Wife is looking at the 2016 SQ5 and we have some concerns over the 2016 being mfg'd/assembled in Mexico now vs. the 2015. Do I need to worry or should we go with a leftover 2015?? Any help is appreciated.

Reason we're concerned is we had the 1st gen Jetta (MKIV) that was built in Mexico and we had a few issues.

 

2016 SQ5/Q5 is still made in Germany.

 

Great to know, thank you. I thought I read something that they were going to be assembled in Mexico??

 

They will be, starting with the new redesigned Q5/SQ5, which will be the 2017 model year, at the earliest.

That Mexican factory won't be ready until second half of 2016...

Audi plant in Mexico closes in on 2016 start of production | Audi USA

 

If you only had "a few issues" with your Mexican Mk4 then you were pretty lucky... the Brazilian Mk4s were the "good ones" because they only had a few issues, while the Mexican ones had a lot of issues. We've still got my wife's Brazilian 2004 Golf TDI and it's been... okay. Definitely has had issues, but at least not the horror story of all the Mexican instances back when I still followed the 'Tex (if only peripherally since I was on ClubB5 as a B5.5 Passat owner). I'm hoping that QC's gotten much better in the last decade, as well as that Audi'll keep a closer eye on things than VW had been, or ensure there's a better cultural interaction, or whatever it is that'll end up with good quality output from the factory. (I haven't heard as many horror stories with the Mk7s, so hopefully things are decent on the VW side, and hopefully Audi can learn from VW's few decades in Puebla.)

But as Pete's mentioned, it'd be MY2017 (or later) when Puebla would come online. It's calendar year 2016, not model year 2016, but articles tend to not mention that distinction and it confuses people. Keep in mind as well that the S models aren't always available the first year of a new generation (or at least not for the US market), so there may be a gap in SQ5 availability when the generation changes over.

I'd expect to see a flurry of activity once Puebla's up and running and once people start getting vehicles from there. I really hope that the quality will be good, but new platform, new factory, new supply chain, different country/culture, lots of places for issues to come in. It'll be something for us all to keep an eye on.

 

Thanks idale - good intel

 

I see potential big issue(s) there, complete re-design for 2017 and assembly in Mexico.
Probably that is why Audi sells a lot of Q5 recently. August marks the best sell ever in US for Q5.

 

Hope they remember to leave a big hole in the wall so that the Q's can drive thru it...

 

Yeah, but don't forget that Jettas and Golfs are *still* made in Mexico, and are just fine. The problem back in "the day" was one of quality control. VW learned a lot about what to do (and what not to do) from those days. I worked at a VW dealership in that era, and we heard horror stories about what they had to do at port to fix cars.. then again, they still do that today with cars coming in from Germany.

 

I have a somewhat related question to the redesigned Q5/SQ5 being built in Mexico.

I'm considering a SQ5 or a S4 in the next few years and have thought about doing the European delivery option for a nice vacation overseas. I'm assuming if the SQ5 start being built in Mexico that European delivery is pretty much a non-option?