Capsule Review: Audi Q7 TDI

Martin Schwoerer
by Martin Schwoerer

First, the upsides. When I helped a pal who owns a kindergarten schlep some cinder blocks, I got unprecedented, appreciative smiles from a group of young mothers (I disapprove of porno jargon, so I won’t use the term “MILF”, but you know what I mean). I was expecting to see a lot of hate, but the only person who screamed at me was a fuzzy-bearded hippy. The TDI has oodles of low-end oomph, so it provides the particular pleasure you get from driving something that is both massive (2.4 metric tons) and muscular, especially when it’s full of stuff. This Q7’s 0 – 60 time of 8.6 seconds belies its 500 NM’s of torque. Basically flawless handling intensifies the elephant-on-dancing-shoes effect. And even when I drove it Teutonic-aggressively, I got at least 16 MPG.

But here are the many downsides. Generally, the interior is fine, Audiesque. But the transmission tunnel surround– the part near the thighs of the front two occupants– is hard, feels cheap and sounds hollow: it’s definitely sub-X5 quality. The hatch, when you slam it, sounds tinnier than the one on my 9-year-old Citroen. For all the Q7’s considerable size, it’s nimble, but you’ll never ever forget it’s an fat, tall SUV. I didn’t like the trans, either. Approaching an autobahn exit at 120 mph, I tried to snickety-snack the auto transmission from 6th down to 4th gear. But it simply refused; each gear level needed its own pause, think, re-think, and pause again.

This SUV’s computer user interface is a chapter in the book called “I feel like an idiot because I bought an expensive car that forces me to read the fucking manual.” Honestly: with my mobile phone, I can use Google Maps for walking around town without getting lost, I can take a photo, write an email, and I can chew gum, and all at the same time. I didn’t need a booklet to learn how to do that, but I couldn’t fathom the Audi’s climate control without printed help. And no matter how softly I drove it, I never got better than 21.4 MPG. Finally, at the end of a day’s driving, I checked carefully, but my penis hadn’t grown an inch. So I really can’t recommend this car to anybody I know.

Martin Schwoerer
Martin Schwoerer

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  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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