DER KONIG PANZER

I love our 2012 Q5 2.0T (14K miles) but I hate the whine at low speeds (power steering pump, gear whine?), the stealer says all is normal.I have tried to find the source of the noise and can not. The heated seats need to have the TSB done and now the sun roof recall. I hate the whine sound. The other issues will be repaired, although I am concerned at how invasive the sun roof repair will be. That said what are your opinions on trading for a 2013 A6 2.0 quattro? My stealer does not have a 2.0 A6 in stock so I do not know if the whine is present in the A6. I have two other SUVs an X5 and GMC Denali so a car is not out of the question. The configured price of the 2013 A6 is around 50K, my Q5 was around 45.5K. So I am guessing trade would be $10-$13K with Audi loyalty.

ThunderDent

It's the turbocharger. That's what they do. The 2.0T in any engine (A6, allroad Q5) will all sound the same. The 3.0T engine (which is a misnomer, but the way Audi brands their engines), uses a supercharger instead of a turbocharger, and therefore, won't have the whine.

It's really not that bad, IMO (hence me getting an even bigger turbo installed), but everybody has different tolerances. Good luck!

UrbanExtant

The sunroof repair is done mostly from the outside of the car. My dealer friend printed me out the entire recall information packet sent to them, including complete instructions on how they do the replacement, what parts are included, etc. It's basically a set of screws, and a glass panel. Once the screws are removed, the panel lifts out from the car, and minimal work is done inside the car.

We have the whine you talk of in your 2.0T Q5, in our 2.0T A4. It's not the turbo, it's something else. I believe it to be power steering related. That, amongst other things, have made us decide to ditch the A4 for the new RS5.

JaXeN

LOL! Nice move!

Now if the RS5 has squeaky seats, you should consider ditching it and moving up to an R8 GT :-)

DER KONIG PANZER

I know it is not the turbo. I have owned turbos since the early 1980s. I have tried several times to locate the origin of the sound. It seems to be a gear whine. I will take the Q in for the heated seat TSB and the sun roof recall and if I am lucky the stealer will have a 2.0 A6 in stock I can test drive.

ThunderDent

I didn't consider the steering pump. That could very well be whar you are hearing if you know it's not the turbo. You can hear that on mine only occasionally as well.

g8tor20

It's certainly the steering pump. It drives me bonkers. Such a nice car but horribly engineered steering pump.

I've had Audi look at it twice including a regional tech.

It's the power steering and its normal. All Q5s (at least the 2.0s) have it. Some may just be louder than others. Mine is a 2012 and I've had it for 10 months. Still bothers me. Was hoping to get used to it by now. Have to have the radio up when slowing down to a stop.

I even asked the dealer to pin point where its coming from so I could try and dynomat it. They could not pin point it. Only wave the hand in the general direction of the noise. :slaps forehead:

DER KONIG PANZER

I checked the pump. It almost sounds like gear whine. It could be the cavitation of the pump. I have dynamt left from my Junkxus RX 350 lining I could try some. The issue is heat dissipation from the pump body if I cover it. I will have to try some dynamt on the fire wall and see if that helps. I really want to drive the A6 2.0 to see if it has the same issue. Audi should know how to engineer the sound out of the pump!

johncaravello

2013 MY will not have that problem. Pump is gone...electric power steering is in.

g8tor20

It is definitely connected with the gears as well as the sound varies with the RPMs. So...as the car downshifts as you come to a stop, the awful sound fluctuates and the annoyance factor increases.

I was told it was the power steering pump but, as you mentioned, it could be some other part of the steering system.