I expect the Q5 to spend at least some time in the service centre.

BHPian rev_to_redline recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I have been a proud owner of Manual Verna SX Petrol 2019 for the past 5 years. It has served me very well with no major issues. Itch for an upgrade started when I got married last year. We wanted an automatic car which would comfortably and safely take us to our road trips. We started checking out cars but fairly passively. Itch grew stronger when we were blessed with a kid. We felt really insecure on the road when idiots approached us from behind, flashing their lights at dangerous speeds and overtaking us with not so safe distance. Real hunt for a car started then.

Budget was up to 50L, but we didn't mind buying a cheaper car if it met all our criteria's which were:
5-star safety
Decently powerful engine and horsepower to weight ratio
Reliable ASS
Somewhat comfortable
Decent ground clearance

All in all, our hearts wanted a sedan, and our heads wanted an SUV. Initially, we were open to Verna 2023. It was launched and looks didn't impress. We really tried hard and forced ourselves over a few months, but every time we looked at one on the road, we were not impressed. Side profile looked good, but the front and rear profile never ticked. With Verna out of consideration, we checked diesel Tucson out as it would have been as reliable as Verna . It was a spacious and sporty looking car with an impressive engine, but we couldn't come on terms with that weird looking tablet-like instrument cluster. That combined with spending 40L on a Hyundai didn't feel right. There is another major issue of sensitive ABS in Hyundais, and my Verna reminds me about it every now and then. I asked about it on a Tucson YouTube video and team-bhp Tucson review thread, but still I wasn't convinced. With Tucson not as much of a strong candidate, we half-heartedly started going back & forth and considered all cars in the 20-50 L bracket. Listing down why we didn't select any of these cars despite their merits:

Creta & Seltos : Safety rating, smaller boot
XUV700 : Buggy electronics, ASS experience
Slavia/Virtus : Reliability issues on gearbox, fuel pumps, ASS experience
Superb: Discontinued, relaunched too expensive, ASS experience
Kodiaq: Mixed opinion on looks, ASS experience
Fortuner: Really drooled over it every time I saw it on road. But stiff suspension, heavy steering, outdated interiors
A4: Looks with those dull alloys didn't feel right for a 50L sedan, small boot space

I mean no offense to people owning these cars. All of these cars have their own merits, we simply didn't have the appetite to deal with the not so good parts of their ownership.

One day, through all this pain of not finding the right car, I happened to come across a black Q5 with brown interiors parked in a hotel in Gurgaon. I took my sweet time to check it out and that was the car I wanted us to seriously consider, even though I knew that it would be way out of our budget. For a few weeks, we checked out the YouTube videos. From some angles it really looked good, from some it didn't. Anyway, we decided to take a test drive and get a fair idea about car as well as the price. To have an option of negotiating price between Gurgaon, Karnal and Chandigarh Audi showrooms, we started with Audi Gurgaon. We took the test drive of the technology variant, and we were blown away by the 260ish horses. We knew that this was the car we wanted to try to buy. With deep discounts as our only hope, we began the negotiations and Audi Gurgaon quoted 72L on road. We told them we won't (or rather can't) buy this car unless it's for much less, but they didn't budge. Instead, the saleswoman tried to push the Premium plus variant. Politely refused as we wanted all that technology variant had to offer. Then she tried to push for A6 and given our love for sedans and those absolutely lovely lines, we took a test drive. I pushed the A6 hard on turns and torque steer was unpleasant. Then I pushed it hard in a straight line and I could feel it slightly deviating left and right from the straight line by 1 or 2 degrees. Stabilising systems helped, but if a car can't handle the torque in a straight line on a dry, clean road, it shouldn't be a FWD in my opinion. Also, my wife felt that the rear seats, with more legroom than Q5, felt claustrophobic due to lower head room. With all that, we wrapped up our Audi Gurgaon visit and geared up for negotiations in Karnal and Chandigarh. Few days down the line and negotiation between Chandigarh and Karnal, we were offered 67L on road without extended warranty and 68L on road with extended 2-year warranty by Audi Karnal. We chose the latter. We could have bargained for longer and maybe gotten the price further dropped by a lac or two. But I don't like to negotiate, and I already had done enough. We made the booking on Wednesday (26th June) and planned for a delivery on Saturday (29th June). Car was to arrive in the showroom on 27th. With intrusive thoughts of something going wrong with the car in 2 days at the showroom, we couldn't wait and asked the Audi Karnal team if the car can be delivered on Thursday itself. They said yes and we took the delivery on Thursday evening. Kudos to Audi Karnal for such a fast delivery.

