2014 Audi Q5 TDI Diesel

2014 Audi Q5 TDI Diesel

Efficient. (Unintentionally, in our case.)

Your typical new-car launch consists of a dozen or so juvenile-minded writers driving cars they don’t own, burning fuel they didn’t pay for, on roads that have in part been selected for their limited police presence. It’s a suitable arrangement for evaluating a car’s major attributes: acceleration, handling, ride quality, interior quietness, and so on—everything except fuel economy. But when efficiency is a vehicle’s top selling point, as it is with the new diesel-powered Audi Q5, automakers do their best to rein in the aggression and keep that message top of mind.

So for the first drive of its 2014 Q5 TDI, Audi pulled out an old industry standby created for just this occasion: the fuel-economy challenge, with prizes for the winners. With trinkets on the line—a T-shirt, a keychain, a day-old doughnut, it doesn’t really matter—journalists instinctively sort themselves into one of two camps. The first is the handful who treat the contest as if they’d been invited to take a half-court shot for a million bucks. We fall into the other, shrugging off the game and driving the car as we would any other. (Our technical director, Don Sherman, falls into neither category, preferring to take advantage of every loophole in the rules simply for the satisfaction of stomping the competition into a fine powder.)

It goes without saying, then, that we dipped often and deeply into the turbo-diesel’s 240 horsepower and 428 lb-ft of torque on our drive in Washington, D.C. With Quattro all-wheel drive keeping wheelspin at bay, the Q5 pulled away from the line on a surge of low-rpm twist that we estimate is good for a 0-to-60 time of seven seconds flat. For reference, a gas-fired Q5 2.0T we tested for a recent comparo hit 60 in 6.9. We explored part-throttle passing and accelerator response, probing the limits of where the car calls for a downshift. In many cases, the 3.0-liter V-6 needs only the next-lower gear when most gas-powered cars would call for a two- or three-cog downshift. Not that the ZF-supplied eight-speed automatic would mind working harder. It’s the industry-standard conventional automatic in quick shifts and smoothness, and it’s as adept at juggling ratios here as it is in countless gas-fed BMWs, Audis, and others. The engine and the transmission are perfectly synced, delivering assertive thrust that makes the Q5 TDI ideal for slicing through traffic quagmires like those in our nation’s capital.

Inside, the TDI sports the same four-spoke steering wheel and revised infotainment controls that were included with last year’s Q5 face lift. The cabin boasts excellent materials, intuitive ergonomics, and great outward visibility, yet the interior styling feels a bit sterile, even by Audi’s ascetic design standard. We shut off the stereo and the HVAC fan and channeled our concentration into listening for ticking injectors and clattering combustion. We came up empty-eared. Compared with a gasoline Q5, the TDI radiates a slightly louder but still inoffensive thrum at idle. It’s easier to identify this Q5 as a diesel when the stop-start system restarts the engine with a more pronounced shudder than in its stablemates.

Audi’s Q5 is aimed at the crossover-buying masses, not enthusiasts. To our tastes, the regular Q5 rolls too much in corners and distances the driver with effortless steering. Yet that wasn’t enough to stop us from finding a rhythm on sinuous Maryland back roads where the Goodyear rubber compensated with exceptional grip. We momentarily forgot the Q5’s tall ride height and the diesel under the hood and enjoyed snaking through ess-bends just below the threshold where the tires start to sing. (The SQ5 aims to bridge the gap between commuter and enthusiast, and the model is even available with a diesel in Europe. Ours will have a 354-hp supercharged gas V-6.)

After parking for the night, we were caught off guard when Audi’s press boss announced that our 35.6-mpg average, weighted with our average speed, won the fuel-economy challenge. Especially because we didn’t do anything to help—it was our driving partner who drove his leg of the route at a playing-to-win pace. (Our prize? A Clean Diesel T-shirt, which now sits among the pile of items we randomly mail to our Backfires members.) Just as surprising, though, was that we exceeded the EPA’s estimated 24 mpg city and 31 highway fuel-economy ratings by a significant margin. With impressive efficiency and civilized, torquey performance, this diesel deserves to be taken more seriously than a game.

Specifications >

VEHICLE TYPE: front-engine, 4-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 5-door wagon

BASE PRICE: $47,395

ENGINE TYPE: turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 24-valve diesel V-6, iron block and aluminum heads, direct fuel injection

Displacement: 181 cu in, 2967 cc
Power: 240 hp @ 4000 rpm
Torque: 428 lb-ft @ 1750 rpm

TRANSMISSION: 8-speed automatic with manual shifting mode

DIMENSIONS:
Wheelbase: 110.5 in
Length: 182.6 in
Width: 74.7 in Height: 65.2 in
Curb weight (C/D est): 4500 lb

PERFORMANCE C/D EST:
Zero to 60 mph: 7.0 sec
Standing ¼-mile: 15.6 sec
Top speed: 130 mph

FUEL ECONOMY:
EPA city/highway driving: 24/31 mpg

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