[Guest]

Hello Q5 Drivers,

After months of deliberation I have taken the plunge and ordered a 2.0TDI SE for delivery on 1st March 2010. I was told by the salesman at the dealership that if I ordered any later, there would be no guarantee of it being delivered on time, so it's 108 days to go and counting.

The biggest difficulty I had was choosing a colour, after having decided that the all black look of the S-line was to bleak for my tastes, my favourite colour, Daytona Grey was ruled out. I initially went for the Quartz Grey with cardamon beige interior, although I was not able to see it as all the cars in the show room had a black interior (why do all Audi dealerships have almost exclusively black interiors?). After finally tracking down a beige interior in a Q5 I decided that it wasn't for me, and have been allowed to change my order to light grey interior and meteor grey paintwork.

Really excited about the prospect of getting a Q5, it's my first venture into SUV's and my first Audi, having previously only driven BMW's. I must say that on the the whole the dealership experiences are first rate and that the advice given on this website is also really useful.

The rest of my specifications are as follows:

5 spoke alloys
S tronic
Technology pack
Storage Pack
AMI interface
B&O sound system
DAB radio
Bluetooth interface
Electric seats with folding mirrors
Rear bench seat plus
Sports steering wheel with paddle shift
hill hold
Tyre pressure monitor
3 zone climate control
garage door opener
interior lights
panoramic sunroof
drive select with damper control

Also got a good deal (15% VAT plus a discount and reduced APR). Can't wait until March!!

I would be interested to hear any opinions with regard to drive select, it seems to me you get the best of both worlds SE and S-line suspension all in one.

 

[hankscorpion]

Hi Mac... i have a meteor grey 2.0 TDi SE with star silver leather interior. It definitely looks good with a lighter interior and everyone comments on it.

I have the full drive select and in my opinion it makes the ride so much better than the ones I test drove without it. It is great to have the stiffer suspension and extra throttle when you need it!

You will not be disappointed with the car, especially with all those options you have! Only trouble is that March seems like such a long way off!!!!

 

[Guest]

Thanks hankscorpion,

How easy is it to set up the drive select, and what mode do you tend to use most often?

 

[hankscorpion]

Mac... It is very easy to set up. You get 4 options on the dashboard:

Comfort - Softer ride and car is easier to steer
Dynamic - Harder suspension and steering is tighter
Auto - The car will decide which mode is better, Comfort or Dynamic.
Individual - You can set this up in the car set up to your preferred settings but i do not really bother with this one.

I have mine on auto most of the time... but slip it onto Dynamic at roundabouts or traffic lights when needed.

 

[Secret Squirrel]

Hi Mac,

I have a question for you, which will certainly help me and maybe others as well....

How did you mange to negotiate the 15% part of your deal. My Dealer has told me that any car registered after 31st Dec will be liable for the new VAT rate (expected to be 17.5%) and there is nothing they can do about it, not even if I offered to pay for the car upfront. Apparently the applicable VAT rate is calculated on the registration date not the purchased date.

Any help gratefully received as the difference to my spec would be about ?900 (or a number of extra options....)

Thanks

 

[Guest]

Hello Secret Squirrel,

The way I managed to get the 15% VAT was in part due to using Audi Solutions which I was told was price protected regardless of the VAT rate. This was coupled with the knowledge that the discounts available on the Q5 are in the order of ?2500 off the list price. Essentially what I secured was this discount (plus a bit more) and the dealership achieved this by a combination of the VAT fix together with a discount off the list price. A useful trick I picked up was to get quotes from several different Audi dealerships and to get them to match the lowest option. I discovered that certain dealerships belong to certain groups and that the way deals are constructed can vary.

I suppose I could have just pushed for ?2500 off the total, however I wanted to cover myself in case VAT returned at a higher value than 17.5%. The dealer also said that dealership margins have been cut recently, I suspect that the exchange rate with the Euro has made the cars from Germany more expensive to Audi UK.

I hope that this information is of use and let me know how you get on.

 

[Guest]

Hi Mac,
I went for the Daytona Grey, pearl effect 2.0DL S Line and like yourself, I was a little concerned about the 'all black' interior. HOWEVER, it transpires that what is described as black is in fact charcoal grey. This together with Daytona is a very complimentary combination.

I know that you have already ordered yours, but thought that this point was worth making for the others who have a similar 'dilema!'

Enjoy your car, when it comes.

ZED

 

[guyguyke]

hello Mac
I have the same combination (Meteor Grey + Silver Nappa sportseats)

 

[Guest]

Guyguyke,

Thanks for posting the pictures, the car looks great. Totally convinced that I have made the right choice in colour combination. It is a shame that the colour combinations at most Audi dealerships are limited and the colours on the website configurator are not very realistic.