What I like about the car

Powerful engine mated to a quick gearbox.
Sharp interiors: Even though some might feel that Audi's have outdated interiors, but those brown seats, rotary dials, crisp screens and gear lever did it for us. Every time I sit in the car, even for a quick cleanup, I feel nothing but luxury. I always take some time to enjoy all the premium-ness it has to offer before I start cleaning it or driving it.
Build quality: It is my first time experiencing German build quality. And the other cars (Altroz, Verna) I sit in now, feel like they are made of plastic.
Strong headlights: I feel a lot of brands have moved from Halogens to LEDs without properly setting up the reflection angles and housing. From reviews of all VW/Skoda group cars, I knew this wouldn't be a problem and it hasn't been. It lights up the road very well. Even though we don't travel too late at night, it makes for confident late evening drives.
Most of the buttons have a good click feel to them. I say most and not all because I don't like the lock unlock button on the drive window. They are somewhat different and feel cheaper.
3 zone AC and fan controls on all vents.
Adjustable steering and suspension. I never finish a ride without playing around with different *] Strong brakes and smart ABS tuning: ABS won't intrude 99 percent of the times. But when it does, it does a really good job of stopping the car. I have tried to experiment with it on dry, wet, muddy roads and it performs very well. Under harsh braking, it is very aggressive and doesn't let the car slip further by an inch while it makes that durrdurrdurr... sound. It might be a common trait for German cars, but it is impressive and a solid piece of engineering coming from a Hyundai.
This one would be weird, but I wanted my next car to have big disc brakes. I am not a fan of tiny discs even if they do the job of stopping the car very well, which they mostly do as they are usually proportionate with car weight. But Q5 doesn't disappoint. Every now and then, I like to sit and just enjoy those big shiny discs.
Audi is known for boring alloy wheels, but this one has better ones. Although not diamond cut, they still look very sporty.
Tyre profile except width is a good choice by Audi India. I have hit really nasty potholes at really high speeds and tyres/rims came out undefeated. Exactly how SUV tyres should be.
Suspension and noise insulation makes for a comfortable ride, but it can't insulate you from the cost cutting and corruption on Indian roads.
Boot access from rear seats
Service interval of 15K KMs.
Not a good case of off-roading, but on our way back from Nashik to Kaithal, we visited Amber fort, Jaipur. The Q5 navigated the entirety of uphill tricky road effortlessly, under 1200 RPM and with just feathering the accelerator.
Fuel efficiency: So far, we have got 12.6 KMPL as highest, but that's because we have not been patient enough to drive it with light foot. I am confident it will run at ~ 14KMPLif we are patient enough. To us, ~12KMPL is good enough for a turbo petrol SUV with quattro drive.

What I don't like:

