Audi SQ5 2020 review

I'm Tom Baker, this is Chasing Cars, and this outrageously blue SUV here with me is the Audi SQ5. Now, the SQ5 is one of these sports luxury crossovers that costs about $100,000 Australian dollars, and it competes with the Mercedes-AMG GLC 43 and the BMW X3 M40i. But unlike those vehicles, Audi doesn't make an even beefier version. There's no RS Q5. This is as good as it gets, and that's pretty good, as we're going to find out in today's video, because the SQ5's secret sauce is that it takes the great packaging and attractive appearance of the underlying Q5 and pairs it to a really torquey 3-litre turbocharged V6 engine under this bonnet with a rear-biased all-wheel drive system. And we're going to be checking out how much fun that is when we take the SQ5 out onto the road. But first, we'll have a look the interior and check out the practicality before going for a proper drive in Audi's sporty SUV. Jumping inside the SQ5 as the rain starts to come down, what's immediately evident is that this vehicle is still based on Audi's previous interior design language. It will be updated later this year, but as far as I'm concerned, the pre-facelift, i.e. this car, is going to be the way to go, because its interior is attractive and more functional than Audi's new interior design, which is based around touchscreens. This car still has the good old-fashioned rotary dial, which means you can interact with the technology on a bumpy road, which is very common in Australia, without your finger going all over the place. Let me know if you agree with that down below this video. However, that's not to say it isn't up to date, because the tech is very good. We have wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. The updated Q5 will get wireless CarPlay, I'm sure. But every SQ5 comes with this fully digital driver display here, the virtual cockpit, which is very good. You also get these quilted leather seats. They're nice. You can option in massaging, but as standard, they're electrically adjustable with memory and heating. The problem with them is they're not that comfortable over long distances, not for me at least, and that's unusual, because I usually like Audi seats, but these ones just gave me a bit of a backache, so the massaging function would probably fix that, actually. Nice creamy leather steering wheel with a very flat bottom. That's not to everyone's tastes, but I think it's pretty cool, and material quality in general is okay, but I'd call the soft-touch plastics on the door, like, fairly hard for soft-touch. But, hey, not everyone cares about that, as our commenters frequently inform me. In terms of practicality, it's okay. We've got a little bin here. Actually, interesting sliding wireless phone charger, two cup holders, perfect spot to put your hand sanitizer, wash your hands, little storage bit here, and this fairly useless tray ahead of the trackpad that everything falls out of. So, up front, it's pretty good. Let's check out the back seat. Here in the second row, the midsize Q5 is reasonably spacious. I'm six foot, and my headroom's really good, mainly because this car has the optional sunroof delete. So, as standard, you get a sunroof. If you want to bring down the centre of gravity a bit, you can get rid of it, just like in this car. However, that means that it feels a little bit dark in here, because we've got a black headliner, but the windows are at least nice and big and give a good view out. But, back to those dimensions. Legroom, it's okay. Sitting behind myself, no complaints. Toe room's pretty much unlimited. The bench itself is actually quite comfy, and I think I could sit on it for some time. In terms of amenities, it's relatively decent. So, we have a flip-down armrest. We've got cup holders. We also have air vents, adjustable temperature, two charge points, and a 12-volt socket, and those semi-soft plastics remain. What about in the boot? How much can you put in there? Coming around the back of the SQ5, and I think you'll agree with me that it is one of the car's best angles. You wouldn't say the designs out there are all that, you know, crazy, but in this paint colour, it certainly makes it more distinctive. But, I quite like the restrained elegance of Audi's exterior design anyway. I think it's a good-looking vehicle. It's also a practical one, because underneath this electric tailgate that opens up fairly promptly, we have 550 litres of space, which means it's class competitive, and it's a smart boot too, because we have this chrome finisher here, which means you're less likely to scratch that amazing turbo blue paintwork. We have a net to keep your delicates from rolling around. Two netted sides off to both sides of the boot as well. A cargo cover that gets out of your way. Takeaway hooks, and also, no underfloor storage. Just the space-saver spare wheel. It's nice to see it with a spare tyre, despite that, just in case you cop a puncture on one of those massive, standard 21-inch wheels. And we're going to be finding out just how well those 21-inch wheels fare, among other things, when we jump in and take the SQ5 out onto the road right now. So, let's take this bright blue SQ5 out for a bit of a drive, in what can only be described in an Audi brochure as Quattro weather. We've been having real wild weather here in Australia the last sort of three or six months. Drought, and then rain that never goes away, like now, which is a good thing. And it also means we have a good opportunity to try out the SQ5's main calling card, and that's its Quattro all-wheel drive system. Now, it's a totally different Quattro system to, like, an S3. Instead, here we have the Torsen all-wheel drive, which is more rear-biased than front-biased. So, 60-40, and you feel that in the way the car drives. It feels like a more short-footed version of a rear-drive wagon, and that's a good thing, as far as I'm concerned. And it actually makes the Q5, and the SQ5 in particular, quite pleasurable to drive, once you learn some of the quirks of its electrics, and I'll come back to that in a minute. But first, we'll talk about what's under the bonnet of the SQ5. And in Australia, it's the petrol version of this car, so a 3-litre turbocharged petrol V6, making 260 kilowatts of power and 500 newton-metres of torque. So, that's pretty class-competitive with, say, the BMW, which is the X3 M40i, which