Audi Q5

Terrible car. I thought Audi is quality German engineering, but I was wrong. Bought brand new in December 2018. I bought it from Audi Penfold Burwood In Melbourne. In 6 years we have done only less than 90,000km. Nothing but trouble. On 27th… Read more

December, we were travelling from Canberra to Sydney. Suddenly car RPM went very high on Middle of freeway, I stopped on the side of the road to see what’s going on. After switching off the engine, car would not start. Ended getting up tow truck to towed to the Audi Canberra Dealership. They could not find any fault, why car wouldn’t start. After 10 days of constant follow up finally answered to me that there is less compression on all engine cylinders.

To do further testing and investigation they need to strip the engine which will be charged to me $9650, if they find that engine needs replacement, new engine of Q5 3.0 TDI will cost approximately $30,000. Plus plus plus ….

All this unnecessary electronic cr#p keeps going wrong. Parts are extremely expensive. Audi Australia and their dealership are not willing to help or taking any blame of defective piece of German engineering.

Do yourself a favour and don't Audi cars.

Terrible car. I thought Audi is quality German engineering, but I was wrong. Bought second hand with less than 90,000km. Nothing but trouble. All this unnecessary electronic crap keeps going wrong. Parts are extremely expensive. No storage space to speak of. Awful spare wheel which on board pump cannot inflate rendering it useless. Fairly uncomfortable seats with steering wheel out of alignment. Do yourself a favour and don't buy. Show details

Honest opinion of Owning a Q5Tdi – Had this for almost 8 years and fully serviced by AUDI Doncaster & Penfold. I am quite pleased with the SUV and the service provided by the 2 Agents but the cost of maintenance and especially when parts needs to be replaced it is extremely costly. I have finally decided to sell it when I had a last major drama with the engine and was told that in… Read more

the next 6 months I would need to fork out around $16K for other parts that needs to be replaced. I mean honestly, the Q5 TDI is a nice and pretty comfortable SUV to drive expecially out of the city roads and pretty economical on fuel.... but the cost of maintenance to me just do not justify keeping it forever. That is why these brands are mainly for corporates where they get rid of them when their Warranty is over.

Brilliant motor car, sporty yet a good functional SUV – We bought this vehicle as a second car to transport our 64kg Newfoundland. It now gets used more than our other car which is brand new. Car is serviced regularly. Show details

High quality build – Using as a daily commute the vehicle is very intuitive and build quality is awesome. Being a tech-head as well as a car fanatic I have found the technical superiority over other makes astounding. Highly recommended. Show details

Less than 8 years old, has had all scheduled services and out of nowhere, there was an AdBlue leak resulting in extensive damage to engine bay one year out of warranty. The car was purchased second hand from Audi Penfold, I’ve had it for four years and only drive it locally for school run and groceries. Very disappointing customer service from… Read more

Audi Indooroopilly and Audi Australia. They fixed the AdBlue issue, and while I am grateful they covered the cost of parts and I paid $900 labour plus a service for $685, unfortunately the car was returned to me with a leaking engine mount, fault codes advising to take car to a workshop and other engine issues. They conducted the regular service and listed the additional issues, claiming it’s not their responsibility to assess the whole situation, just address the cause of the damage. The sad part of this, is another mechanic conducted the first assessment of the issue and did include the engine issues that resulted as part of the AdBlue leak which Audi failed to include and this mechanic stated they’d never seen anything like this and it will need to go to Audi specialist. This mechanic did more than the Audi specialist! If you haven’t purchased an Audi, I hope by sharing this information saves you time and energy. Purchase a vehicle from a company of integrity and who offer due care - hopefully they still exist.

A waste of money – Piece of rubbish, I bought an Audi Q5 two years ago, with over 100,000km. The price fit my budget, externally it looked good, I am an Audi lover and that was my mistake, which could fail in a luxury vehicle from a recognised brand?. Well everything!!. I took the car to do the roadworthy test and everything went well, changing the brakes, which… Read more

seemed expensive to me but being a luxury brand you know that nothing is going to be cheap.

