2020 Audi SQ5 vs 2021

What's the difference?

The SQ5 twin-turbo V6 petrol is a high-performance SUV with excellent dynamic ability, but it’s docile enough to drive easily,  every day, with a comfortable ride and light steering. It's perfect for a family, with a couple of kids enjoying climate control, USB ports and dark tinted glass in the second row, plus it’s loaded with advanced safety equipment.  

The SQ5 is the best version of a hugely popular SUV, and the turbo-diesel V6 provides a thunderously enjoyable and easy driving experience. The update has brought little in the way of new looks, and practicality remains an area where the SQ5 could be improved, but it’s hard not to appreciate this excellent SUV.     

Can we talk about the colour of our test car first? The hue is Turbo Blue, it’s a no-cost option and as somebody who only wears black, it’s changed my mind about bright colours … on cars anyway.

The Blue is not quite the ‘Tiffany’s’ turquoise which the Macan comes in, but a bolder ‘plasticky’ blue and in an automotive world of seemingly 50,000 different shades of grey it’s refreshingly different. The SQ5 stood out, but not in a clown-car way.

I’m a fan of the SQ5’s styling – that so-called ‘Tornado line’, which twists itself over the wheel arches, looks superb and so does the low, wide bonnet and broad grille. All of the SQ5’s rivals look great, but the Audi has the toughest stance of them all.

Just shield your eyes when the boot is open, because the taillights are part of the tailgate and when it’s raised the gaping blank spaces left behind aren’t attractive.

There’s nothing offensive about the cabin, you’ll be pleased to know. The seats in my test car were Black with Rock Grey contrast stitching. I’m a sucker for the whole quilted-leather thing, too.

Yes, the media display looks tiny compared to Mercedes-Benz’s gigantic screens, but the virtual instrument cluster keeps the cockpit looking modern and pretty.

Audi cabins always seem to be on the verge of bland but make no mistake that while there’s no focus on bling, the wow-factor for me is in the high-quality materials and a great fit and finish.

Ah, but there’s something else you should know, something which does make me a bit cranky, and that’s the fake tail pipes. Yep, it looks like there are black exhaust tips moulded into that rear bumper, but if you peer inside you’ll see that they are sealed. The real exhaust pipes hang down under the car on both sides.

How big is the Audi SQ5? Not as big as it looks. The SQ5 is 1635mm tall, 2140mm wide and 4671mm end-to-end.   

It might just be me but the Q5 seems to be the best looking SUV in Audi’s range. It doesn’t have the overly large and cumbersome appearance of the Q7, but it has more heft than a Q3. That ‘Tornado line’ which twists itself down the side of the car, with the wheels appearing to push up into the body at the guards, adds to the dynamic look.

The SQ5 looks even more athletic with its S body kit, red brake calipers and 21-inch Audi Sport alloy wheels.

The update has seen the grille restyled to be lower and wider, with a more complex honeycomb design, while the side sill trim has been redesigned, too.

SQ5 colours include, 'Mythos Black', 'Ultra Blue', 'Glacier White', 'Floret Silver', 'Quantum Grey', and 'Navarra Blue.'

The cabin is much the same as before, with the addition of Nappa leather upholstery as standard. While prestigious and well-appointed, the cabin styling has been the same since the arrival of this second-generation Q5 in 2017, and is beginning to show its age.

The SQ5 is 4682mm end-to-end, 2140mm wide and 1653mm tall.

Want more coupe in your SQ5? You’re in luck, Audi has announced that an SQ5 Sportback will be coming soon.

The SQ5 isn’t a large SUV, it’s medium-sized at 4.7m in length and while space up front is good for me at 191cm tall and that same length in wingspan, too, sitting behind my driving position is a bit tight, with my knees almost up against the seat back. Headroom is pretty good, though, and that’s thanks in part to the lack of a sunroof.

Cabin storage is good but not great and while there’s a decent sized centre console bin, and slots for keys and wallets, I found the front door pockets to offer the most useful space.

The door pockets in the back are smaller but there are two cupholders in the fold-down centre armrest and another two up front.

