Headlights
 

I read a critisizm of the SQ5 that the headlights were not so great. Having driven 7k in mine, and frequently at night through unlit back country two lane roads, I'm sorry to say I agree, if I had to pick one thing about my car that's sub - par, it's the LED headlights. The quality of the light in terms of color and the brightness is really pretty lame IMHO.
At the same time, it's no so bad I'm gonna start sticking extra lights on the vehicle but I would love to hear about any upgades that could be done internally such as swapping out the diodes if anyone has done that.

I agree they're not as good as even some previous year Audis with projector xenons but overall I find them adequate. Definitely not enough for me to open the lights. There are a few OBDeleven mods though you can do that may help them work out better for you.

The first one is highway driving lights which adjust the lights at 68mph to provide an additional 230ft of visibility.

The second is fog lights on with high beams, self explanatory.

If you have no interest in OBDeleven you could probably get the dealer to turn those options on if you asked for it. I think it's a worthwhile investment, there's so many tweaks that can be done that makes you wonder why they weren't enabled by default at the factory.

Wow that's great info I had no idea about the driving lights and I bet that would make the difference. I thought the SQ5 came without forward facing fogs though....the things I initially thought were fogs turned out to be radar for pre-sense, cruise control etc.

I haven't been able to find anywhere that this mod is applicable to the b9. Have you tried and verified it really works? Above 68mph is also very limited use to some of us. I'd like a greater brightness in my 35 -65 mph range where deer are a constant possibility.

Having fog lights on with high beams is not always a good idea. They create a lot of foreground light and you want distant light for high beams

I agree, not as bright as I'm used to with hid but havnt found any reason to go modifying them yet

No I haven't tested this yet but it does come up as applicable to my B9's VIN. I usually try to see if I can find out how to do the mod with adaptations instead of spending credits first and just really haven't gotten around to doing it yet. I'll check it out tonight.

Also, the fogs on the B9 SQ5 are basically the cornering lights, built into the headlights. The beam patterns really don't give much in the way of forward distance, more like side and side-ground level lighting. Forward facing fogs you're right, it might create too much foreground lighting but I really don't see the corner lighting interfering much with forward vision unless in really dense fog. And in that case you'd have the high beams off anyway.

Yep, that is true. Where the fogs would be on previous models are ACC radar on the B9 SQ5. They look like black globes. The SQ5's "fogs" are in the headlights. They're the same ones that come on when you're turning at slow speeds at night.

Do the all weather lights have a negative effect on oncoming traffic? Only time I turned them on, I had a car wildly flashing their brights at me as if I had my brights on, but I didn't.

Problem is the usa is way behind the Europe on headlight standards. HID is great but getting phased out for more energy efficient Led. Laser is just now coming into the somewhat mainstream but I don't expect to see it in the states for at least 5 years. Matrix lights solve that problem as well but still not legal here

What he said. The fog lights just mess up your night vision which is counter productive. LED's tend not to have as much light output. What I can say is the Audi LED's in my '18 are "good -> fair" for low beams. My '16 BMW is "poor -> death" for light output. Those are like driving in 1920 with candles for headlights.

Others have mentioned turning up (angle wise) of the headlights to make them cast further down the road which has given good success (haven't tried it though).