When driving the car I noticed a slight jump in 1st gear, I consulted with several mechanics and none of them knew the problem so I had to send it to an Audi service center, There they found problems with the clutch and transmission, repairing it cost around $8000. After this the car moved but I still felt a very minimal jump. Excessive oil consumption, electrical problems, problems with the spark plugs. etc etc. I finally had to get rid of that German engineering crap. The driving is good when it is new and the car inspires luxury but with all the problems mentioned above you do not feel safe and you think you are going to get stuck on the road.

One of the best cars if it is about wasting money or living under stress.

Terrible quality. Avoid Audi – I don't have the time to list the numerous faults and exorbitant repair costs. If you're after a quality German brand look at BMW or a Merc instead. OK one example: the water pump (which is made from plastic) started leaking because it warped. $1200. Other brands use a metal water pump and if it leaks you need a new gasket $100. Show details

4th edit update Software update has been done. So far so good. I’m back to being a happier customer. My comments on the way this has been handled remain. Audi Australia told me it would be this year and had no idea when it would occur. Customer updates and communication were poor. 3rd edit Software update has been released it appears. Audi… Read more

Australia said not this year but maybe they popped their skates on and decided that great customer service required this. I’m hoping for a full restoration to full battery charge ability within the next few weeks. Watch out for the next edit because if it goes well i may have a change of heart on the car but not the salesperson I bought it from.

2nd edit

Spoke to car salesman who said that they can do nothing hand balled me to Audi Australia. Won’t be buying an Audi again and certainly not a hybrid or electric. No after care service at all

Ok edit update- the car I intially enjoyed is now subject to recall. Can’t use the battery and no idea when it will be fixed for fear of it catching fire. So I paid over $90k for a car to reduce my carbon footprint and now it can only be used on fossil fuel until a date yet to be decided. Unlikely to be this year. Thumbs down. Don’t buy this model. I’ve offered to accept a swap to the newer model with no known battery catching alight issues or receive a full refund, and I’m yet to receive a response. I’ll update when I hear more.

Prior to the edit update I enjoyed the car. But as at September 2025 it gets one star.

Lovely to look and fun to drive. BUT why they didn’t think it necessary to allow the walk away auto lock functionality is beyond me. I mean - why? This car is a plug in electric hybrid with all the bells and only part of a few good whistles. The glove box is also not overly useful. Too small. The middle front arm rest uses a click in system which is also annoying. Goes well and funky car. Just some parts of it less swanky than I’d hoped. On the plus side I was rear ended whilst ding 60 by a driver doing much more / the collision alarm went off, and just before impact the car also nodded forward so that when we were hit there was less whip back. Felt like the car should have been crumpled up but it took it like a champ.

BEWARE – Diesel Particular Filter fault, pre sense warning fault, apple car play fault, boot senor fault, clunking brake and accelerator, Audi Australia or the dealership will not answer their phones or provide any correspondence/ comment on the issues. The car has been sitting in the service centre for nearly 3months, waiting for repairs, waiting the DPF to be manufactured. Show details

Very expensive to maintain and unrealiable – 2016 model tfsi q5. Only 5 years old .always serviced from Audi centre, well looked after car but hard to maintain.already given 6000$ quotation work to do on next service.

Good to admire until warranty has expired – Bought brand new from dealer. Always serviced at dealership for that periodic and glorious $1000 car wash. As if it's timed into the car, planks started to come off 4 years into ownership (had some minor issues during warranty, which the dealership fixed). Problems become more expensive with time. To date, I only clocked ~ 70K KM on the car over… Read more

10 years of ownership. Simply, the build quality / reliability is terrible. We are now on the market for a new car. No more Audi's (or German cars for that matter, perhaps except for Porsche). These cars only make sense if you are leasing, or on a company car, otherwise you are sitting on a time bomb.

Comfortable ride but extremely unreliable – Bought 2012 Q5 TFSI MY13 model with 85k on the clock in Oct 2016 with service history. Had it until June 2020 when I sold it with 119k on the clock. In this short space of time, I had 12 separate issues with the car ! Spent more time at the mechanics than on the road. Car looks great, is very comfortable on long drives and is fun to drive when… Read more

dash error lights are not on but I cannot believe the poor build quality on this car ! On average there was something wrong with the car every 3 months...

Issues in the order that I experienced them: 1. Cracked coolant tank causing coolant leak. Coolant tank was replaced. 2. Faulty electronic wastegate actuator arm. I was lucky I found the part I needed online and had it shipped from Europe as otherwise you have to buy the complete turbo assembly at price of $4k plus labour ! 3. Turbo wiring harness loose connectors causing intermittent EPC light. Had to rewire complete harness. 4. Drivers inside door handle broken. 5. Brake Vacuum Pump leak 6. Right hand engine mount leak 7. Poor connection to starter motor leaving us stranded and unable to start the car. Had to get towed to mechanics to fix the connection. 8. Faulty ignition coil on Cylinder 1 making engine shudder. 9. Front cv boots (right and left) leaking 10. Rear left shock absorber leak 11. Lost Air con due to faulty high pressure switch. In middle of QLD summer no less... 12. Complete front right/left cv shafts replaced (Lucky I found independent shop which only cost me $500). Audi and other independent mechanics wanted $3k plus labour.

With the issues experienced you'd think the car was thrashed and not maintained appropriately, which is far from the truth. Buyer beware !

Terrible Customer Service( -⭐️) – Yup, oil consumption issues. Had the test and within 100km it needed oil again... how can a company treat customers so bad and not rectify a manufacturing design fault - this was a fault in the design before I even bought the car and yet they don’t repair it. Even after the oil test the service guys forgot to top up the oil and I ran out 4km… Read more

away... no help from the Audi dealership when I called they said go buy some just after I paid $700 for the two part oil tests.

Worst car I’ve ever owned – We bought the Audi Q5 new and as a family car. After the first 6,000kms it has been riddled with massive problems. It has cost us thousands and thousands of dollars each year. Every time we drive it - we live in fear of another dash light going on and another monumental problem. This car has been a disaster. We will never buy another Audi. Show details

Terrible car, worse customer service from Audi – 2014 Q5 owned since new. Riddled with problems over the years. Has been recalled several times. Now an airbag crash sensor has failed during an Audi service and they are refusing to fix the problem. Claiming a sensor is a consumable item Show details

Excellent – We have the 2011 3.0TDI V6 Diesel, it has been amazing with nil issues, has high kms now 240,000kms now and it’s absolutely faultless, such a nice car to drive and comfortable, if you are looking to buy a Q5 the 3.0TDI is the way to go. Also holds its value well. Compared to the TFSI petrol models. Show details

Simply loved this car - audi q5 2012 – Amazing drive, perfect Suv for a family of 4. Road grip and drive is nonetheless. i have 2012 quattro diesel 2.0 model. It is highly highly fuel efficient, we fill up a tank with the premium diesel only once a month. It does last forever. Show details

Defective car - repair process terrible – Use to have one of these, a 2009 Q5 2L TFSI. After 2 years it started burning oil. Got worse and worse, after 3 years it needed a 15K engine rebuild. Audi (and everyone) by then knew the engines were faulty and burned excessive oi after a short time. Mine was using a litre of oil every 1000km. But no recall, instead they make you go through this… Read more

long multi-visit oil test crap before finally fixing your car. Before that they lie to you saying that the oil usage is normal. To top it off, even after the engine was rebuild, when I looked at trading it in at a VW dealer later that dealer said the car was worth less due to oil burning problem, even after the engine rebuilt. The engine problem was bad enough. The dishonesty about it even worse. We also had issues with a Audi A3 we bought when the transmission blew in the first year. Never will touch this brand again, Have Mercedes now and no quality problems there.

Total disaster – Long story short, do not buy early models of Q5 TFSI I’m still skeptical about later models but my 2010 Q5 was the most terrible experience in my whole life Had a plenty of problems from this car and I got eventually it refunded I don’t bother to say too much things from my experience but just one thing I really need to let people know is oil… Read more

consumption problem. Some people may already know that many of Audi models have issues in regards to excessive oil burning

Well.. with my Q5 I had to top up the engine oil every 250km-300km which means I have to buy 1litre engine oil and pour it to the engine every 5 or 6days I know that’s unbelievable but I’m not exaggerating the story

I went to a dealership more than 7 times to fix this problem but they finally gave up and refunded my money thank god that I had been still covered by statutory warranty for 3 months at that time otherwise things could’ve gone quite nasty

Useless technology that is dangerous – 2017 Q5 TFSI AEB - Autonomous emergency braking - this car slams on the brakes all the time for no reason, entering and exiting our garage it slams on the brakes!, reversing past the letterbox - slams on the brakes! My wife was coming around a residential 90 degree corner and there was a cyclist waiting on the corner to cross the road - it… Read more

slammed on the brakes!

The driver behind almost ran up the back of the car!

Safety!!! - What a joke, they shouldn't even be allowed to sell these things they are so dangerous.

The car never stops beeping, even after turning off every setting I can find - it beeps so much that you learn to just tune it out which means it now defeats the purpose for which it was intended.

After 3 months of ownership we are looking to sell and go back to Japanese cars, the 3 German cars we currently own (Merc, Audi and VW) are all having one problem after the other - absolute nightmares to own - don't believe all the hype you read about prestige and luxury - they are unreliable garbage and the dealerships are not one bit interested in resolving anything.

Bad Bad Vehicle- Mechatronic issues from Day 1 – First three years and was always worried when I tried reversing- sometimes it would shoot forward. Not a good idea when parallel parking. Audi won’t fix under warranty cause I missed one transmission oil change a few Years after first reporting the issue. If I could turn back time, I would never buy this vehicle. Very expensive to repair and service - not sure if this is just the case in Perth, but either way - a sour taste in my mouth.  Show details

Not Good enough – My wife's Q5 (diesel), showed to adBlue, This we did and immediately on starting it pored out of the engine. Took it to Frizells Audi dealer in Southport (purchased there). Was advised to not drive however couldn't look at it for 24+ hours Car only done less than 30,000 km in just under two years, but it was a warranty claim. Advised no loan car… Read more

available till 4 October. I am 70 and asked how did was I expected to get home (Burleigh Heads). Was told the tram was up the road, not good enough [name removed]!!!. Second Q5.

The review said to post my purchase details however Frizells kept my log books so guess you will have to take my word for it.

this is a perfect car for us – The car size is perfect and just enough sitting room. It is easier to steer than Q7. And it is perfect for a family of 4-5 and with a pet! We have this car for more than 5 years apart from occasional flat tyres (may be due to driving skills) no major repairs needed to be done.  Show details

Good SUV for family but I miss my Mercedes Benz C-Class for quality – I definitely prefer the fit and finish of the Mercedes Benz C-Class I had previously. Shame it started falling apart which I expect will happen to the Q5 based on my friends' experiences. The 2.0 TDI doesn't quite have the power or responsiveness I need to feel safe. Get the bigger engine! It also feels less airtight with notable road noise and… Read more

excessive windscreen condensation. Otherwise it's running well, 15 months in. No complaints about the AUDI service centre which is the best I've experienced.

Good amount of grunt and luxury but not without some issues – Driving is great, I've got the 3.0TDi version. It's got more than enough grunt to make smooth transitions onto the highway. The interior is great...comfortable seats, good A/C, decent audio...but then there are some drawbacks. I think the transmission is on its way out, the EGR has been replaced and still has troubles, and some other filter is… Read more

pretty bad. I have spent a few k's on fixing this issues while my Honda has had 0 issues since I purchased it. This is my third Audi and I must say...I'm not as impressed with it as my first two.

Piece of crap – I have owned my audi 3 years in that time i have replaced the engine due to failing oil compression tests 11k then 1 year later replaced transmission 6k now apparently a year later have to replace the engine yet again. Audi only reply due to the service history not being followed by the original owner they have voided any wrong doing. However in… Read more

USA where the same issue occured a class action forced audi to replace the engine at their expense. I have 150k on the clock the car is serviced at regular intervals.

Drive absolutely perfect but is a ticking time bomb of regret. I recommend that KIA is half the vale and unfathomable reliabilty comparred to the expensive crap bag that i thought would be a dream car and i wanted yo have something of value instead cost me my kob and relationship due to the ubsurmountable financial pressure it put upon myself.

If anyone wants to buy it as a skip bin give me a call.

Or if you have had the same issue join my facebook page

Audi Oil Consumption issue and read through the other testimonials in which others have shared a similar experience.

Too many issues for a luxury car – Originally I loved my Audi Q5. Good amount of room. Good power. Nice and comfortable. However, I have just come out of my 3 year warranty and I didn't expect to have these many issues with a luxury car (I had a lexus previously with no dramas in 3 years). Doing some googling, it also seems these issues are not uncommon. -rattling sunroof … Read more

-defective adaptive light module

-paint peeling from front bumper

I understand issues come about, but the amount of times I have been back to the dealer getting these things resolved has been ridiculous (maybe I should be writing a review on them....). They did EVERTYTHING to try and avoid fixing the issues. And the paint peeling off the bumper, I was told "Audi won't even consider that under warranty." Thanks Audi, you've just confirmed my next car purchase WON'T be another Audi

Air conditioning is a dissapointment – Bought this car in Jan 2014 with high expectations. Not happy with the air conditioning since day 1. Brought it back to the showroom few times and were advise that there's nothing wrong with the AC. Fan noise is loud but not much air coming out from it. It does blow cold air but I feel like there's something blocking the air so the performance is… Read more

not maximum.

Sun visor clip snapped on the 3rd year. First time experiencing this, had much older car and never snapped the sun visor clip.

Expensive junk – This car has only done 140000 klm uses oil, the transmission just packed up at a cost of $9500 to fix ,this problem was recalled in USA and China, but not in Australia.Just got car back and the drive belt broke, replaced it now car won't run engine management system light flashing, need to get car towed to be repaired, we now hate this car and… Read more

will be selling it when it's fixed. Will never buy another Audi again, we have learned a very expensive lesson to buy a car with less features, things to go wrong.

Dont buy Audi - worst customer service | useless audi service – My Audi 2011 has had several significant problems in recent time. Firstly the megatronic unit on the transmission failed at approximately 60,000Km. repairs to this were relatively straight forward with a repair bill of approximately $3,000. Then transmission light started coming and I took to sudi 3 times, they charged me everytime but were not… Read more

able to fix the issue. Local mechanic charged be 120$ and fixed the issue which Audi service center did not by charging 4000$

Even after the replacement of PCB unit of transmission CAR is not working well, it rolls backward while standing on red light . I took it back to audi service and I was adviced to use a handbrake everytime I stop at the red light so that car should not roll back.

Comfortable & pleasant drive, – Compared to the previous AUDI models I have experienced (& admittedly they all constantly offered more than i've expected), the Q5 is a completely new excitement. I have had it since 2015, though compared to A4 the acceleration is not as quick but the ease and comfort of driving is just irreplaceable.  Show details

One of the most powerful SUV – I am still driving it now...it broke an engine last December...on 147 558 km. Thanks to extended warranty that covered for R36.000 And i had to add only R23.000. And the car was back to road again. Replacement of engine...after all is done...re registration of new engine number is very important... Vin number and engine number should match...… Read more

Now i am a happy chap again...

Speed...power...oil and fuel consumption still the same.

2010 Audi Q5...what a machine..

Avoid q5 – Had to replace the engine at 75000km don't buy a q5 definitely the worst thing you can do Show details