Audi Q7 Review & Prices

It’s becoming ever-more difficult to stand out in the world of big, seven-seat SUVs. Everything is becoming larger, more luxurious and high-tech, with increasingly aggressive styling.

Well, bringing more than a little ‘grrr’ to the party is the Audi Q7, with its angular headlights and vast grille. Looks are deceiving, though, because this big seven-seater is comfortable, not carnivorous.

Audi hasn’t stopped with the Q7’s exterior – it’s been busy beavering away with its cabin too. Most prominent is a trio of high-resolution screens, plus some of the plushest materials of any seven-seat SUV on sale.

Sure, the BMW X5’s infotainment system is easier to use and the Mercedes GLE’s widescreen display looks a bit more futuristic, but the Audi Q7 comes with all the sat-nav and smartphone mirroring features you could ask for and its digital driver’s display is still the best in the business.

Watch: Review of the high-performance Audi SQ7

The Audi Q7 has the competition licked when it comes to boot space, too. With the standard third row of seats (which cost extra in some SUVs) flipped down, you’ll be able to cram in more luggage than in the BMW or Mercedes and there’s loads of room for tall passengers to get comfy in the middle row thanks to the Q7’s high roof and reclining seats.

Combine these roomy, supportive seats with the Audi Q7’s standard air suspension, and you’ve got yourself a seriously comfortable SUV to travel in. It’s very quiet at motorway speeds and the Q7’s two diesel engines are smooth and even relatively economical thanks to some clever mild-hybrid tech

One thing the Audi Q7 won’t do, however, is put a particularly big grin on your face on a quiet country road. Sure, the adaptive sports suspension in Black Edition and Vorsprung cars helps make them feel slightly more agile, but even they can’t disguise their large size as well as the sportier BMW X5 and Porsche Cayenne.

Head into town, however, and the tables turn in the Audi Q7’s favour. You get a great view out through its large windows and the four-wheel-steering that comes as standard in high-spec Vorsprung cars means they can shrug off a tight U-turn like a seasoned political spin doctor.

It’s a shame only top-spec cars get a full complement of driver assistance systems – including adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping assist – as standard, but don’t let this put you off. Even in entry-level guise, the Audi Q7 is one of the very best large SUVs on sale.

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Audi Q7 alternatives are more expensive and include the Mercedes-Benz GLE and BMW X5 – both are newer designs than the Audi, which goes some way to explaining the price differential.

Engine power is another factor. Basic versions of the Audi Q7 come with a 231hp diesel engine that’s down on power versus the diesels in the BMW X5 (286hp) and Mercedes GLE (272hp).

The Audi Q7 is quiet, comfortable and relaxing to drive, and it even corners surprisingly well, although you don’t get quite the commanding driving position found in other SUVs

In town

The Audi Q7 is one of the easiest big SUVs to drive around town because its dimensions are very easy to judge and – despite it not being the tallest of its type – you still get a great view out. High-end models also get rear-wheel steering that gives them the manoeuvrability of a much smaller car.

Getting parked up is hassle-free thanks to the car’s light controls and the creep function of its automatic gearbox, which makes it easy to control delicately at slow speeds. Parking sensors are fitted as standard all around and you get a reversing camera with a large, colourful display.

It’s all very impressive, although we would still consider the Comfort and Sound Pack. It adds a Park Assist which can select a space and accelerate, brake and steer you straight into it, automatically. The pack also adds a 360-degree camera which is a bit like having a drone filming a view above the car – it means you can tackle width restrictors and park tight against the kerb without risking wheel damage.

The Q7 is surprisingly good at other aspects of town driving. It will roll over the nastiest of speed humps like they’re not there and the air suspension smooths out the road like you’re floating on, well, air.

It’s got plenty of performance, too, although sometimes it’s held back by the automatic gearbox that’s slow to respond when you want a quick burst of acceleration.

On the motorway

Out on the motorway, the Q7’s slow responding gearbox isn’t such an issue and you’ll find it’s a very relaxing car to travel big distances in. The air suspension deserves special praise again because it makes you feel like the lower half of your body has been given an epidural – you really feel very little from the seat of your pants. On top of that, there’s little wind noise and the engines are also quiet.

The optional Tour Pack can make driving even easier, simply because it does much of the driving for you on motorways and in queuing traffic – just turn it on, keep your hands on the steering wheel and let your Q7 take care of the rest.

On a twisty road

The Audi Q7 is pretty good on a country road. Yet again, the adjustable air suspension helps here because it cuts out body roll in its stiffest setting and helps make the Audi feel more nimble than the likes of a Land Rover Discovery. The Audi even feels pretty quick, especially with the 50 TDI diesel engine which has loads of oomph. Okay, so a Porsche Cayenne or BMW X5 is more overtly sporty but it comes at the expense of comfort – it’s the Q7 that is a better overall package.

The Audi Q7 has loads of room for five adults and its boot is big and practical, however alternatives are roomier in the third row of seats.

You won't have much difficulty getting comfortable in the Audi Q7 because both front seats come with electrical adjustment, while your seat also has a memory function so it’s easy to get it back in your position after someone else has driven the car.

Even the lumbar adjustment is electrical – handy when you need extra support on a long journey – and if that doesn’t dull your back pain, the standard heated seats should do the job.

Finding handy interior storage is far from a pain. The Q7’s door bins are huge, you get plenty of USB charging points, the glove box is a decent size and you get two cup holders in the front and the back. Even your passengers in the third row get cup holders.

