ronsal

Having read Floridaman100's post #38 under GC500's "My Brand New 2018 SQ5 - In Shop........," I was going to respond to Floridaman100. But then I thought that a separate thread might be more appropriate - GC500's thread had to do with his particular car and his trials and tribulations and what he is trying to do to get his car repaired. Floridaman100's addition to the conversation had to do with Audi as a brand, and the Q5 specifically - different issue.
My response will be a quick summary of the december 2018 issue of CR.
Their universe was 500,000 responses from readers over the 2016, 17, and 18 cars - filling out a detailed questionnaire highlighting both subjective and objective areas of satisfaction and dissatisfaction with their cars. I do not know how many Q5's and SQ5's were in the survey. I do know that CR has a floor under which they won't include cars if not enough responses - they want their comments to have statistical significance. (As an aside, I am writing to CR and asking them for the # of Q5 and SQ5's in their sample - will report back if an answer comes..)
One of the reasons I wanted to bring this to the attention of readers of this site is because of the "rash" of problem engines which seemed to have peaked about a month or so ago. Many of the posters took shots at the engines, while others questioned the new Mexican assembly plant. The theme some of these posters had in common, was that there was a systemic problem with the 2 cars. Luckily, there were also voices of reason to explain that a handful of cars with even the same problem, doesn't make for a "bad" model.
Well folks, it looks like we really do have a car(s) which in fact are more trouble free than the average, and that there do not seem to be any major areas of concern.
First, the engine. CR spent a part of the article explaining the what's and how's and why's of the focus of turbo engines. In the body of the article, Jake Fisher, CR's head of auto testing singled out Audi..."Audi has been building turbo engines since the 1980's and our survey data shows its 2.0-liter turbo engineS (cap mine for emphasis) have been reliable." On the next page where they have their graph (and CR is nothing if not the user of pretty graphics), they graph both the 2 and 3 liter turbo engines as being highly reliable....in fact there are no manufacturers with a better record - although there are some who do score the same.
As for Audi as a brand. Last year they were the 4th most reliable brand in the survey. This year they are ranked 7th. Looking at the rankings, I can't tell if Audi slipped, or if Subaru and Mazda improved enough to displace Audi - at any rate, 7th out of 29 brands.
Their results included 6 Audi models. The least reliable Audi was the A3, and the most reliable.......drum roll, if you please, was, .......YES.......the Q5.
Does this tell us anything about an individual specific car? Of course not. But if someone wants a very general overview of whether they should have a good or bad car, CR does a credible job of surveying the available vehicles out there, without any gnawing feeling as to an axe to grind, or a payoff to make them look good.
All that said, I do hope GC500 gets straightened out in any way that satisfies him. He seems to be playing by the book and to me, at least, has the patience of Job.

tron1982x

Thanks for posting, I read this too. I bought my Q5 in July, have 4k miles on it so far, and it's been nothing less than fantastic. I traded in a 2012 Infiniti G37x so I was a little afraid moving to a 4-cylinder, but I wanted all the options (Prestige, Hot/Cold, etc.) and you can't find SQ5's in RI/MA with anything more than the Premium Plus package. Whenever I hit the highway I select S mode and I'm more than satisfied with it, plus I love the jump from 19MPG (G37x) to ~25MPG!

My only dissatisfiers are with the seats (they're ok but harder than previous vehicles), and when you're backing up and quickly go from R to D sometimes it takes a second for the car to move forward. All of my previous vehicles were Nissan/Infiniti so I was a little tentative moving to a new brand, but my gosh I do love this car.

P.S. You should add some line breaks, I was getting lost in it...

ribeye

From what I have read about the engine problems, this is something that will happen shortly after you leave the dealer. From my reading in that forum, they all seem to happen under 1000 miles.

Also: OK, it's not just me. I think there is a slight delay shifting the car into any gear and then trying to go from R to D and make a quick get away, is annoyingly long. Sometimes I think I did not shift it right and try again and again. and yes, the seats are hard.

Zeus69

Thanks very much for posting this. Floridamans reply in that other thread was nonsense, based on a "hunch" (built in Mexico, so probably inferior) and no facts to back up his claim.

samchuang33

Thx for sharing OP. Great to know what we have all made a good choice.

Any link where we can all read a bit more about this?

ronsal

Yup.
A short while back when there were the incidents with the engines going bad, and a few posts about the "inferiority" of the Mexico assembly plant being a major part of the reason(s), a few respondents familiar with both Ingolstadt and the Mexican plant explained the SIMILARITY between the 2. My gut feel is that the majority of the users of this site, by a very wide margin, would be very satisfied with the quality of construction.............
There will ALWAYS be problem vehicles, but they seem to be outriders. And the nagging problems that seem to keep cropping up i.e, the top view camera on prestige models, opening tail gates etc. are design related, not from shoddy construction.

ronsal

Consumer Reports Dec 2019
I think you need a paid subscription for the online version. My quotes were from the mailed hard copy subscription.

Peter John

Also worth mentioning the thousands of users in the UK who drive the MkII Q5 who are satisfied or not satisfied who do not know about this forum, if you get my gist.

tron1982x

A good example is last night. I was on a dark road in NH and needed to turn around, so I took a left and then quickly backed up onto the road. The transition from R to D was annoyingly long and I was thinking to myself "What if a car came out of nowhere?" My car isn't one I would use for a bank robbery, that's for sure.

I wish there was a solution for the seats. Maybe my butt is just big but it rubs against the left part of the seat and after a long trip my left foot becomes a bit numb. ?!?!?!

ArvX147

I have an S5 with the same engine as the SQ5, and a 2018 Q5 with the 2.0t - both cars have been rock solid for 12k mi and 9k mi respectively.

Audi has sold 55,000 Q5/SQ5 this year alone so far. An issue that affects 0.1% of cars (1 in 1000) will have 55 examples an issue that is actually a big problem will affect over 500 cars

The point of the above stats is just to demonstrate that the forum would be rife with posters and threads about a given problem that is systemic. It has happened on older audi models - The B8 S4 audizine board had hundreds of threads on water pump failures in the first 2 model years of that car.