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The Audi Q7 is nearing the end of its life (on this platform) - so is it still worth buying? Or should you wait until the all-new one arrives in the coming years? Paul Maric jumps behind the wheel of the 2022 Audi Q7 55 TFSI quattro to see if it's any good!

Hardness tester results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE

More Audi content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/audi
More Audi Q7 content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/audi/q7

Skip Ahead:
Intro 00:00
Exterior 00:48
Interior 03:16
Infotainment 04:51
Safety Tech 07:20
Practicality 08:37
On the Road 14:56
0 - 100 km/h 20:16
Verdict 21:32

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#audi #q7 #review
Transcript
00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. While the Audi Q7 might be reaching very much the end of its life,
00:05 I'm still a really big fan of these things and I thought we'd revisit it with this one here. It's called the 55 TFSI.
00:12 So it's petrol-powered. Normally we review all the diesel stuff, but this is petrol-powered, so I'm excited to have a bit of a drive.
00:17 This is priced at just under $130,000.
00:21 It competes with things like the BMW X5, the Mercedes-Benz GLE and the new Lexus RX.
00:28 This is of course a seven-seater as well. Today, we're going to be doing a detailed review of this car.
00:32 So if you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this review,
00:35 you can use time codes on the screen or if you're on YouTube,
00:37 you could scroll down and use the chapters below.
00:39 And if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon.
00:43 That way you can find out every single time we drive a petrol-powered SUV.
00:47 Let's start with the exterior. So you have seven external colors to pick from. All but white. It's going to cost you
00:53 $2,300 extra, which is pretty expensive.
00:57 This here comes with the S-line package. So it looks a little bit sporty.
01:01 You've got that big black grille there with those piano black elements in the center, the big set of Audi rings there,
01:07 and then radar sensors either side with a Quattro badge as well.
01:11 This received a minor facelift recently and also a new interior that came with Audi's new infotainment system.
01:16 So I'll run through that in a second, but you can see here with the facelift,
01:19 it was pretty minor, just headlights and this lower air dam area. It all looks fairly similar otherwise.
01:24 So full LED headlights with matrix LED. Love these dynamic indicators. They look really cool.
01:29 And it's just, Audi is really good with LED lights, both front and rear.
01:33 So I love how they're just adventurous with all of this and they make their lights just look really cool.
01:38 A little bit of cooling down the bottom there. Jump around to the side. Now around here,
01:42 you've got a set of 21-inch alloy wheels.
01:45 So that design has like a diamond cut finish on the outside and then a piano black finish on the inside.
01:50 Now, sorry about how dirty the car is. It was absolutely bucketing down on the way here and it's now cleared up,
01:56 but it's also a little bit dirty. Big set of stoppers there because this car weighs a fair bit.
02:01 Also capable of towing three and a half tons, so they need to have a decent set of brakes on there.
02:05 How well is this going to perform when we go for a drive? 21-inch alloy wheels, it's pretty big.
02:09 And yes, there is a bit of sidewall rubber there to keep it nice and smooth.
02:13 Adaptive damping and air suspension as well, but it is a big car,
02:17 so I'll be curious to see whether the ride is actually any good.
02:20 S-line badge over here.
02:22 You've got a 360 camera, which means camera nestled in under there. Indicator built into there and then piano black on those wing mirrors.
02:29 You've got these matte finished roof rails, which I love. Panoramic glass roof, a little bit of privacy glass there.
02:34 And then come around to the back, more of that LED, strong LED game just there.
02:38 55 TFSI with a Quattro badge. Q7 down there.
02:43 I love this lashing of brushed aluminium under the Audi logo there as well. Don't quite love the fake exhaust pipes though.
02:49 I still understand why they have these cutouts here. They just don't have an exhaust.
02:53 Really just makes no sense at all. A little bit of piano black down the bottom there as well.
02:58 Brake light and then shark fin aerial up the top. Let me know what you reckon about the design.
03:02 I mentioned earlier that this is kind of reaching the end of its life very quickly,
03:06 but I still reckon it looks pretty good and it is a big SUV.