Space in the back seats

The space in the Q7’s middle row is impressive. Your tall passengers will have plenty of knee and headroom and the seats slide back on their runners and recline, so your passengers don’t need to feel like they’re being short-changed. Even with three people in the middle row, the Q7 is really comfortable, the centre seat is supportive and the large footwells have plenty of space for everyone’s feet – it’s better than a Volvo XC90 or Land Rover Discovery in this respect.

Babies are well catered for too. The Q7 has no less than six ISOFIX mounts and fitting a baby seat to the middle row is easy – once you remove the (slightly old-fashioned) cover, the ISOFIX points are easy to line up to your seats’ mounts and the Q7’s large rear doors give you plenty off room to move.

Somewhere the Q7 doesn’t impress quite so much is in the third row. Accessing it is a bit of a faff that involves hauling the outer middle-row seats out of the way (gas struts hold them in place at least) and clambering in behind it, before locking the middle seat back into position. Once you're in, you’ll find head and legroom is tight if you’re tall – the Land Rover Discovery is a better bet if this matters to you.

Boot space

With all its seven seats in place, the Audi Q7 has about the same capacity as a Volkswagen Polo small family car, which is less than a Volvo XC90 with all seven seats upright. Because the load opening is large and there’s no lip to lift luggage over, getting luggage into the boot is easy and heavy items can easily be slid into place.

The third row of seats folds away electrically (slowly) to reveal the kind of boot capacity you’d expect of a large SUV – 740 litres to be exact. It’s enough to swallow a set of suitcases with quite a lot of room left over for boxes and soft bags. It's also more than you'll get in the XC90, which has 680 litres, and the BMW X5's 650 litres.

Even with all the back seats folded away, the load bay remains completely flat and serves up a total load capacity of 1,925 litres (which is almost 100 litres more than the Volvo). It’s ideal for house moves or flat-pack furniture raids to Ikea, and the sheer size of the boot opening makes it easy to load an adult’s bicycle without the need to remove any of its wheels.

Boot features include a 12V power socket, luggage tethers, shopping hooks and a netted storage area, but there is no useful storage under the boot floor and nowhere to store the parcel shelf when it is not in use.

The Audi Q7’s interior design and construction are top-notch, but the centre touchscreen can be fiddly to use on the move

The Audi Q7’s interior looks absolutely brilliant and there’s no rattle or movements in the trim. You get soft-touch plastics on the dashboard and the tops of the doors, which you can upgrade for leather and you get shiny black plastics trim pieces with chrome metal highlights. All models also get coloured ambient lighting that gives the Audi a cocktail-bar theme at night.

Want a sportier look? Then popular S line models are the ones to go for thanks to their standard leather upholstery, sports seats, sports steering wheel and matt aluminium inlays.

Whichever version of Q7 you go for, you get an excellent infotainment system with no less than three colourful displays to play with. The centre touchscreen is used for most of the car’s systems and it features haptic feedback (which vibrates to imitate pressing an actual button) and large tile-like menus. They're still not the easiest to operate when you’re driving, although a lot of the features are also accessible on the wide Virtual Cockpit display behind the steering wheel.

Having said that, your easiest option is likely to be plugging your smartphone in and using Apple CarPlay or Android Auto – giving you access to your phone’s reliable voice activation system.

The third and final display is stacked below the centre touchscreen and is used to control the car’s ventilation system, seat heating and (when you’ve got it) cooling. It has a permanent layout that makes it easier to use on the move, has haptic feedback and is just as clear and colourful as the Q7’s other screens.

Diesel might not be the fashionable fuel of choice at the moment, but it makes so much sense in a heavy SUV like the Q7 because it gives lots of lazy grunt and decent fuel economy.

The 286hp 50 TDI demonstrates this perfectly. It’s the more powerful of the Q7’s two diesel engine options, giving the Audi smooth and lusty power that translates into acceleration of 0-60mph in 6.5 seconds.

Yet it can still return fuel economy of 35mpg, which is perfectly respectable for a four-wheel-drive, seven-seater SUV like this. Having said that, emissions of up to 218g/km mean you’ll face a hefty first-year road tax bill.

If you’d rather go for petrol power, it’s worth side-stepping the 340hp 55 TFSI model – it struggles to get 25mpg and costs loads to tax – in favour of the 381hp petrol-electric Q7 plug-in hybrid 55 TFSI e.

The 55 TFSI e’s ability to travel up to 27 miles on battery power alone could save you a lot of money if you have a short commute and a place to charge your Q7 at home or work. It also means the Audi produces low CO2 emissions of no more than 48g/km, so road tax is free in the first year and a bit lower than standard thereafter, though all Q7 models do face the extra charge for cars that cost more than £40,000.

Performance isn’t found wanting, either, because the 55 TFSI e can launch itself from 0-60mph in just 5.9 seconds. However, if it's performance you're after, the 507hp Audi SQ7 should be your first port of call.

The current Audi Q7 has been on sale since 2015 but was retested by Euro NCAP in 2019 (when the car was updated), scoring the full five stars in the process.

All Q7s come with safety features such as automatic emergency braking that detect pedestrians and cyclists, and works at town and motorway speeds. You also get a pop-up bonnet that protects pedestrians in the event of a collision and lane assist that can gently steer the car in lane on the motorway and A roads. It’s also worth mentioning that the Q7 comes with an alarm as standard.

Audi’s reliability ratings often don’t reflect the company’s premium brand billing, although you do at least have a three-year/60,000-mile warranty to fall back on, and you can extend it to a five-year/90,000-mile at extra cost.

The Q7 has been subject to several recalls relating to its steering rack, third-row seats that can deform in an accident and faulty shock absorbers.