Hockeymonkey

Hi Looking for Owners of Q5 Hybrids. I am looking at one now but would like to know if in hindsight you would purchase the Q5 hybrid or just get the diesel? My wife is not a fan of diesel because of the smells we had with the A3 (really bad). So leaning towards the hybrid.

idale

The only time you should smell anything on the TDI is occasions where you get out while the regen cycle is still running (could feel heat coming from the underside, and there will be a "burning" smell).

Other than that it's just of course smelling fuel while filling the tank (but personally I much prefer the smell of diesel to petrol). Never noticed any smells at all while inside. Not having driven an A3, I can't really compare the Q5 to it to say if it's better or worse or what (not sure what smells you encountered when).

We do have a couple of hybrid owners around, so hopefully you should be able to get some info on how well that works. Are there any particular things you're looking for in comparing the two?

Maynerd

I recently purchased a CPO 2013 hybrid. It had about 12k miles when I bought it and I've put about 1k miles on it. Feel free to ask me questions and I'll do my best to answer.

BlackSVT

I have to say, I was pretty impressed with the diesel when I test drove it at the dealer last week. I had my 3.0T in for the 15k service & took the opportunity. There have always been "sensory" compromises, IMO, if you owned a diesel in the past, but Audi has done a damn good job on the Q5TDI to where it may be worth a look.

I personally still prefer the power delivery characteristics of a gas engine, and particularly the 3.0T > the TDI, but if you factor in MPG, the TDI has a lot going for it.

Coming back on topic...there are at least 2 that I know of on here w/hybrids that may be able to give some real-world feedback that a test drive may not uncover

Good Luck!

rudymon

Well THAT is what I love about this forum! I took my brand new TDI in to the dealer this week for exactly that issue... the smell of something burning and the heat coming from under the car after turning it off. One time the fan seemed to run for a long time as well. The service associate gave me some BS about the brakes getting hot and smelling ( I don't drive it that hard and had only driven it about 3 miles!) And after the tech looked at it he said, everything is fine no problem. I would have expected, and much preferred, a sound answer such as this which makes sense. No I have to go research the regeneration cycle and maybe educate my service department! Back on topic... I love my TDI... 800 miles on her and 1 trip to the fuel station thus far. I was exclusively shopping hybrids until I found this vehicle (and the bmw diesels) and feel like I didn't have to make the hybrid sacrifices...

rudymon

One other note of clarification... the burning smell has only occurred 1 time in 3 weeks.

idale

lol really, "brakes getting hot and smelling"? If your brakes smell like "burning" then you've really got problems! Of course it's the dealer so all bets are off on whether the particular service advisor knows anything or not.

The system gets hotter than holy hell from time to time to help burn off stuff in the DPF to avoid it getting clogged. If you drive a particular way such that you let the system heat up properly from driving then it may not need to run regen cycles, though I'm not sure. I've probably had regen running when I parked maybe 4 times or so in the ~7 months I've had the car, but it's hard to say how often it runs and for how long since it'll start while you're driving and if you drive long enough for it to finish then you won't necessarily know it was happening other than the start/stop wouldn't activate when it otherwise would have.

It used to be that if you turned off the car while regen was going, it'd stop the regen cycle and you'd be more at risk for DPF issues, but these days it'll keep running until the 15 minutes or whatever has elapsed so hopefully there should be less concern with the DPF (which used to be one of the big complaints with the TDI: DPF clogging and needing to be replaced).

It's definitely different, but at least I knew ahead of time that it would run regen from time to time. Still threw me the first time, though, since the smell was a lot more noticeable than I would've expected. But at least it's while you're walking away from the car so it's not something you'd have to "deal with" much. And only seems to happen (for me) every other month or so on average. I think my first experience with it was around 250mi in or so, so I wonder if it runs a cycle early on to help break in the system and then scales back to "as needed".

Hockeymonkey

Well I took both for a test drive and while the Hybrid had that new car fresh smell to it (same as the 2.0) the TDI did not smell bad but had a funny odor to it. Dealer pretended like he could not smell it. Wife noticed it right away and this is in a new car. Could it be the adblue odor that some have described as a cat smell? Either way however slight, it was a deal breaker. I also could not picture a regen cycle happening in the garage after I parked and stinking up our garage which is attached to the house.
The whole thing is just odd and I really surprised that more do not complain about diesel smells.

Q5 TDI

I found it quite the opposite - drove the 2.0 and the V6, then the TDI, I found the power deliver on the TDI much more immediate, never seems to strain, nice linear pull from any legal speeds at least.

MPG is a plus, other than the re-gen burn off, I've not experienced any unusual smells with the TDI. If the TDI were available on the SQ5, that would be the only other Q I'd consider buying.

rudymon

idale,

thanks... very helpful. I am certain this is what was going on... I do drive a lot of short stints of 10 mins or less during the week as my commute is very short. I must admit that I'm concerned now about the stinky garage syndrome myself... will be watching this to see if it's a problem. I certainly hope not because I, like just about all others, truly love this car... Oh well, maybe I will have to just find reasons to take longer trips in it