bigpuns

Good afternoon all,

I'll be ordering my new q5 shortly, done a bit of reading around and I haven't found a definitive answer to this, so see if anyone here knows for sure:

What diffs does the Q5 come with: torsen, haldex, crown etc? And are they for all diffs or just centre, rear etc?

I know it doesn't make a whole deal of difference, but I just moved back to the north of England, with off road and bad weather driving being likely, so the peace of mind of crown gear diffs would be good.

For clarity, I will be getting q5 s-line plus, no extras, UK model.

Many thanks,

Puns

Don Keener

The center dif in a Q5 is a Torsen. The front are rear are opens.

MP4.2+6.0

Front and rear are open with EDL--brake based help. Haldex is basically the transverse motor set up, while Q5 is longitudinal Torsen like everything from A4 up.

bigpuns

Ah well, can't have everything I guess. Is there a reason the crown gear isn't on the Q5 (other than cost I'm guessing)?
I don't know much about this sort of stuff, like I'm not too sure why the multitronic gear box and Quattro systems are not compatible. Clearly, cleverer people than me work on this stuff!

lja36

Actually I wouldn't be so quick to conclude that the current Q5 does not have the crown gear diff instead of the torsen. I did spend weeks and weeks digging and came up empty on a definitive document on what's on a Q5. I even asked the dealer to show me the part number of the center diff and amazingly, it doesn't even say... The center diff is apparently fused into the gearbox and thus unidentifiable.

I have my suspicions that there is indeed a crown gear diff in there, but do not have anything concrete to prove it.. Certain torsen characteristics (such as wind up on full steering lock) is absent.

All of the internet data apparently quotes a single article, which in turn does not cite its source.

bigpuns

Interesting...

Do Audi have a tech department that could be emailed for a definitive answer?

DennisMitchell

I did quick Google search...

per Kris Hansen article in Audiworld:
"The Q5 received several significant drivetrain changes for the 2013 model year. First of which is the change from the old Torsen center differential to Audi’s proprietary in-house designed Crown Gear center differential (on S tronic models only, Tiptronic continues to use the Torsen differential). This differential is smaller and lighter, and while still fully mechanical, allows for more subtle torque distribution tuning, as well as allowing mechanical lockup thanks to a set of clutches, which are also fully automatically engaged, and fully mechanical."

First Drive: 2013 Audi Q5 - AudiWorld

So will you have the S tronic transmission in UK?

bigpuns

Hi, thanks for that, I'm getting the 2.0TDI s-tronic. I saw that article, which looked promising, but didn't seem to backed up by much else out there. I would ask the dealer, but I don't suspect he will be any use!
Like I say, not gonna influence my buying decision, but now I really just want to know!

lja36

while waiting for my Q5 to arrive, I borrowed 2 different S4s for a week each, one with the torque vectoring sport differential and one without. The one without had the very annoying torsen wind up on full steering lock, something that has been on torsen audis forever. The one with the sport diff could make full lock turns very smoothly. Given my understanding of torque vectoring systems and torsen, I suspect that they are a incompatible combination, hence Audi is fitting 2 different diffs in the S4 depending on what options are selected. Given this observation, I further suspect that because the Q5 has electronic torque vectoring and the fact that it doesn't wind up on full lock, it does indeed have the crown gear diff.

Furthermore, there are youtube videos showing how older audis can be tricked into spinning its wheels in futility because the torsen is a torque multiplier and 3 X 0 = 0... A more recent youtube video with the SQ5 shows that it can no longer be tricked in the same way.. The crown gear diff is actually dumber than the torsen, but then it relies on the electronic systems for the control whereas the torsen relied entirely on itself because back in 1988 you barely even had anti lock brakes on many cars.

So, no, not conclusive at this point, but some counterpoints to go against that one article with no citations.

Oh ya, I also wrote to Audi to ask them... They gave me the name of a dealer near me and of course that dealer completely ignored the question... My regular dealer tells me that Audi has gotten more and more secretive in recent times. Hard core technical info is very hard to come by these days, even the mechanics complain about lack of info.

bigpuns

+1 for that comprehensive response, thanks! Sounding good so far, but it also sounds like I might never know for sure...