Any owners of Q7 e-tron here

[Jondoyle]

Hi Hugh,

Aug 2020 and I’m reading your message with great interest. I’m looking for an E-tron like yourself at the moment but very interested to see how you got on with yours for the past couple of years. Indeed if anyone else can assist I would be very grateful. Many thanks in advance. Jon

Hi all
collected my e-tron from Audi Aberdeen on Friday Dec 1st (Launch spec/ Air suspension/ Tour Pack/ Bose/ Ambient lighting/ Matrix LED/Sports seats/ Orca Black). So far 10/10 Aberdeen Audi. I had a few queries over the weekend and they were right back to me.

It was a bit of a shot in the dark as the test drive I did was not totally convincing, but now after a long drive home to Dublin on Friday and another 800Km of mixed city/ motorway over the weekend and a long drive to the west & back today, I am smitten. This is a seriously clever piece of engineering, eeking every bit of energy from the fuel, and delivering a turbine-like torque when requested. I just love the amount of engine off coasting it does on motorways when running on Predictive drive & ACC. First impressions on a 280 mile/ 450km trip is a range of >1,000km of a fuel tank on a long run. That's leaving aside that many days will be all-electric.

I am surprised Audi do not promote this e-tron more aggressively. It's a gem of engineering, smoothness and well implemented technology.

In an ideal world I would have the noise insulating glass, but in the context of the deal, it was easy to overlook.

I plan to fit a hitch for light dingy towing. All indications are it's a standard Westfalia- removable hitch arrangement: Has anyone done this yet? I did it DIY on my previous (VW Phaeton) and it was a morning's work.

Regards
Hugh
Dublin

[Crasher]

Confusingly there are two e-trons, the one the chap in 2017 was talking about is the Diesel hybrid but now there is the fully electric e-tron, which one and age are you interested in?

[Jondoyle]

Hi there and many thanks for your help,
The older Q7 e-tron 2017 is the one which I'm looking for feedback on please.
I've heard that they could be a tad troublesome...
Best Rgds J 😊

[FortyPlus]

Hi there and many thanks for your help,
The older Q7 e-tron 2017 is the one which I'm looking for feedback on please.
I've heard that they could be a tad troublesome...
Best Rgds J 😊

In theory there are two Q7 e-tron models: the original, with the 3.0 diesel hybrid drive-train made from around mid 2016 to around mid 2018 (but for some production related reasons no RHD were delivered until end 2016-early 2017) , and in theory a current model with a similar but petrol-hybrid electric system, but I don't believe that is offered in UK or Ireland.

The all-electric e-tron is a different model, more Q5 size than Q7 sized, and quite a different animal. But the naming is certainly confusing.

I got my Q7 diesel-e-tron hybrid in Dec 2017 with around 2,000 miles, and now have 78,000Km: around 48,000 miles covered. I had one failure: the inverter failed close to the end of warranty. A €10k repair, fortunately covered by warranty. No doubt it could have been sorted for less if warranty was not available. Otherwise the car runs like clockwork, and I am well satisfied.

On average I get around 1200Km per refill: so for the past 30,000km it's showing an average 52mpg/ 5.4l/100Km . It all depends how you use it. That's mostly suburban, with one round trip of 300km every week, all ICE. Thus the stats typically indicate 50% Electric, 50% ICE.

I am well aware of all the arguments of hauling 2 engines around, increased complexity, etc etc and have no interest in going down that rabbit hole.

For us the car does many jobs well. 2 x lanky teenagers love the LWB legroom and reclining rear seats for long trips (Q7 e-tron is 5 seat only). Wife likes the luxury-car type ride comfort. I often use it as a load-lugger for work related stuff, and have used a 2500kg trailer without issue. And if required, the combined ~380bhp give it an indecent turn of speed for overtaking.
I like the silence @ 120kph on the motorway, excellent seats, matrix lights, adaptive cruise control and the silence around town in electric mode.

Integration of electric & ICE is excellent. To get the best from it some manual intervention is recommended: i.e. save the electricity for around town. Overall low cost of ownership, smooth & silent.
For certain there is potential for something expensive to go wrong, but most new Porsche Panamera and Cayenne I see around are hybrids, using very similar drive-train, but with the 3.0 petrol engine.