03:10 A lot of the other SUVs in this segment don't feel or look as big.
03:13 So let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. So we're inside the Q7.
03:17 Let's start off with the key. You've got lock, boot, unlock, the Audi logo,
03:22 a little bit of brushed aluminium on the side and then blank on the back.
03:25 This is a proximity sensing key. So leave that in your pocket. Once you're inside, you have a push button start.
03:30 So there is a lot of piano black around here. Have a look at that.
03:34 It is all over the dashboard, all over these sections here. Really not a huge fan of it.
03:38 And it's just a surface that's really hard to keep clean.
03:41 But it is nicely offset with all these brushed aluminium pieces and that sort of
03:45 quattro section that runs all the way through it. And this has really cool ambient lighting at night time.
03:50 So it kind of breaks everything up enough. This still looks modern as well.
03:53 I know that this has been out for a little while now, but it does still look modern to me.
03:57 I like the way that these vents run all the way along the dashboard there.
04:00 You've got these big screens here and the screen ahead of the driver as well.
04:04 Everything's within easy reach too. So it is nicely presented. What about your materials and your touch points?
04:09 So the materials are good. They're all sort of soft touch along the top there.
04:13 Touch points, that is soft to the touch there and firm on the door. How soft are they?
04:18 We've got our durometer.
04:20 We've tested the main surfaces in this cabin.
04:23 If you want to see how this car compares to others that we've tested before,
04:26 have a look at the link in the description. Build quality.
04:29 That all feels really nice and solid. The interesting thing as well, just as a side note here,
04:34 car companies are finding it really hard to get cars for media to review. And this is one good example.
04:40 It's got like 12,000 k's on the clock and to be honest, it actually all feels really good and still quite solid. Now, door test.
04:47 Feels nice and solid as well. Let's talk infotainment.
04:52 So you've got one screen up here, one screen below that and then one ahead of the driver and I'll run you through each
04:57 of those and how they all work. We'll start off up here. It's a little over 10 inches in size.
05:02 It's a color touchscreen and this also has haptic feedback.
05:05 So as you push a little harder on the screen,
05:07 you feel a little click on your finger and that's designed to make sure that if you are driving and you want to change a
05:12 setting or something, you don't need to look twice to make sure the button you've pressed has actually done something.
05:16 You can just feel that response in your finger as well. This has several menus there along with some shortcuts.
05:23 You can also pull down from the top to get additional context menus.
05:26 This is also now connected to the internet so you can query services
05:30 online and get access to things like maps and that kind of thing. You have inbuilt satellite navigation
05:35 that's native to the infotainment system. You can see here that it has satellite overlays.
05:40 Then in addition to that you also have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Apple CarPlay is wireless.
05:45 There's what that looks like. So really nice integration, very quick and snappy there and I found it to be quite reliable as well.
05:53 And this is Android Auto. So again full screen integration.
05:56 That's nice and snappy as well. Now, how's this for a sound system?
06:00 You've got AM/FM, DAB, digital radio and that's all plumbed through a 19...
06:06 19 speaker Bang & Olufsen branded sound system.
06:10 It is a Ripper sound system and I love the fact that you can buy one of these SUVs and have
06:14 like a home grade sound system to keep you moving. So really impressed with that.
06:19 Let's jump to the screen down the bottom here. The screen is just under nine inches in size
06:24 and it also has haptic feedback. So as you push some of these buttons you get the response on your finger.
06:29 This is basically where you'll find your climate controls.
06:31 So when you switch those on that all comes to life.
06:34 You can then slide up and down to change those or click with your finger.
06:38 Then in addition to that you also have some shortcuts up the top here that you can set navigation destinations to.
06:44 This also becomes a keypad when you do type in navigation destinations. I'll show you what that looks like.
06:49 There you go. You can either just type it in as a keyboard or alternatively
06:52 write the letters in like that. So yeah, it's a really good setup. I quite like that.
