Edd W

As far as I know, fitting the roof bars has no interaction with any of the cars systems. The shallow holes act simply as sockets for a small lug on the inner clamping leg of the roof bar supports and there is no sign of any method of detecting that the bars are fitted.

In reality, even fully loaded 220lbs is insignificant on a vehicle with the mass of a Q7 and as for detecting changes on the suspension load - all it can tell is the deflection due to extra weight added and compensate for that.

uberwgn

There are switches built into the roof rails.




From Owner's Manual, 2014 Q5:

uberwgn

The new Q7s have this feature as well. I don't see it on the Q3.

Jayhawk94

This is a subforum for the 4L Q7 - it muddies the discussion to reference other model lines here.

GTPlus

I doubt there are switches in the roof rails. The modern ESC systems would not need switches to determine the COG of the vehicle. An estimation can be made for loading via the ESC sensors.


Edit: So I looked a little further into this. Seems in 2009 the Q5 had a sensor, a hall sensor in the rail that backed off the ESC program when it sensed a magnet from the factory rack. though I see no mention of this system in the Q7.

uberwgn

Jayhawk94

That's a Q5 and belongs here or here.
This is a Q7 subforum.