gagethrash

Yikes! My black exterior, black interior A4 was an oven today in the heat. My back is still drenched with sweat from the drive home. I love that my black interior is so easy to keep clean (surprising considering my black exterior is the opposite), but man does it get hot!

Since I plan to move into a Q5 TDI as soon as possible, I was curious about the chestnut brown seats. At my job I've parked a Q5 TDI that had them and they look rich, classy, and demure. For those who have experience with this interior, what is the level of upkeep and heat attraction when compared to black?

SJGQ5

My 15 TDI has the Chestnut interior with non-ventilated sport seats..My previous car(06 Lexus IS350) had black leather interior and with ventilated seats for A/C as well as heated.

I had a few days of sweaty back syndrome (SBS) with the chestnut seats this summer. I don't recall having SBS with the black, ventilated seats…

So I think the ventilation is more important than the color.

Q5 Bob

Both of our cars have tinted windows (legal levels for both) and it really helps to keep the cabin cool as well as helping to cool things down quicker when the cars are started and AC on.

MP4.2+6.0

Net, okay, but not great. Have the brown interior w/ sport seats.

As mentioned already, I think things like (legal) window tint including the pano roof if you have it and the paint color (more so if you don't have the pano roof) are greater factors than the seat color from brown to black.

When we first got the car on Euro delivery, both my much more fit adult daughter and I noticed the seats actually get kind of hot on extended drives even w/ comfortable interior A/C temps. There is no seat ventilation in a Q5 w/ sport seats for starters, but the upholstery or foam material seems quite dense or otherwise has some consistency that retains more heat than other vehicles we own, Audi's included. I do have ventilated seats in the A8, but Audi ventilated seats are nothing special--not much more than a cheap pancake fan blowing a small amount of ambient air into the perforated sections of upholstery. Those are lighter baseball mitt tan color (Amaretto), but a notch cooler than the Q5 and especially without the same sensation of lots of retained heat in the upholstery itself.