Waggin

https://stealthhitches.com/
Since they're only 15 miles from home, I took the car to them on Monday to determine if they had anything that fit. The mountings match one they had for the A4 Allroad. (Mounts between bumper beam flanges and body)
Brought it to them today. and they finished the job. They had to make new mounting plates that hold the coupling block to place it flush with the bottom of the valence.

They also included a ball mount and my choice of square receivers (I picked 1.25")

With the ball mount installed, it sets off the rear park assist alarm every time I put the car in reverse. I tried unchecking the "Activate Automatically" item in MMI, but it still activates every time I put it in reverse. I can turn it off with the button, and it remains off until I reverse again, so I turned the alert volume down. It will be annoying of I have to do a lot of maneuvering..

-- Can someone else try disabling auto park assist activation? Turn off activate automatically in park assist settings and see if it still turns on when you put it in reverse. This feels like another bug to me.

The trailer does not set off rear pre-sense or lane change assist.

Photos:
With folded trailer. (I need to turn off the foot hatch activation.. I accidentally opened and closed it about 5 times while hooking the trailer up.. Or, leave the key fob far enough away to avoid it.)

UPDATE: When they installed it, they moved the front foot antenna wire back behind the hitch, placing it about 4" further back and that much closer to the rear antenna. This ended up making it far too sensitive for me.
I moved the antenna back into it's original mounts, and looped the center between the hitch block and body, held with a pair of 3M command hooks on either side. This means that the foot opener doesn't work in the center, but is fine on either side. (I rarely use it anyway.)




Came with these attachments:


Closer. The hole in the valence is NOT visible unless you get down on the ground. The bottom of the ball is 15" off the ground. 16" would have been perfect, but this is close enough.


I'll load the bike on it later (1030 lbs total) later in the week and see how it handles. I didn't have any issues towing it with my A3, so the S5 shouldn't have a problem.

A pair of shots without the hitch, from about 30 feet back, slightly uphill. Left side: Sitting on a curb, about 3-4' above car ground level Right side, standing, maybe 7' above car's level.
Yes, the cutout and chain plates are visible, but it's all pretty well hidden in shadow.


And, loaded up.. Only times the bike is going on the trailer is for testing like this, and if I have to haul it to the dealer to get fixed. Also works for moving large, and long loads.
Feels better than it did with my A3 Sportback, and no rattling due to receiver slop.
The vertical tube on the trailer tongue holds a small winch setup that I can use to pull the bike onto the trailer if it won't start.

N8!

Cool.

I've seen smaller cars pulling horse trailers on the autobahn, so I imagine you'll have zero problems pulling a motorbike on that trailer.

Yoshimura

Please post pics without the ball mount.

Waggin

Added comparison shot to original post, low, and high angle.

dereitz

Thank you for sharing! This is fantastic, and now I'm wondering if I could find a local shop that would be willing to do this for me in the Charlotte, NC area.

wam22

The automatic activation is if you are pulling forward, it will turn on the parking sensors. You would deactivate this feature if you do a lot of driving in bumper to bumper traffic. This setting does not control the back up camera, so there is not a bug. Audi has to design these towards the majority of the users, not the 0.1% who are putting on trailer on a sportback. Also I believe it is a US law or regulation that if the car is equipped with a back up camera and the car is in reverse, the camera has to automatically activate.

Rob O

In our 2018 SQ5 equipped with factory "tow package", there are a few settings I've noticed related to when a trailer is attached (which it can also auto detect when a trailer is connected). One of those settings related to park assist features ... Although I've not looked at the manual for this particular setting to see what it does.

Waggin

Next time I take the car in for service, I'll ask them to check if the S5 has the same trailer settings as the Q5. If so, it may be possible to adapt the trailer interface controller to it. Or, wait for Westfalia to come up with instructions for the S5/A5/

Waggin

Stealth sells through dealers across the country, so I assume they can order one.. IF Stealth saved the design info for the S5's mounting plates, and add this car to their catalog..

Price was a bit steep, $570 (with $50 discount for offering my car to the design process) and $180 for the install.)
I probably would have ended up paying the same for a Westfalia hitch, with no guarantee that it would fit

Yoshimura

Thanks for the pics!