It was great to see plenty of charging outlets – the wireless phone charger, two USB ports and a 12V outlet up front and two USB ports in the back and a 12V in the second row.

The second-row passengers also have directional air vents and climate control.

The cargo capacity of the SQ5’s boot is 550 litres – so what does that mean in terms of real-world stuff? See the images, where you'll find there was plenty of room for our CarsGuide pram, or three suitcases.

This mid-size, five-seater SUV could do a better job on the practicality. There’s no third-row, seven-seater option, but that isn’t our main gripe. Nope, the SQ5 is short on rear legroom, and cabin storage isn’t great.

Sure, I’m 191cm (6'3") tall and almost 75 per cent of that is legs, but I can sit pretty comfortably behind my driving position in most mid-sized SUVs. Not the SQ5, which is getting tight back there.

As for cabin storage, yes, there’s a decent-sized console box under the centre armrest and slots for keys and wallets, plus the front door pockets are big, but rear passengers again don’t get the best treatment with small door pockets. There are two cup holders back there, though, in the fold-down armrest and another two up front.   

The boot’s 510 litres of luggage capacity is almost 50 litres less than the cargo space of the BMW X3 and Mercedes-Benz GLC.

Four USB ports (two in the front and two in the second row) are useful and so is the wireless phone charger in the dashboard.

Privacy glass, directional air vents for the third row and roof racks that now have cross members are great to see.

The SQ5 lists for $104,900, making it $35K more than the entry-grade Q5 40 TFSI. Still, the value is good considering this king-of-the-range is loaded with features, including an armful of new ones coming with this update.

New standard features include, matrix LED headlights, metallic paint, a panoramic sunroof, acoustic glazing, Nappa leather upholstery, an electrically adjustable steering column, a head-up display, a 19-speaker Bang and Olufsen stereo, and the roof racks now come with cross members.

That’s along with the standard features which came on the SQ5 previously such as, LED DRLs, three-zone climate control, a 10.1-inch media display, 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, wireless charging, 30-colour ambient lighting, digital radio, power adjustable and heated front seats, privacy glass, 360-degree view camera, adaptive cruise, and auto parking.

The SQ5 also gets the sporty S exterior body kit with red brake calipers, and the interior also has S features such as sports seats with diamond stitching.

Of course, the SQ5 is more than just a cosmetic pack. There’s sports suspension and that magnificent V6, which we’ll get to soon.

The Audi SQ5 is the most powerful member of the Q5 family, with its 3.0-litre twin-turbo petrol V6 making 260kW from 5400rpm and plenty of torque, too, with 500Nm available from 1370rpm.

The transmission is an eight-speed Tiptronic, which is Audi-speak for a regular torque-converter automatic, not a dual-clutch.

SQ5s are all-wheel drive and, as mentioned, our test car was fitted with a quattro sport differential, which splits torque between the wheels on the rear axle for better dynamics.

Drive Mode select is a function which allows you to switch between six settings: Off Road; Efficiency; Comfort; Auto; Dynamic and Individual.

The exhaust note is magnificent, especially at just above 2000rpm in Dynamic mode, but part of the beautiful growl is caused by a ‘sound actuator’, which is found in sporty models throughout Audi’s range.

The SQ5's 3.0-litre, turbo-diesel V6 is a development of the engine that was in the Special Edition SQ5 from the previous model, now producing 251kW from 3800-3950rpm, and 700Nm from 1750-3250rpm.

This diesel engine uses what’s called a mild-hybrid system. Don’t mistake this for a petrol-electric hybrid or a plug-in hybrid because it’s nothing like them, but more an auxiliary system for electrical storage which can restart the engine, which shuts down during coasting.

Shifting gears is an eight-speed automatic, and of course drive goes to all four wheels. Claimed 0-100km/h for the SQ5 is 5.1 seconds, which should be more than enough to help you out when that lane ahead runs out. And towing capacity is 2000kg for a braked trailer.

Is there a petrol variant? There was one in the previous model, but for this update Audi has only released this diesel version so far. That’s not to say a petrol SQ5 won’t appear later. We’ll keep our ear to the ground for you.

