So if you use jackstands at the pinch weld, you actually place the stands longitudinally on either side of the pinch weld?

As a floor jack adapter, I've been using the eastwood version which has worked well so far - http://www.eastwood.com/floor-jack-a...odel-cars.html

Not sure I would use that jack sideways, that does not look that safe. Get some flat top jack stands.

was just reading the audi specs (online) again and remembered this thread. Online it seems to note that though the tow rating is 4400, the tongue weight is only 440lbs?

i'm not an expert at towing physics, but if it's not a typo (for 4400lbs), might mean the hitch isn't as robust in the vertical direction as we might think?

Way different subjects...
 

If basic shear load on a trailer hitch were 440 pounds, you would be quickly dumping your trailer all over the roadside. Dynamic momentary forces can far exceed that.

The tongue weight has much more to do with the design weight they factored in to the rear suspension. A Q5 is basically a jacked up car/tall wagon underneath, so it isn't going to have a stouter truck type suspension. Another way to get at it is the typical well balanced tongue on a trailer will be around 10% of the loaded trailer overall weight, which also ties off to the total permitted tow weight pretty well.

In plain English, I've jacked up many a minivan with similar weight in back to the Q5, and those are typically rated at 250-300 pound tongue weights. It's the stoutness of the class II type hitches that are bolted into the rear frame/bumper rails that maters here, not the particular tongue weight spec.

Also, for the same reasons you can't use a weight distribution hitch on the Q5, you should probably not use the hitch as a jacking point.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.aud...aafed2da15.png
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.aud...795c1a7681.jpg
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.aud...181b412973.jpg
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.aud...a37ee17ffa.jpg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.aud...be4dee1194.jpg

I figured I'd comment about this because I ran into these problems when trying to change the brakes on my wife's 2012 Audi Q5. Basically, I think the OEM jack we had was defective because no matter how you placed it, perfectly at the jacking point and 90 degrees, the jack screws would wind up cutting into the fiberglass siding at the jacking point (up by front tire well) as the vehicle was being raised. So I needed to use my regular old Craftsman trolley jack, but ran into the problem with the welded seams. The OEM jack was made to straddle the welded seam, however if you tried to use a standard floor jack placed at the jacking point, you'd just wind up folding over the welded seam. Not good.. don't want that. So I needed some sort of adapter. There were some adapters online, but appeared to have some safety concerns. I also saw that some people had used a hockey puck and cut a slot in it to straddle the seam. Well, I found a Harbor Freight hack that worked pretty well using their 4" castor wheel (item 61760). Basically, I removed the wheel from the bracket and cut a slot into it using a regular hand saw. I used it as my jack adapter and it worked great. I definitely put some jack stands under there also though for safety. Anyway, I was able to change my wife's rotors and pads for $180 bucks rather than the $792 that the dealer wanted.