is 285 kilowatts and 500 newton-metres. So, this class of car is typically a 3-litre six-cylinder with those sorts of outputs. It's pretty close to the Benz as well. And this is a great powertrain. The engine feels really strong and flexible in various applications, and pin the throttle, and it makes good progress. Feels like about a five-second car, zero to 100 realistically to me. And here in the cabin, you get this really nice wobble that sounds more five-cylinder than six-cylinder, and that's because a fair chunk of it is artificial. But that said, it's a cool artificial noise, and I actually quite like listening to it. And outside the car, you do hear a decent raspy engine note, and also crackles and pops on the overrun if you have the engine sound in dynamic mode. And that leads me on to the fact there's a lot of preferences you can choose for setting up the dynamics of the car. Audi's custom individual mode lets you tailor it to your own tastes, and for me, I quite like the engine and the sound in dynamic. And unusually for me, I actually prefer the steering in dynamic as well. Of course, we have electric power steering here. If you've been a subscriber for a while, you'd know that I usually prefer comfort or, you know, slower and lighter steering. But in the Q5, the comfort steering has some strange effects, like when you're unwinding out of a corner, it just doesn't self-centre particularly naturally. But with the steering in dynamic mode, it's much better, and it's more predictable. There's not a huge amount of feel at all, but you track the line you put in. And that's helped by the fact we have really good Pirelli PZero tyres here, so there's loads of front-end grip, and then you can get into the throttle, and that nicely split and well-distributed all-wheel drive gets the traction, or gets the torque to the pavement, I should say, with good traction. Now, if you feed in the throttle really linearly, you can get little bits of rear-end slip, because we do have more torque to the rear than the front. But if you go really stabby, and you don't sort of respect the sensitivities of it, it just locks it all down, and you don't get any oversteer. So you have to be a little general, but it can be quite fun when you're probing the limits. This car also has the optional limited slip diff on the rear axle, and that too helps it be very, very sticky out of corners. It can reduce the lairiness a little bit, but overwhelmingly, the characteristic of the SQ5 is it's incredibly capable and fast. I think the BMW is definitely more characterful and a little more fun to drive, and a little bit more responsive underneath your right boot, but the Audi is just really surgical, you know? Like, it's like a scalpel through corners. It's a bit sort of idiot-proof in that you can drive this thing quickly, and you're not going to get into any of that trouble, given you've got lots of grip and lots of traction. In addition, the brakes are really good. But just back to that engine for a second, I mentioned it's a really good pairing to the gearbox. Unlike smaller Audis, we don't have a Volkswagen Group dual-clutch transmission here. We have a good old ZF torque converter auto, and it works really, really well. It feels just connected to your brain in terms of the shifts it offers up. So, you know, you just gently sort of feed in some brake into a corner, and it'll knock down one or two ratios really intuitively. It's in the right gear all the time, kicks down quickly. Pardon me, torque converter gearboxes have become so good, they might as well replace dual-clutches now in most cars, I think. And the engine's a good one too. You know, it's not especially characterful, it's just strong, punchy, torquey, and also reasonably efficient. In spirited touring, let's say, it'll do 10 litres per 100. In town, it'll use a bit more than that, and on the highway at a constant 100 or 110, it'll probably return sort of 7 to 8, which for the performance offer, I actually reckon is pretty good. It's also fairly refined. We've got really beefy Pirelli PZero tyres, so there's a bit of road noise, but it's not bad. And you can actually kill that engine sound basically altogether if you put it into comfort mode, makes it a much quieter car. Also playing into the refinement is the ride. We have the adaptive dampers in this car. You can go one better and go for the air suspension, and that's exactly what I would do, because the urban ride on the standard 21-inch wheels is pretty bad, to be honest. It's pretty choppy. You've got little kids in the back, they're not going to find it comfortable at all, so I'd go for the air, which will give you the best blend of sporty and tight when you want it, but nice and cushy and comfy when you're just cruising. And let's face it, it's a mid-size SUV. Cruising is what you're going to be doing most of the time. Visibility is good. Safety is good. We've got lane keep assist. We've got adaptive cruise, high-speed AEB, 360-degree camera, so that makes it easy to park. It's also not too big. It's not a gargantuan SUV, so you never feel like you're driving a bus. It's a good size, for sure. I just make sure I also test drove the Merc and the BMW to make sure I found the one that suited me best, and of course, the other car to consider is Audi's own S4 Avant, which is exactly the same power train, all the same oily bits, just in a sleeker, cooler station wagon body. So, those are our detailed thoughts about the 2020 Audi SQ5. This is a really easy SUV to like, because it's fast, it's fairly comfortable, it's very practical, and I think it looks really good, especially in this very brave specification that somebody at Audi Australia clicked the button on, and I wish more private buyers would do so as well, because you see the SQ5 all the time, you just probably haven't noticed it, because they're all grey in Australia, which is a shame. If I was buying the car, I'd make sure to click the button on adaptive air suspension, and there's also my little issue with the front seats, but apart from that, this is a really well-rounded vehicle that's well worth test driving. Now, let me know what you think about the SQ5 below the video. While you're down there, make sure to hit subscribe and the notification bell, and you'll never miss out on any of our great content, and as always, thanks for watching Chasing Cars.