Mac

 

[Kaine]

Guy - great colour combination - looks very classy

 

[guyguyke]

my car has contrasting color too : the lower parts (skirts, front and rear spoilers) are matt medium grey (not so obvious on the pictures), and match perfectly the color of the single-frame (2,0 TDI's have no bright balck single frame as the 3,2FSI's)

 

[KyuGo]

Guy, your car looks just like mine, same paint and interior and it's even got the same wheels

Was it perhaps also one of the introduction cars that came well speced with panoramic roof, sat-nav, drive select, etc?

 

[guyguyke]

I think so, because my car was made in January.
By August, I visited a dealer in my country who had such a model in his showroom. When I decided to buy it, he said there was still another (unmarked) one waiting on the parking of the import-company, and that one was delivered to me.
And yes, it's a car with plenty of options (20K euros) , maybe the reason why it was still unsold six month after leaving the factory.
I had probably not ordered all these options, but I'm now happy with my new toy; I already forgot the price !!!

 

[KyuGo]

That sounds just like my story. The introduction models were for showcasing technology and options for the Q5, that's why they had so many extras, and they were built before Audi marketing had come up with most of the option packs. There was the Meteor Gray 2.0TDI manual and some dealers around here also had a 2.0TFSI intro model. It had an automatic gearbox and different color scheme (I think Silver grey paint and black leather interior), and some different options like adaptive cruise control (a bit scary if you ask me). It also had drive select suspension instead of steering like ours.
I bought mine off the showroom floor, it wasn't a demo-car but it had been sitting on display for close to six months. It has a few options that I might not have chosen, but I rationalize by telling myself that many of them were "free" anyway - (I got a really good discount

)

 

[guyguyke]

It is amusing that two different persons had exactly the same experience at the same time, but so far from each other
I now know why my car has only dynamic steering and no dynamic suspension (I do not miss it because it only makes the car harder, and my preference goes to comfort) I recognise that I mostly let the dynamic steering on "auto".
All the cars of that serie is now sold in Belgium.
As marketing action, the make of that serie was a goof idea : even if these cars could not suit the needs of many customers (no kids, no dogs, always clean clothes...), they were attractive and I guess many Q5 were sold after a look to our model
I was in fact looking after a replacement for my A4 Avant 2,60 V6, but could not actually decide for a new A4.
A quick test-run with a demo Q5 was enough to want one at once ! And as I can't wait...

 

[guyguyke]

Even funny is that I would not have choosen a diesel, nor a manual if I ordered a new car earlier 2009.
Then I was still sure I only needed a TFSI-engine with automatic transmission, but the mutitronic put me off.
Only when the A4 Allroad was marketed with an S-Tronic, I began to thought about a new car. I visited my dealer and inspected the Allroad, but that model was even expensive as the Q5. Only at that moment I realised that a Q5 could be an option (until then I found it too big for 2 persons), and that a diesel was appropriate in a SUV. With the temptation of a nice Q5 waiting in the showroom,I finally left the idea buying an automatic. Indeed, I have yet a Saab 9.3 conv. as fun car with manual transmission, and two different types of transmission would have command me to swith all reflexes when changing from one car to the other. After 3 monthes, I don't regret my choice

 

[Guest]

Hello Secret Squirrel,

The way I managed to get the 15% VAT was in part due to using Audi Solutions which I was told was price protected regardless of the VAT rate. This was coupled with the knowledge that the discounts available on the Q5 are in the order of ?2500 off the list price. Essentially what I secured was this discount (plus a bit more) and the dealership achieved this by a combination of the VAT fix together with a discount off the list price. A useful trick I picked up was to get quotes from several different Audi dealerships and to get them to match the lowest option. I discovered that certain dealerships belong to certain groups and that the way deals are constructed can vary.

I suppose I could have just pushed for ?2500 off the total, however I wanted to cover myself in case VAT returned at a higher value than 17.5%. The dealer also said that dealership margins have been cut recently, I suspect that the exchange rate with the Euro has made the cars from Germany more expensive to Audi UK.

I hope that this information is of use and let me know how you get on.

I can confirm that this seems to be the case when purchasing through finance. The guy I always deal with at wolverhampton Audi stated that the price I got (which matched the web dealers prices) would not go up when the vat goes up. He did say that the price may go down though if they have any special finance deals in q1 when the car is likely to be ready. I won't hold my breath on that though, glad to be safe in the knowledge that I'm not in for any nasty suprises when vat goes up though.

Regards
Barry

 

[guyguyke]

@kyugo : my framenumber ends with 006266
what's yours ?

 

[KyuGo]

Mine's 004849

 

[guyguyke]

Mine's 004849

thank you !
production date of mine is 9/1/2009 as reported by the certificate of conformity (homologation)
I now wonder if this true, as 1777 cars were built between our two respective cars
(it could be the day of printing the certificate...for a car built end 2008, in order to make a 2009-model of it ...
this ruins the probability that our both cars were built simultaneously (or very short after each other)
what is the production day mentionned on your certificate ?
I'll e-mail you the hole list of options on my Q5, so we can compare
by the way, I would be intrested in some couples "production day/framenumber" in order to evaluate the production time starting from frame numbers
how much Q5's would be produced a day (or a month...) ?