This was my first time behind the wheel of our 2007 Audi Q7 and right off I notice that this car wants to go. Even just the tiniest tap on the gas pedal brings a guttural response from the powertrain. I was about to compliment the car on a fine exhaust note but, as I thought about it, the exhaust was only part of the acceleration experience. It was a mixture of sounds and vibrations coming from all around me that was, vell, quite pleasing...
I went to my files and dug out a quote from an article I wrote once about how car makers are designing the "pleasure package." A sound designer for Porsche told me, "The engine is like an orchestra with a lot of players. In a good orchestra they only play what they are allowed to play. But in an engine there are a lot of players, and they play many things and they don't listen to the maestro. We have to synchronize the sounds. Sounds we don't like we have to suppress."
If the maestro is successfull at suppressing unruly sounds and highlighting the pleasurable ones, the driver will feel the car is accelerating hell-bent-for-leather when it's only moderate. In other words, you feel speed without breaking any laws. The Audi has got all that wired.
But back to reality, I took the Q7 for a fillup, premium required. It cost 65 smackers.
Easy to say that someone with the jack to buy this $62,000 hunk of German engineering wouldn't care about the extra cost for gas. I'm not so sure. The purchase price is a one-time hit. Poor fuel economy is a constant and painful reminder. But maybe all thoughts of excess will be drowned out by the maestro and his fine orchestra.
Philip Reed, Edmunds.com Senior Consumer Advice Editor @ 20685 miles
desmolicious says:
12:46 PM, 11/21/07
$65 to fill it up does not mean it gets poor gas mileage. It just means it costs $65 to fill up it...
(of course I'm sure it does get lousy gas mileage though!)
jr1m90 says:
01:45 PM, 11/21/07
$3.63 per gallon! Ouch, that's premium I suppose, but still, I thought $3.05 for regular in Pennsylvania was bad!
On another note, does anyone else notice the carbon built up around the exhaust pipes, especially around the bottom edge?
mopar424 says:
02:59 PM, 11/21/07
The carbon is normal. Theres more than just pretty sounds coming from those shiny pipes.
aspade says:
03:04 PM, 11/21/07
Purchase price is only a one time hit if you buy outright. Making a $1500 monthly payment on the car really makes worrying over a $250 against $350 on the month's gas seem trivial.
stingray454 says:
07:16 AM, 11/23/07
I'm always amazed at how the German and Japanese engineering "talent" never designs a simple feature in the exhaust tips to prevent all that carbon on the lower tip: water drain holes on the bottom backside of the tip (where you can't see it). My '02 Corvette Z06 has the condensation drain holes in the tips, and it never has black carbon on the lower part of the tip like that. My '03 Infiniti G35 Coupe had the same carbon deposits on the tips as this Audi Q7 - no drain holes.
rick8365 says:
10:34 AM, 11/23/07
No drain holes (I agree, they work) but what typical Audi attention to detail though with all the bodywork.
This 4.2 seems to please anyone who gets to drive something with it in it. I've got a few miles with it driving a Toureg on a couple of occaisions - it just pulls like a locomotive and sounds great doing it.
jr1m90 says:
01:09 PM, 11/23/07
The drain holes would make the car look nicer, because unless you clean it regularly, the carbon build up really wrecks the look of the exhaust finisher.
vvk says:
04:36 PM, 11/24/07
17 gallons would have to cost at least $170 for Q7 owners to feel the pain.
blueguydotcom says:
11:10 AM, 11/26/07
Just filled up the cooper S this morning and I spent $45 (13 gallons @ $3.49). What's the big deal about $65? You're driving a much larger vehicle and paid a bit more per gallon.