06:57 Now the screen ahead of the driver is just over 12 inches in size. This is called Audi's virtual cockpit. Really good setup.
07:04 This is the best in the business when it comes to screen resolution and also functionality.
07:08 So you can see here I can supersize that satellite navigation display. I can then switch between different items
07:14 as well while we're driving. So really cool to see this technology just come standard in the car.
07:19 Let's talk about safety tech. So you have forward and reverse AEB.
07:23 You've got an auto dimming rear vision mirror. Blind spot monitoring using a light there on the wing mirror.
07:29 You have a lane departure warning and a lane keeping assistant. It's kind of a semi-autonomous steering function. Works
07:34 okay. Nothing sort of too amazing. Radar cruise control, rear cross traffic alert. It's also this feature that
07:41 absolutely scared the crap out of me the other day. I was reversing and it slammed the brakes on because it thought I was going
07:46 to hit something behind me. It ended up just being nothing significant, but that is effectively the reverse AEB kicking into action.
07:53 We've also got front and rear parking sensors and a 360 camera. I'll show you what that looks like.
07:57 So there it is there. You can see at the front there. Quality's okay. That's your 360 view. Again, quality's okay.
08:04 Nothing sort of too amazing, but you can go 3D on the car.
08:08 Spin it around to see what's going on around there. But then you can also select
08:12 all of your camera views as well. So if I go over here, you can see
08:16 rear wheels,
08:18 front wheels, a side
08:21 I guess a wide angle view of the rear and then a direct view of the rear and then again your top down view.
08:27 So yeah, look, it's okay. I guess that's clear enough to see exactly what's written on our suitcase there.
08:32 But you can see around the edges there. It's quite distorted.
08:34 So I guess the camera quality could be slightly better. Moving on to practicality and we'll start off with your connectivity.
08:39 Where are you going to plug your stuff up? So you've got a 12 volt outlet just here.
08:44 You also have in this center console two USB-C outlets plus a wireless phone charger.
08:50 In terms of storing your phone, you can pop it here in the cup holders if you want or over here.
08:56 There really are quite a number of places for it, which is good. Coffee cup.
09:00 So drove here this morning in this and look at this.
09:03 Fits in beautifully. Easy to extract as well. Bottle, same story.
09:08 You've got to set a teeth in there to hold it in and it really just doesn't go anywhere, which is great news.
09:12 Bottle inside the door as well. No problems there. What about our big bottle? We'll see if that fits. It's not going to fit in here.
09:19 Fits in the door. Yes, it fits in the door. Good news.
09:21 You do have storage just next to the driver's knee here that allows you to put in keys and other bits and pieces.
09:28 Your center console moves forwards and backwards to give you additional height and then when you do crack it open, it is
09:34 such a tiny storage place. It's almost sort of comical in terms of its size.
09:38 And then finally you have a glove box over here that is pretty reasonably sized. What about your comfort?
09:43 Well, you've got quad zone automatic climate control. So that's two zones up the front here.
09:48 You also have heated seats and heated steering wheel. Electric seat adjustment so you can go forwards,
09:54 backwards, you can do backrest forwards, backwards.
09:56 You can lift the base up at the front and also at the back. You also have lumbar adjustment as well.
10:02 Passenger seat is electrically adjustable. Seats are comfy. So they hug you in nicely.
10:06 You've got this S insignia on them as well because this has the S line package. On the steering front you have both tilts
10:13 and reach adjustment. It's fully electric, which is good news.
10:17 And on our reach test, all of this stuff is easy to reach while you're driving.
10:20 Okay, second row of the Q7. Now, this is what I'm talking about. I have stacks of knee room,
10:25 toe room is excellent, head room is great too. And my driver's seat is pretty much all the way back in my standard driving position.
10:31 So this is like a proper adult mover as well as an SUV.
10:36 So, mat pockets in the back of the seats there.
10:39 You've got a third and fourth zone of climate control, air vents here and also air vents in the B pillar.
10:45 A little coat hook there as well. Two USB-C ports down the bottom and a 12 volt outlet. There's a center armrest here with two cup holders.