After 161.7km of testing over motorways, daily peak-hour commutes and country roads, the tank needed 26.88 litres of premium unleaded to reach full again, which comes to 16.6L/100km. That’s a bit more than the mileage of 8.7L/100km Audi says I should have seen. To be fair, there were only 450km on the clock when we picked it up – that may have been a contributing factor in the higher use of fuel.  

The Aussie launch didn’t give us a chance to test the SQ5's fuel consumption, but Audi reckons after a combination of open and urban roads the 3.0-litre TDI should return 7.0L/100km. That sounds like ridiculously good economy, but it’s all we have to go on for now. We’ll put the SQ5 through some real-world testing soon.

While the mild-hybrid system does contribute to fuel saving it would be much better to see a plug-in hybrid Q5 on sale in Australia. An e-tron EV version would be even better. So, while the diesel is efficient, consumers need more environmentally sound choices for this popular mid-sized SUV.  

The Audi SQ5 came to live with me for a week. I used it as our family SUV to do the preschool run, the work commute into the city and I took it on my midnight test run, which is normally reserved for sportscars. I also tested it for its fuel economy by measuring how much the SQ5 drank during my time – you can read about the results of that below.

I found the SQ5 to be an SUV I could happily use daily – the ride isn’t too firm, even for a sports SUV, the acceleration is on the milder side of rapid, and the seats are supportive and comfortable, too.

Visibility is good all around, there’s auto parking, which worked perfectly for me in a tight parallel spot, and the transmission,  while slow to shift (compared to a dual-clutch) if you hammer it, does so seamlessly.

Talking of hammering, the sporty side of things was where I felt the SQ5 could be better. Don’t get me wrong, the balance of this SUV feels superb, and the quattro sport differential our test car had fitted should be on your options list if you’re after great dynamics, but the steering could do with more weight and  a 0-100km/h time of 5.4s feels slow compared to the competition,  which are at least half-a-second faster.

But this is the SQ5 and an Audi that starts with an S means it’s sporty but not hardcore. So in that case the SQ5 is probably exactly the way it should be – if only there was an RSQ5, but alas there isn’t. So far.

If I had to choose the best thing about the SQ5, it’s the way it drives. This is one of those cars that feels like you’re wearing it rather than driving it with the way it steers, the smooth eight-speed auto shifts, and the engine responds.

Like a low-flying army helicopter - voomp-voomp-voomp. That’s what the SQ5 sounds like at 60km/h in fourth, and I love it. Even if the sound is enhanced electronically.

But the oomph is completely real. The 3.0-litre, turbo-diesel V6 is a development of the engine that was in the Special Edition SQ5 from the previous model, but it’s better because the 700Nm of torque now comes in lower, at 1750rpm. Power output is also a smidge higher at 251kW.

Just don’t expect the SQ5 to be brutally dynamic, it’s not a Mercedes-AMG GLC 43. Nope, it’s more grand tourer than super SUV with colossal torque and a comfortable ride. It handles impressively, but the SQ5 seems more at home on gentle country roads and highways than switchbacks and hairpins.

My drive route took in only a small amount of city running, but the SQ5’s ease of driving made traffic as stressless as stressful peak hour traffic can be.  

The Q5 was given the maximum five-star ANCAP score when it was assessed in 2017, and the SQ5 carries the same rating.

Coming standard is AEB, although it’s the city-speed type which works to detect cars and pedestrians at up to 85km/h. There’s also rear cross-traffic alert, lane keeping assistance, blind spot warning, adaptive cruise control, auto parking (parallel and perpendicular), 360-degree camera view, front and rear parking sensors, and eight airbags.

For child seats there are two ISOFIX points and three top tether anchor mounts across the rear seat.

The SQ5 is covered by Audi’s three-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty. Servicing is recommended every 12 months/15,000km.

A three-year servicing plan is offered for $1890 while a five-year plan is offered for $2920.

Audi refuses to budge on its three-year/unlimited kilometre warranty, despite other prestige brands such as Genesis, Jaguar, and Mercedes-Benz going to five-year/unlimited km coverage.

As for servicing, Audi offers a five-year plan for the SQ5 costing $3100, covering every 12 month/15000km service over that time, for an annual average of .