So it's horses for courses. If you do mostly urban/ suburban, but still need a long distance cruiser, then this is relevant. If it's all urban, get the all-electric e-tron. If it's all long distance, then this Q7-hybrid brings little benefit. For me it works, and so far, so good.

[Crasher]

Well when it is 9 years old and needs a new high voltage traction battery (it actually has 3 batteries 12v, 48v and 396v) the £15592.72 (at today's prices) plus fitting would upset me.

[Jondoyle]

Good evening Hugh,


Many many thanks for your extremely comprehensive reply. It is hugely informative and helpful.


Like yourself I don't really have the need for the 7 seats as I also now have two teenagers and and a 9-year old, so I'm just thinking of getting rid of the E-Class Estate which has served me very well. I'm amazed really that they haven't proved to be more popular especially given the much lower rates of VRT on the imports.
I see three or four for sale on the Irish market at the moment and the prices seem strong which is good news for you.
I guess the scary part would be the potential for a pricey hybrid type repair which in my case would not be covered under warranty. (I'm looking at 2017 price range)
Likewise Crasher makes a pertinent point about potential battery costs down the line.


As much as I'd love to purchase one, and I think it would be perfect for me because I would even be doing less of the longer journeys than yourself, I'm starting to lean back towards the diesel.
I don't think I'm quite ready for the fuel anxiety issues of an all Electric, and and in terms of the phevs I'm not so sure that the Germans are quite as far down the road as the Japs just yet.
Once again many thanks to both yourself and Crasher for making the time and the effort for your extremely informative responses.


Best Rgds J ��

[Crasher]

When I told a customer about the HV battery worry he said he would just use it as a normal car. Unfortunately I had to inform him that when I went on the VAG introductory training course for the Q7 etron I posed this to the lecturer and he said unfortunately if the HV battery fails, the engine will not start... how correct that is only time will tell.

[mikael]

I thought I would revive this thread as I have recently bought a 2017 Q7-Etron and thought I would share my experiences so far. I had been keeping a lookout for one for a long time, but hoped that a significant number would reach the market during mid to end of last year when many 3 year leases would expire and a significant number would appear on the market all at once. This strategy did pay off as the numbers on autotrader were around 1 to 2 before mid last year, when the numbers then ballooned to between 20 and 30 cars listed at one time.

The thing that surprised me most was just how many of these listed actually had a fairly standard spec with very few extra options. Given the price of these cars new, I thought a few more owners would have splashed out more on options!

A car with a high enough spec for my liking did come on the market in late November which I bought via an independent dealer. It was a car registered in May 2017 and had done 27,000 miles. It was an ex lease car and it had been used as pool car for the HQ of a large UK company. It felt like a new car and still does.

In addition to the standard spec, it has the following options: Tour pack (Air Suspension, Adaptive Cruise, Lane Assist), Comfort Pack (Comfort heated and ventilated front seats with passenger and driver memories and self dimming heated mirrors), Matrix Headlights, Panoramic Sunroof, Privacy Glass, Rear airbags, Trailer pack with trailer assist and electrically retractable towbar, rear blinds and Bose sound system. I would have liked to find one with the rare heated windscreen and heated steering wheel too, along with side assist, head-up display and TV but you cannot have everything. Perhaps I shall retrofit a small number sometime.

I wanted to find the combination of Air Suspension with the factory tow-bar as the car is then capable of towing 3.5 tons, the only hybrid of that age capable of doing so. Even now, I think only the Q7 TFSie and the Mercedes GLE hybrid are capable of this.

I had hoped to find one registered before April 2017 as they have no road tax, but with the exception of the initial demo cars bought by Audi dealers, there are only 17 in the UK which fall into that group, and hoping that one of these comes up with the spec I would want is like finding a needle in a haystack. There only appear to be just over 500 in the UK in total anyway.

