Yes the E400d inline6 engine has rave reviews.
Would love to read your overall thoughts on your SQ5, the pros and cons, they get very good reviews on You Tube, but a review from an owner is better then from the press guys, appreciate it can’t be compared with the W213, as the SQ5 is a SUV, but would like to know about the engine, comfort and the gadgets, if you wouldn’t mind.
The SQ5 is a good car no doubt. Only niggles I ever had were the rattling sunroof, (look at the Audi forums - loads of stuff on that - people who bought new having 2 or 3 new roofs fitted etc under warranty) which I was never able to cure competely, and a boost sensor failure, but that was about it. Like all modern cars they can have electric/electronic issues but I seemed to get lucky - never had a problem in that regard.
It drove nicely, but it's not a car - even though it is 15mm lower compared to the stock Q5, and isn't a tall vehicle anyway, it did feel top heavy-ish, but that may have been more to do with seat support. Good tyres make the world of difference though.
It had loads of torque very low down so suprisingly sharp off the mark, it wasn't worth thrashing it out to the max rpm, got a tad noisy and ran out of poke quickly.
Equipt. wise it was good (mine was a 2014, so MMI was in the dash not on it - in it looks better to my eyes), and if I bought another I'd make sure it had 'Drive Select' - can play with set up a bit more although apparently they can be coded to have that.
The auto stop/start was annoying but I'm from an era where if a car stops of its own accord there is something wrong, so any car with that is a pain to me, unless you can code it off. The parking sensors were annoying - having to manually switch on for the fronts to work - that never became a habit. I came from an '08 CL500 and Mrs. TR750's Qashqai to the SQ5, so had been spoiled by the Merc's parking sensors.
SQ5 was easy to maintain, and it was comfortable but again not amazing. Seat squabs were a bit flat and side support wasn't fantastic (again I had been spoiled by the CL500).
Audi sounded nice when in Sport mode but in retrospect it wasn't that quiet with some wind noise at motorway speeds and ya knew it was a diesel as it had a mild buzz to it at idle. Can't really hear the E400D at idle.
The newer SQ5s have a bit more oomph, and more equipt./gadgets as standard, and they all seem to hold their price reasonably well, judging by the forecourt values at the moment. Low mileage examples seem to be rare which says something about them also.
Fuel ecomomy was reasonable - anything would be compared to my CL500 - but it was hard to get more than 28-30mpg around town, and best I ever saw on >100 miles run, driving reasonably sensibly, was 41mpg - it seemed to perform best around 75mph. It did have great passing 'punch' though. Gearbox was nice (was my first DSG type 'box) but was a little snatchy one or two times - very very occasionaly it got confused if you used the paddles, then stopped at a series of traffic lights, it would sort of momentarily miss then engage... Changing 'box oil and filter earlier than recommended did make a difference to the smoothness of changes.
The advances/new kit going from a 2014 car to 2019 car are quite astonishing. My E400 is a completely different vehicle, with much more equipt., its quieter, smoother, and a great deal more comfortable. The fact that Mrs. TR750 raves about the Merc., says a lot - just last night saying that she was never excited or that impressed by the SQ5, but now has the desire to drive more with the Merc. lastly one other odd thing - she can spot the Merc. in a busy carpark more readily than the SQ5, and pick out other similar E Class' in traffic, pointing out the differences - that never happened with the SQ5 or indeed any previous car...
