HP TouchSmart. Touch the future now.
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Average user rating:
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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4.5 stars
"overall very satisfied"
Pros: roomy, safe, nice interior, handles very well, automatic lights
Cons: poor gas mileage, annoying transmission computer, not so quiet, leather extra
Summary: I own this car for four months now. So far, so good. It drives well and corners well too. Brakes are great, visibility is perfect and big mirrors really help. Exterior is OK by my standards, although I agree with a previous review that the rear end could be better. The car is very roomy and comfortable, with awesome moon roof going through the whole vehicle. The driver seat is a bit tight and too firm; with use it gets better. The third row seats are also leather and are not that bad. Of course, the space is tight but with adjustments of the first and second row it is acceptable. This was a nice surprise compared to Acura MDX that I nearly bought. However, MDX second row is fixed making the third row really tight with no adjustment possible.
I have the 3.6 L V6 and get enough power in most situations. Only on steep climbs you feel the need for a stronger engine to propel this heavy car without losing speed. A good thing compared to our 2002 A6 is that on an incline facing up Q7 does not slide back and stays put. What is only annoying during drive is the computer that controls transmission depending on the conditions. Out of my driveway, I have to climb at about 25-30 degrees up. The car stays at the second gear, the engine revs up but the gear does not shift. They claim that is accelerates better this way but I have a feeling that it causes unnecessary wear on the transmission. The cabin is not so quiet and the stereo has to be cranked up to hear at speeds above 50 mph. The first month, when the car nears 75 mph you can hear a whining noise from the engine that is quite unusual. I tried to push it to 80-90 mph on a quiet freeway several times and looks like it helped to get the noise down. May be the engine needed to work up a bit to get used to high speeds. By the way, the car feels very steady at those speeds.
The console is nice and my best feature are the lights. The automatic sensor is great and you just don't care about night or day conditions anymore. The seat heating and air conditioning are easy to adjust and provide excellent temperature comfort. The control MMI unit is not that difficult to learn despite some complaints from users; the only drawback is that it does not have a default to go to the preferred stations after the start - you always need to press another button.
Speaker controls are also on the steering wheel that makes it easy to keep your eyes on the road all the time. This is a nice luxury addition. The Bose system is great with very, very nice sound.
The major drawback of this car is the gas mileage. I was not so lucky as some other posters and only get 12 mpg in the city (forget the advertised 14). Half- freeway, half-city can boost the mileage to 16 mpg, which already is not that bad. I can only imagine what the V8 performance in this domain is. The consolation there is a bigger than usual tank (28 gallons), which makes me refill it once in 3-4 weeks.
Overall, although it lacks the sporty feel and has poor gas mileage, Q7 offers nice feel, solid drive and many luxury features for several K less than Mercedes or BMW. It is roomy and comfortable and I can recommend it to all those who want a luxury SUV. As to the quality and repairs, it remains to be seen...Updated
P.S. The dealer slashed 3K from the MSRP because it was the second car we bought there. This was less than Edmunds or CarsDirect. Another nice thing was that they offered less than 6% finance on buy, which was below internet price or my bank's quote.
