Pouya S.
DO NOT BUY 2021 AUDI Q5 IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO EXCESSIVE ENGINE NOISE.
I recently leased an 2021 Audi Q5 Sportback and after riding it for a couple of hours I noticed that the engine makes a whistling noise at low RPM (around 1500) when accelerating. This is loud enough that you can easily hear it on highways. Moreover, the turbo makes a loud hissing noise whenever I accelerate. I also test drove 3 more Q5s and they all made the same noises (both whistling at low RMP and high hissing noise). So, I took it to the dealership to exit out of my lease and they said since this issue is happening on all the cars there’s no easy way to get out of the lease and they can buy back the car and the sum of money out of my pocket was 11,000 dollars. So, I called Audi USA and they said they cannot do anything with lease termination and there was basically no way for me to get out of the lease without losing too much money. They suggested I should take it to my local service to thoroughly diagnose this and I did. They gave me a report that quotes: "Costumer states at low rpm there is a whistling sound coming from the engine. Costumer went on test with shop Foreman previously. Technician performed road test and confirmed whistling noise. Technician scanned vehicle and found no faults or DTC pertaining to engine bay. Tech was able to test drive identical model to compare and found noise is normal and from wastegate opening high speed/ low RPM under load. Vehicle is operating as designed." So basically, the car's engine makes different types of noises, and they call it operating as designed and there is no good solution that I was given by neither the dealership nor Audi USA. So, if you are sensitive to random engine noise (this is by far different from cool sporty engine sounds) I'd steer away from Q5. This is my first lease from Audi and will never come back.