Performance and 0-60mph time
Audi’s current stock of drivetrains is superb across the board, thus the four-cylinder engines that make up the bulk of the Q5 range are perfectly acceptable. The manual-only 148bhp 2.0 TDI takes 10.8 seconds to sprint to 62mph and tops out at 118mph, but stepping up to the 175bhp iteration lops almost two seconds off the benchmark sprint (9.0 seconds dead, whether manual or S-Tronic) and ups the top speed to 127mph (124mph S-Tronic). The petrols record 0-62mph times of 8.5 seconds to 6.7 seconds (for the Tiptronic 222bhp), while the 3.0 TDI is impressively pacy and might make you wonder why you’d bother with the SQ5. It does 0-62mph in 6.5 seconds, more than quick enough for most needs, while top speed is a healthy 140mph.
The Q5 weighs anything from 1720- to 1860kg (the SQ5 is 1920kg), with the only weight penalties coming from your choice of gearbox – the Tiptronic adds 35kg to the 2.0 TFSI and the S-Tronic 175bhp 2.0 TDI is 65kg heavier than the manual. What makes the Q5 such a pleasant performer range-wide is a set of broad torque curves – all models have torque plateaus of hundreds, if not thousands of rpm at low revs. This means the meat of their performance is easily accessed and as none of them makes a horrendous noise when being extended, you can’t really go wrong with any Q5 powerplant when it comes to refinement and power delivery.