10:52 Oh, that's interesting. It doesn't really fit our bottles.
10:58 That is so bizarre.
11:01 It does, but you've got to really jam it in there, which is kind of strange.
11:05 This does fit inside the door though, which is cool. I did notice on the door, there's like a smoker's pack.
11:11 A little ashtray there. It's like you're flying in the 70s or something. It's kind of weird.
11:15 This is interesting too. So, 40, 20, 40, but then you can also move each sector individually.
11:22 So that comes into play if you do have three adults across. You can move the center forward a touch
11:27 so you don't have
11:28 shoulder contact between adults if they are bigger. So, really impressive setup there and there's lots of versatility.
11:33 The other bonus as well is if you do have baby seats, you've got ISOFIX points on all three seats along with top tether points.
11:40 So you can actually fit three child seats abreast here, which is good news for families. And finally, our window test.
11:45 Oh, wow, so close. Almost made it all the way down, but auto up and down on the window, which is definitely good news.
11:54 Now, this is a three-row SUV. So,
11:58 can you fit adults in? Let's find out. So, you've got two methods of folding this seat.
12:03 You can fold your seat down like this and clamber over if you have kids that are monkeys or you can
12:09 move that out of the way by tumbling it all the way forward and then you climb on in.
12:13 All righty.
12:15 Whoa, there is not much room here. So,
12:17 let's see how this is. Oh my god. This is very much not an adult space.
12:22 You have to be kind of like a gymnast or a yoga instructor. So, let's see what happens if I drop this down.
12:28 Wow, there is
12:30 no room at all. If I pull this back up,
12:33 that's like crushing my shins as well. Okay, what I might do, Igor,
12:37 can you shift this seat and this seat forward and we'll see if we can configure it so you can actually fit an adult here.
12:44 There's that and then same story for that one, please.
12:49 Okay, so there you go. I'm in position now.
12:52 My knees are kind of wedged into the seat, but I can kind of fit. My toes are in between these rails.
12:58 There really isn't a great deal of room there. I would not be comfortable here for a long distance drive.
13:03 But you do get creature comforts like cup holders off to the side here. No USB charging, no air vents though.
13:08 But you do get airbag coverage for this third row section, which is kind of good.
13:12 Maybe, Igor, if you get a shot of that as well,
13:15 it gives you an idea of how much leg room there is. Not a huge amount of leg room in the second row when you have
13:19 an adult in the third row. So, this is probably just going to be a kids-only zone, I reckon.
13:24 Let's see how much room there is behind the third row. Okay, so let's see what it's like behind that third row.
13:30 So, power tailgate. So, behind here you have under 300 litres of cargo space and it does look kind of wide,
13:36 but I'm just a bit concerned about how that eats into there.
13:39 We'll have a look at that in a second.
13:40 But beneath the cargo floor, you've got a few speaker bits and pieces, some of the 48-volt mild hybrid setup, a tyre repair kit,
13:48 a jacket, a couple of other bits and pieces.
13:51 Now, how does it fit our bags just into this slot here? Let's see if we can actually fit all this stuff in.
13:58 Yes, we can. I wonder if that closes.
14:01 Let's have a look. I don't know if it's going to whack into that.
14:04 Oh, there's space behind the window. There you go. That's closed nicely, which is good to see.
14:08 Now, hidden over here as well, you've got a 12-volt outlet plus some buttons.
14:13 Now, these buttons are interesting because you do not have to operate the third row seats manually.
14:19 All you do is just hold these two buttons,
14:21 they drop down out of the way
14:25 and then disappear into the floor. You can also operate the third row from the second row as well using another set of buttons.
14:31 This is also where you're going to find your suspension control.
14:33 So by pushing and holding this, it will drop the rear end of the car down to make loading larger items a whole lot easier.
14:40 When you do have this space open and the third row folded away, you have a little over 700 litres of cargo space available.
14:46 What you can also do is fold the second row
14:51 and that then gives you access to around 2,000 litres.
