Colleague Martin Vaculík from the World of Engines briefly tried “our” long-tested Audi Q5 40 TDI. The shorter his experience was, the more he wrote down, he insulted half of the discussants and all the inhabitants of Brno. If you want to have a good night’s sleep, you better not read on!
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With the Audi Q5 in an interesting configuration with the new 2.0 TDI EVO (150 kW) – designation 40 TDI, and air suspension, I was brought together by chance. It remained abandoned in the editorial garage just that evening, when I was picking up a friend from Brno at the train station. It is surprising, but even in this western Asia, successful people live today. And today, when they have a second child on the road at almost peasant age, they have to sell Superb Combi and buy VW Multivan. And when, in addition, they have to make it by a deadline due to taxes, and it must already be a model with the new Euro 6 AP engine, it has proved to be an unsolvable problem for Czech and Moravian dealers. The chip crisis, supplies are stalled, you’ve probably heard of it.
Probably the only dealer who was able to offer a choice of about fifteen new or demonstration multivans at the beginning of this summer was Skoda und Nutzfahzeug-Zentrum Finkenberg, just behind Hannover.
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For a mulcher with a new engine
The plan was clear – we would leave Beroun in the morning, we would be there at noon, and we would choose the best Multivan. I will make sure that the dealer does not push us an even older engine with emissions according to Euro 6 DG, because the new one with a particulate filter moved just behind the turbocharger, a pair of EGR valves (when most of the work is done by the big one dirty), double dosing of urea, a larger AdBlue tank and Bosch injection instead of Delphi, is in my opinion significantly better not only in terms of ride but also in terms of expected reliability. A friend transfers the money, stays in a hotel and the next day drives a new family stagecoach. And I will go back that afternoon, because I have not yet agreed on current social trends and I prefer to sleep with my wife than with a friend.
Audi Q5Better than an electric car
At 1,200 km, the Audi Q5 seemed a decent chunk in one day than gas Dacia Duster 1.0 TCE or electric Volkswagen ID.3, which currently form a fleet of long-term tests in the World of Engines. Furthermore, the auto.cz is here, for a few seconds I forgive them even the discussants who spit on me wherever I appear.
I never drove a second-generation Q5 – I just didn’t care. I understand buyers of SUVs of premium brands even less than I do with discussants on auto.cz, so I only test them on the written order of my direct superior. At the beginning, however, the impressions are similarly positive as Marin Machala wrote – that is, the assistant in the lane management, which when you turn it off, will remain so after the next start. Heating with palpable controls, driving modes that also remain on after the next start and do not always fall on the default Normal.
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And I’m furious
However, right at the D5 turn, I have my first outburst of rage. The car starts to vibrate, some of the wheels are clearly crooked. I swear at idiotic colleagues, from whom someone went through a hole, until the compartments flew inside, and in order not to get a disk for twenty thousand to pay, he does nothing. Crooked wheels are a plague, especially for second-hand cars, half of the people do not know at all how quietly and comfortably the model should ride. But a few kilometers away, I apologize to my colleagues in spirit. The wheel was not crooked, but I recognized the fundamental vices of pneumatic suspension with electronically adjustable shock absorbers (this is especially the case). At the beginning of the D5, the road workers managed to conjure a regular wavy line a few years back when laying the new surface. You won’t feel it at all in a car with mechanical shock absorbers whose rigidity is sufficient for the required driving stability and grip. However, the electronic ones will soften completely on a flat surface to conjure up the charismatic swaying that users have loved so much. Small irregularities are then enough for the wheels to oscillate. And for some reason, the electronics will not respond to small oscillations by the desired “tightening” of the dampers.
Audi Q5So we calm down
During the second day, I also find that I rejoiced prematurely in those driving modes. Yes, the last one chosen remains, but in a kind of trimmed version. So the settings for steering, cruise control, chassis or lights do, but the drive settings fall into the standard. If you want the transmission to sail, you must select Efficiency mode again after each start.
However, the pneumatic suspension only makes me happy. Both on German motorways and before, when due to the usual morning traffic disaster on the D5 and the decades unfinished northern part of the Prague ring road, I have to fight my way through the Kladno and other Kotěhůlky, ie roads full of potholes. The small regular wavy lines on the D5 are probably something for Audi, just like the BMW paving for BMW in the early 1990s – they are missing from the test site and should be replenished.
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Bottom weakness
I will immediately jump to the fact that I returned home in very good condition. The seats of the S-Line version with retractable seats are in my taste, the car is quiet, the Bose audio system plays jazz and blues nicely, which I stream from Spotify via Android Auto. But I don’t like the engine. When the tuners needed to get 150 kW and 400 Nm from a two-liter diesel with only one turbocharger, which is preferred today due to enough space for catalytic systems, they could not avoid the harsh characteristics. When due to CO emissions2 must have a lot of long gears, so the car completely lacks the ability to accelerate to the last one. Seven is simply a maintenance and every step of the gas is accompanied by immediate downshifting. And I’m old school – I try to squeeze the gas on the highway just so that the engine “grabs” it for the last gear, because such a ride is smoother. But here I give up after a while – if I accelerated so slowly, they would think behind me that I was doing it on purpose.
Audi Q5The dual coupling is a disadvantage today
By immediately downshifting by one gear, the car prepares the ground for a quick response if I stepped on the throttle even more. The DSG dual-clutch transmission (called the S-Tronic at Audi) can shift quickly and imperceptibly, without interrupting traction, but with only one gear. The DSG was famous for its dynamic and fast reaction, for example, at a time when the Superb II was spinning at six at 130 km / h at 2,700 rpm. When the gas was depressed, it immediately downshifted to five, which it had already prepared on the second shaft. It was enough to cover the couplings. And the speed soared to 3300 rpm, at which the diesel was already close to its maximum power. In particular, the Superb II with the engine code CBBB (the one with aluminum intake, pizao-injectors and swirl flaps from 2008 to 2010, not to be confused with the later CFGB) thus achieved dynamics on highways that did not correspond to the stated 125 kW. However, at a time of emission-related transfers, the VW Group’s bet on dual-clutch transmissions becomes a major disadvantage from its former advantage. At 130 km / h, for example, today’s car spins only 1,900 rpm, for proper acceleration the machine must downshift by two gears. That is, from seven to five, which is on the same shaft. It is thus necessary to interrupt the thrust and engage the same as with the manual transmission, so that the driver feels a delay and swears that it is not working. Q5 tries to prevent this by preventively downshifting to six at the first sight of the throttle (and on the second shaft hastily prepares five), but I would still take the six-cylinder to Q5 just because of that transmission. This is always connected to the Tiptronic transmission, which is a great eight-speed hydrodynamic automatic ZF 8HP, which has no problem without shifting the stroke easily from eight to four when you give it a floor.
So the verdict: An excellent car, in which, however, the dull lower band of the high-performance turbodiesel combines unhappily with the regular features of the DSG transmission.
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