I have only had Audi cars for nearly the last 20 years, and I have been very happy with all of them. This one has been a more mixed experience so far. The car is a great quiet and refined vehicle which will suit my requirements. However it has already had to have one expensive repair. Within three weeks of owning it, the high voltage charging unit in the car developed a fault whereby it would not recognise the charging lead being disconnected from it on my driveway. The car will not drive anywhere if it thinks the charging cable is still connected. It ended up being recovered to one of the local Audi dealers where it was diagnosed with needing a new high voltage charger at a cost of £3,400. Over £2700 for the part and the rest labour.

I checked this part out on the Audi parts catalogue and found that the charging module was modified in June 2017 and any replacements must be made with the new part. I could only assume that the part was modified for a reason. On that basis I was hopeful that Audi would provide some goodwill for the repair if I asked, especially given that the part in question had failed way before its expected design life.

The dealer was initially unhelpful telling me that the car had never been serviced at an Audi centre and they could therefore not provide any goodwill. Thankfully I had received paper records with the car that confirmed it had had its first (and only) service carried out at an Audi main dealer. I was surprised that they could see no record of it, as the car has an electronic service record which all Audi dealers can see. I contacted the dealer that had carried out the service and they confirmed that they had serviced the car, and told me that any dealer could see that if they use the system known as ELSA pro. I told the dealer my car was at and they still wanted a paper invoice. I complained and they finally accepted it had been serviced at Audi. They then did secure the full part replacement cost from Audi UK, and they told me they had also secured a 50% contribution for the labour. I initially thought this was a good and fair outcome, given the car was now outside its warranty.

However they then informed me that the labour was then going to be £2500, with me having to pay £1250. I asked them how come the labour had increased so much from the price quoted without goodwill. They told me they had made an error with the quote. I asked them to give me the recommended repair times for the job and they were adamant it was a 10 hour job. I told them I cannot believe anyone would make such a bad mistake, so they reduced the labour charge to £960. I reluctantly accepted that, but in the meanwhile made a complaint to Audi UK. They were not particularly helpful, but they did get and provide the labour operations codes from the dealer carrying out the repair. I asked them to provide me with the recommended times to carry out the labour operations, but they refused. Thankfully I was able to get the times from another dealer and they informed me that the time would amount to around 3 hours. After I obtained this information, I emailed the dealer copying in Audi UK and the dealer then backtracked saying the price had been arrived at through confusion and Audi UK were not now paying for half the labour, but only providing the part. The dealer then offered a further £250 reduction in the labour, which I accepted and settled at.

I am hoping that the failure of the charger was a one off event which might have happened much earlier if the car had actually been charged regularly, but I get the impression the previous company only had it for BIK reasons. I am now using as it was designed to be, regularly charging it, which probably induced the failure in any parts which might have failed earlier in its life.

Since the charger has been replaced the car has been good and I have been trying to get familiar with all the features of it.

There is one particular feature that I cannot get to work, which I would like to hear from other owners about. The feature in question is the one that optimises the use of the hybrid battery (if charged) if you set your destination in the sat-nav before you make your journey. If you set a destination which is further than the predicted electric-only range, the car should set itself into hybrid mode (from the default electric drive mode) and then use the battery and engine in the most optimal way during the journey so you arrive at the destination with a depleted battery, ready for fully re-charging. I cannot get this feature to work. Using the sat-nav does not seem to influence any of the hybrid control. Any feedback would be appreciated. I may otherwise have to get a different dealer to check the issue out.

[papadelta]

Hi Mikhail

I have 2018 e-tron, first registered in March 2018. Apart from a cable shorting out on the gearbox, cutting out EV mode, I have had no problems. I have most options and have only done 22,500 miles. Covid kept me at home!!

Most of my journeys are local in EV mode, which is the default. As soon as I set a destination in the satnav, it switches to hybrid mode. I am not convinced that the algorithm is that good so I generally switch to battery save mode, switching to EV mode when I get off the motorway onto local roads. I have got quite good at judging the range so that I arrive home with a fully depleted battery.

Even in battery safe mode, the car will switch to EV to use any regenerated power.

Brilliant car. Enjoy it.

Cheers
Philip

[seph234]

I have just put a deposit down on a 67 plate Q7 E-tron with 24k miles. hopefully it will be a good one. its got a years audi warranty with it, hopefully i wont need to use it.