14:55 We've just hit the road in the Q7.
14:59 Look, one of the first things that I noticed is just how smooth this engine is.
15:02 I'm used to driving these Q7s with the diesel,
15:05 but the petrol powertrain really just takes this to another level in terms of refinement.
15:09 So powering this is a 3.0-litre turbocharged V6 petrol engine, makes 250 kilowatts of power and
15:17 5,500 newton metres of torque. So it's a good healthy number there to keep things moving along.
15:21 And that's all mated to an eight-speed automatic transmission. It's just a standard torque converter,
15:26 so no dual clutch setup here and permanent all-wheel drive as well. It's Audi's Quattro system.
15:30 Now, what does it feel like behind the wheels? We're in the comfort mode at the moment. I'll give this just a little kickback.
15:35 A little lazy to respond there, but once it gets up and moves, it actually really gives you a nice push along there.
15:42 You feel the torque and it doesn't feel lazy like you can get sometimes from a diesel engine.
15:47 Now in terms of fuel economy, obviously going to a petrol instead of a diesel is going to use a lot more fuel.
15:54 In this instance, Audi claims a combined figure of a little over 9 litres per 100 k's.
15:59 We are currently sitting on a short term of 9 litres, which is basically just the highway driving to get here.
16:06 But then there is a long-term average of 11.3.
16:09 So it is slightly higher than that number, but ultimately I'm pretty happy with that.
16:13 You do get all of that refinement and it comes at the cost of just slightly more fuel use.
16:18 You do need to keep in mind though that you do need to feed this with premium unleaded fuel,
16:21 so it is going to be slightly more expensive, especially these days with fuel prices. One thing I do love as well,
16:26 I've just rolled out of the throttle. Have a look at that. The car is currently switched off.
16:29 So thanks to that 48-volt mild hybrid system,
16:32 it's able to effectively switch the engine off whenever it doesn't need to be using fuel.
16:37 And that'll be in instances, for example, when you're approaching an intersection or something like that,
16:41 it will be able to see that that is coming up. When you're approaching a reduction in the speed zone,
16:45 again, it can see that coming up.
16:47 It prompts you with a little vibration on the throttle and then an icon there of a foot,
16:50 and then it basically says, hey, take your foot off the throttle because I'm going to switch the engine off now.
16:54 And that is really cool technology because it actually works. It actually saves you fuel.
16:58 And that 48-volt mild hybrid system is then able to run the rest of the car's systems
17:03 without the internal combustion engine actually being on.
17:06 Let's talk about the different drive modes. So kind of overkill here, you've got off-road, all-road,
17:12 efficiency, comfort, auto, dynamic and individual. They really do load so many drive modes into this
17:19 platform that it kind of just gets a little bit confusing. But
17:22 ultimately, the good thing is that when you switch between those drive modes,
17:26 it will adjust the height of the vehicle accordingly.
17:28 So as you go to the dynamic mode, for example,
17:30 it lowers the height to get it hugging the road. It means that it's going to be just a little more enthusiastic through corners.
17:35 Let's talk about ride. So we'll crank this up a little bit. The ride is fantastic.
17:39 So this uses air suspension with adaptive damping and it just wafts along nicely. It can be a little bit
17:46 coarse at times when you hit potholes and stuff like that, but for the most part,
17:50 it's really nicely composed and doesn't fuss too much. And if we jack this up to 130 now for our sine waves,
17:56 it's a maximum legal speed here in Australia.
17:59 Yeah, look, it's
18:04 in comfort mode. It is pretty floaty. It sort of hangs up there a little bit longer than it needs to,
18:09 but there is an automatic drive mode here that is going to recognise things like that
18:14 and then firm up the suspension a little bit when it does notice that body control getting a little bit
18:19 lingering at the top end there.
18:21 It's worth calling out that this car's optioned with the four-wheel steering setup,
18:25 and that means at low speeds you have the rear wheels countering the direction of the front wheels to help tighten the turning circle.