Can't handle corners very well, which is expected of an SUV with comfortable suspension.
No Dashcam from Audi India even as a paid accessory
No dedicated button for the fuel lid. Don't like having to unlock the entire car to allow Petrol pump staff to open the fuel lid.
No cornering headlights.
Low beam can't be adjusted for height. You can get it adjusted at the service centre, but it can't be done from the car cabin. So, either I have to blind oncoming traffic even at low beams or keep them dangerously low. There is no in between.
Rear parking lights are weak and almost useless when it's completely dark, which is common in the area I live in.
Rear parking camera quality sucks. Apart from camera quality and illumination, something about the rear parking guidance system doesn't feel right. I rarely rely on the rear camera guidance in Q5, and mostly do it with ORVMs. It is opposite in Verna. I can mostly rely on rear camera and guidance with rare peeks at ORVMs.
There are a lot of side movements in the 5-15 KMPH range on potholes, so either you have to jump over those potholes at slightly higher speed or navigate them carefully in 1-2KMPH range.
Seat cushioning is hard, but still makes for a comfortable ride.
Although tall, the tyres are not wide enough at 235mm. They look thin from the rear. Audi should have shod Q5 with at least 255mm wide tyres. Will have to upsize when the car is out of warranty. Also, I don't know if it is the right assumption, but due to the slim tires and lower car body weight to tyre width ratio, the car doesn't stay in a straight direction even on smooth roads. I have to keep bringing it back in a straight line with slight steering inputs. It doesn't feel like an alignment issue, rather the slim tyres. I had no such problem on the Verna which I upsized with 205 55 R16 tyres. Steering wheel is a bit large for my liking. And stitches on it sometimes hurt my fingers when I turn the car purely with a finger.
Indirect TPMS. It can tell if there is a puncture but doesn't show the PSI values for tyres.
No wireless AA/ACP
Some USB ports are of type A, some are of type C. So, I will have to buy a lot of cables considering all the combinations of guest travellers vs USB charges. In Verna, I have to simply carry 2. One for phones with USB C, and one for lightning ports
Wireless charging heats up both Samsung and Apple phones.
No spare tyre
All weather mats from Audi are slippery and almost useless in containing dirt.
Adjustable suspension features won't make the suspension hard enough for a hardcore sporty drive.
Although rare, gearbox takes up to a second to downshift
Wiper and indicator controls on the opposite side have totally messed up our muscle memory. We get it wrong in the first few usages every time we switch between Verna and Q5.
Instrument cluster shows navigation but not from the phone connected with AA/ACP.
Expected from a DCT but the gearbox can be jerky at low speeds especially at turns.
It might be a trait of all automatic cars, but brakes and clutch working against each other while parking in tight spots grinds my gears.
I am not sure about the component name, but there is suspension component, which is directly above front tyres, leaving next to no room for tyre upsize. I won't do any as long as the car is in warranty, but still some room would have been good for the future.
The same suspension component I am talking about is clearly visible from the sides and sticks out. Wifey doesn't like it and I am going to get it painted black.
Rear seats have a recline function but not enough to make for comfortable naps.
Although the touchscreen is quick, the music play pause button mounted on steering is slow. It takes about a second to play or pause the music.
I am neat picking here, but the distance to empty drops by 10 KM and not any sooner. So, you see the distance to empty dropping like 500, 490, 480. I like the ones where it drops every kilometre or so.

My brief experience purely about driving the car:

It does most of the driving effortlessly, silently and without even breaking a sweat. It can do 100KMPH below 2000 RPM. At times, I have also seen it cruising comfortably at 1000 RPM. Overtakes are also butter smooth. It's a pure joy to watch that tachometer needle jumping up and down with accelerator inputs. Just watching that needle action in itself is pure fiction. And when you find an empty stretch and put pedal to the metal, that is when German black magic unfolds. At first, it tries to sneak the car from under you and hits you by surprise even though you were betting on it to do so. And then it keeps on pulling. Somewhere in between all of that you notice that turbo whistling. You know it's sipping through your fuel tank, but unintuitively it makes you proud. While the torque rush starts to fade, you take a look at the speedometer and have the scary realization why. This engine doesn't feel like petrol at all. Or maybe this is the first time I am owning a Turbo Petrol. Even if Audi had a diesel option available, I would still have gone with the Petrol one as it comes with much more horses at a similar price. Plus, no worrying about DPF during hill station tours. Despite the long list of what I don't like, it's a wonderful car and it will do very well at what it is supposed to do, which is take us comfortably and safely to places. We intend to keep it for at least 10 years, longer if it proves to be reliable. Based on team-bhp threads, I am confident that the Audi service centre experience will be better than VW/Skoda horror stories, even though Audi falls under the same group.

On a side note, we have decided to not sell Verna, as I expect the Q5 to spend at least some time in the service centre. It will also be a good companion for city chores. It has much more value to provide then the price it will sell for. I intend to keep it as well for 10 more years and I hope the new legally adulterated fuel doesn't mess with its BS4 engine. *

Here is a failed attempt at doing mini photoshoot of our beauty and the beast: