New AUDI Q5 review at a glance:
View New AUDI Q5 prices, View AUDI Q5 news, View AUDI Q5 price research.

Advantages: Handles just like a car, neat and sophisticated exterior styling

Disadvantages: Lack of steering feel in 3.0-litre V6 TDI guise, ride quality can be a little uncompromising, fairly expensive, limited off-road capabilities, pricey options list.

Summary: Easy to drive, simple to park and with a choice of great engines

(3) AutoeBid customer AUDI Q5 Reviews:
30-January-2012 New AUDI Q5 Deals(2.0 TDI Quattro S Line Special Ed 5d [SS])
“Everything you'd expect from an Audi, perfect. ”

03-November-2011 New AUDI Q5 Deals(2.0 TDI Quattro S Line 5d [Start Stop])
“Great car”

20-July-2011 New AUDI Q5 Deals(2.0 TDI Quattro S Line 5d [Start Stop])
“The Q5 is a great family car with great build quality and good performance. ”
New AUDI Q5 Review:
The all-new Audi Q5 makes for a sound compact 4X4/SUV investment, particularly if you’re new to the game and are looking to ease yourself away from familiar car characteristics and in to the land of giants in a more measured and leisurely fashion, and not in the one big leap of faith. The Q5 epitomises this – for many new buyers - pre-requisite that enables a painless transition from car to SUV. Think of the Q5 as the vehicular equivalent of the ‘My First’ range of early-learning toys that make understanding of grown-up complexities that much simpler in the eyes of infants.

With body roll kept to a minimum and any other minor grievances – lumbago-complicating firmness - offset by a redoubtably refined technical aspect to the ride and immense grip, the Audi Q5 serves as the ideal half way house between the erstwhile estate car merits of the Audi Avant All-Road and the gorge encompassing outXoutX4X4 attributes of the gargantuan Q7. More than a carefully constructed, cynically marketed makeweight in the current Audi range though, the Q5 is a strong individual performer in its own right, and set to ruffle the well-preened feathers of BMW’s X3 – and possibly X6, Volvo’s new XC60 and Ford’s all-new Kuga as it offers almost everything the premium compact 4X4 buyer could ever want.

Economy and performance are the buzzwords associated with the Audi Q5, a compact SUV that mathematically goes some way to tick nearly all the important boxes. In terms of the engines, there are a triumvirate from which to choose; a 2.0-litre petrol, and both a 2.0-litre and 3.0-litre V6 turbo diesel to keep the chattering classes silent. The power plant we recommend – and we’re not on our own here- is the 168bhp 2.0-litre TDI. Not only the cheapest of the trio to buy, but the cheapest to run too. the 2.0-litre TDI Q5’s road tax demands won’t give your complexion an unsightly pallor for a start, neither will you break out in a hot flush at the pumps thanks to it returning 42mpg, whilst you can breathe a sigh of relief that Greenpeace won’t be monitoring your every movement courtesy of the Q5 piping a not inconsiderate 175g/km of CO2 in to the environment above our heads.

The smaller of the two oil burners offers a six-speed manual transmission, while the other two front a seven-speed twin-clutch semi-auto jobby.

Traction and stability control and hill descent assimilations might sway you otherwise, but don’t alas be fooled as to the Q5’s off road limitations, as a tarmacadamed surface is its preferred territory. However, if you do opt for a little soil-based tomfoolery, the underlying fact that the Q5 comes equipped with underbody protection, impressive ground clearance and globe-trotting wheels means you shouldn’t get caught out providing you don’t stray too far off the un-beaten track.

The Q5 manages to keep noise pollution under its hat, with only the most distant of wind and road acoustics waking passengers from their slumber. That’s of course providing that they found a comfortable seated position in which to nod off.

Depreciation wont overly affect the Q5, excepting the credit crunch has passed by the time you’re looking to slap a for sale ad in the window, because – as the bonnet and boot badge implies – it’s an Audi. Ergo, it’s awfully fashionable. Which reassuringly explains why you paid so much for it to begin with, like a certain fine lager.

In terms of build quality, the Q5 is as expertly drilled together as you’d expect it to be, although it has to be noted tactility has faced a battle with durability in some interior quarters if we’re being pedantic.

Aside from the perky engines, there’s a definite sporty feel to the Q5, which to our thinking takes the fight to the new BMW X6, a compact SUV that also bridges far more divides than the run of the mill compact 4X4. It helps that the dash is lifted straight out of the current Audi A4 which is an involving place to be holed up at the best of times, and should you circle the Q5 S-Line brochure box, then a plethora of extra curricular and rather deft sporty touches manifest both the inside and out. That said, the base SE-trimmed Q5 boasts leather seats, climate, automatic lights and wipers, parking sensors and four powered windows, so hardly scrimping. Be warned though, the extras list will change the final price quite noticeably.

With bags of room inside, capacious boot space, excellent engines, especially in 2.0-litre TDI form, keen economy and emissions figures. You’d be forgiven for mistaking the all-new Audi Q5 for an everyday car if you so happened to be blindfolded, let loose on a deserted airstrip and then asked for your opinion. What’s more, oodles of stylish interior space and a cavernous boot greet the driver once they’ve removed their makeshift vision-reducing prop and run the rule over what they now see laid out before them. Naturally there has to be a trade off somewhere, and with the Q5 it’s discovered in its all-terrain intonations. Which is roughly the point this smooth operator’s rural ideas begin and end. Unlike the Land Rover Freelander 2, Audi’s fait mud-plugger doesn’t really like getting its tyres all that dirty, and will therefore be more at home outside an easily accessible townhouse than a remote country pile.