18:30 And it means that when you are doing three-point turns,
18:32 it is really nice and tight compared to some of the other big SUVs in this segment.
18:36 And then when you are doing sportier driving as well, it helps assist you getting through the corner
18:41 and putting in less work for the driver to actually get the car through the corner.
18:44 So let's put this into sport mode. Audi calls it dynamic. So immediately I can feel the ride get firmer.
18:51 It's lowering the suspension. The steering's heavier.
18:54 See what this big bus is like. That annoying speed limiter keeps coming on for 110.
19:00 [car engine revving]
19:02 And look, this isn't actually too bad.
19:04 It gets along nicely. So the air suspension, the adaptive damping, it's keeping the body fairly flat.
19:10 There is still a degree of body roll there, but it keeps it flat enough. And this engine has so much punch. It is hoofing along.
19:18 Especially on the faster sections. It sort of just has
19:21 lots of legs. What I love about the faster version of this, the SQ7,
19:26 is you can really sort of throw it around like a sports car. And this, to a degree, feels like that.
19:30 It's not as nimble. And I'm finding with the brakes as well that I really gotta commit to the brakes.
19:35 You feel the weight of this as you move around. It is over two tons.
19:38 But for the most part, it actually gets along nicely. Let's see what it's like on our back straight here.
19:43 Roll onto that.
19:46 Give that a kick. There we go.
19:49 Yeah, look, it is actually getting along nicely.
19:55 It's surprising for such a big SUV that it's so willing to move.
19:58 But yeah, I just don't have a great deal of confidence in the brake pedal.
20:02 You've got to really jump onto that. Otherwise, it'll run away from you. But yeah,
20:06 it's actually pretty exciting to drive for such a big SUV.
20:09 Audi claims a 0-100 time of just under six seconds. This is how it went up against our stopwatch.
20:16 [car engine revving]
20:18 What's it like in terms of road noise?
20:28 It is pretty quiet in here. It is worth keeping in mind that this is reaching the end of its life cycle.
20:33 So this model is going to be replaced eventually with a new version of the Q7.
20:37 This platform's been out for a while.
20:39 But surprisingly, it actually still does a good job in terms of refinement and giving you,
20:43 I guess, the comfort you want behind the wheel of a luxury German SUV.
20:47 It's nice and quiet on highway speeds. Even on course chip roads,
20:51 it doesn't really have a great deal of noise that comes into the cabin.
20:54 One of the other big benefits of the Q7 is its towing capacity.
20:57 It's able to tow three and a half tonnes with a brake trailer.
21:00 That's good news because it means that if you do have a caravan or something like that,
21:04 you can actually put all your kids in the car and drive the caravan too.
21:07 Obviously, you've got to watch your GCM and GVMs.
21:09 But this is a really good option if you need something that ticks all of those boxes.
21:14 Now, visibility. This is a big SUV, but I can see clearly down the front there,
21:18 the wing mirrors are huge as well. Visibility at the back is excellent.
21:21 Despite this being a large SUV, it is actually pretty easy to place on the road.
21:25 And then parking's easy as well with the litany of sensors that it comes with.
21:28 So the Audi Q7, it's kind of like a fine wine.
21:35 It's just getting better with age.
21:36 And to think that this is pretty much reaching the end of its life cycle,
21:40 yet is still such a good purchase proposition, tells you how good that platform is inherently.
21:45 And I reckon if you are going to buy one, go with the petrol.
21:47 It is such a good, hearty engine.
21:49 And it just, it's a bit of a smile maker.
21:51 It's really comfortable. It has stacks of room inside.
21:54 And the tech is on point as well. So, really is quite hard to fault.
21:57 So let me know, did you buy a Q7? Do you tow with it?
22:00 I'm keen to know how this goes as a tow vehicle.
22:03 Let me know in the comments section below.
22:04 What's it like to live with? Is it expensive to service?
22:07 I'm keen for your feedback.
22:08 If you did enjoy this video, please make sure you like it, you share it with your mates.
22:12 And if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon.
22:16 But until next time, take it easy.

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