In the last two weeks I've put 1,396 miles on our Audi Q7 4.2 Premium. The mileage includes plenty of carting the kids around town, a family trip down to San Diego to check out Sea World and a husband and wife getaway to Las Vegas, for which I'm providing two examples of photographic proof. Here's what I learned.
1) The Audi's driver's seat, while very comfortable, lacks some lower thigh support, which gets to be a bit of a problem when a vehicle has a 400+ mile range...
2) The Q7 has a 400+ mile range. L.A. to Lake Las Vegas is 291 miles. We arrived with plenty of gas left in our tank.
3) Liberace has his own museum.
4) The Q7's range is remarkable considering I averaged 15.6 mpg over the two weeks and my best tank was just 15.9 mpg.
5) Audi's MMI is 4,000,000 time easier to use than BMW's iDrive or Benz's COMAND.
6) Filling up the Audi costs a fortune--between $85 and $95 each and every time.
7) In Sport Mode, the Audi's 6-speed automatic transmission is much quicker to downshift should you need to pass, but around town its upshifts are too jerky. I found myself leaving it in Drive 90% of the time and pulling it back into Sport when I needed a little extra response. The Manual gate went unloved.
8) With the third row folded flat, the Q7's cargo area is large enough for my daughter's new tricycle and our 65 lb. doggy.
9) Shamu is spelled phonetically.
10) The Audi Q7 is very easy to live with.
Scott Oldham, Inside Line Editor-in-Chief @ 8,396 miles
mercedesfan says:
04:26 PM, 05/29/07
Which COMAND system? Mercedes' old button intensive system still found in the R-Class or the new knob-based system found in the new S and CL-Class. I personally find the new COMAND system in my S550 to be far simpler to use than the Audi MMI, but I do have past experience with MB interfaces. Regardless, the Q7 continues to impress me more and more; I still could never justify spending that kind of money on a huge truck but I can see why some might want it.
bimmerjay says:
09:14 PM, 05/29/07
Now c'mon Scott, 4,000,000 times easier than iDrive? A bit of an exaggeration, maybe? I'd say MMI is at most 1,500,000 times easier.
actualsize says:
02:56 PM, 05/30/07
Isn't Liberace spelled phonetically too? Or have I been saying it wrong all these years?