VIC Melb newbie w/ 2015 SQ5

[Daniel_M]

Hi all - joined largely for the expertise of user Lucas_R who has posted pretty extensively about his SQ5.

I drive a 2015 SQ5. Not experienced under the hood so haven't done anything to it myself. Only two modifications, installed by others, are superficial - the Kufatec exhaust sound thingo and an RS style honeycomb grille.

Looking to do some more mechnical things now...

[Lucas_R]

Welcome - nice to have a few SQ5 owners on here now. What colour is yours?

[Daniel_M]

Duplicate post of below...

[Daniel_M]

Great to hear from you Lucas. Was going to give you a shout out in your main thread!

Big thanks for both the inspiration and also the help with diagnostics.

On the inspiration front, I've just ordered the Spulen wheel spacers and the mount insert kit from 034. As I say, I'm not experienced under the hood (& also don't have tools), so once these arrive I plan to get them fitted at Underground Performance while getting a Stage 1 tune done. Look forward to booking that in. Underground is not too far from my house, makes it easy.

On the diagnosis front, I had rough idling and gear changes and my mechanic didn't like my suggestion of it potentially being an EGR intake issue. They looked at a bunch of stuff and couldn't work it out, turned out the EGR intake area was as blocked up as yours...

And post clean...

So an intake clean has been added to the list for each service!

Below is a pic of my car, with new grille on. Waiting on the SQ5 badge for the grille, but shipping being what it is at the moment, it's stuck in China.


I did forget a couple of non-OEM bits on the car:

I got a 10.25" media system installed by Nathan at AES here in Melbourne, love that, really changed the usability of the car for me (I'm on the phone a lot).

It also has DBA T3 slotted rotors front and back, front pads are TRW, rear are IBS. Look forward to going ceramic for the obvious reduction in dust when I can!!

Anyway, look forward to joining in on your main thread.

Cheers,
Daniel

[Daniel_M]

Sorry, should have mentioned...

She is a 2015, but I haven't had it since new. I purchased it in 2017 from Audi Centre Sydney with 25k on the clock, was an ex Audi HO lease vehicle. At the moment it has ~110k.

Did quite low KMs the first 2 years, which is probably when the bad build up occurred. Last two years have seen significantly more KMs put on it with longer drives and more highway time.

Now back to low KMs going forward with a recent workplace relocation...!

Cheers,
Daniel

[Lucas_R]

You will be in good hands with the Underground Team for both tuning and mechanical/maintenance. The Spulen spacers just give the car a nicer stance - im very happy with mine. Had them now for about 2 years and not had a single issue with them. The 034 chassis parts are a nice addition too and remove some of the transmission/driveline vagueness and movement.

You car looks great in silver - you hardly see the SQ5's in silver and I think they look really good in that colour. That was the colour I wanted but just couldn't find one at the time. They were all white, grey or black.

Your intake was definitely clogged up, and worse that what mine was when I first cleaned it. Did you have any error codes or was it just not running quite right? I bet it felt better after the clean as that level of mess would definitely have been restricting airflow and causing a loss of power. You should see if the Underground guys can code out your EGR when you get your tune done, then you can physically block off the EGR (with a block off plate) and then you wont have that issue again.

The ATE ceramic brake pads are excellent so if you decide to get some low dust pads in the future these are what you want. Ive posted the part numbers in my thread. Literally zero dust - they are great.

Do you mind if I ask where you got your front grill from? I like it.

[Daniel_M]

Really liked the colour right off the bat, at the time I bought it I didn't have a specific colour in mind but loved it when this silver one popped up. Goes well with the dark tint (I'm not big on black-on-black), and the 21"s.

On the intake, I didn't get any error codes, just a really lumpy idle on start and really shaky shifts (particularly around a cold start). It was bearable while they were going through the process of diagnosing, but toward the end was getting a bit hairy. Next service I'll get them to take that apart to have a look at how much build up has occurred. Hopefully not too much and can be blasted away with the intake cleaner as an ongoing process. I'll chat to Underground about EGR delete, though I'm going into it apprehensive following your experience!

The grill came from Aliexpress, link to the item below.
2013 2017 year RSQ5 ABS front Grills, Front Honey Mesh Grille for RSQ5 Car styleing mesh Grills for Q5|Racing Grills| - AliExpress



There are a lot of sellers, but that one below is the specific seller I got it from. Was a fiddly install, Ignition Tube on youtube has a video where he installed one (in a quick rough way). The part itself fits well though. I was lucky enough to have one of the best auto fitters around in Chris at Autobarn Bayswater look after this for me. If you order one at the moment you'll be waiting a while with shipping issues out of the Chinese ports. I'm waiting on the little SQ5 badge at the moment, been sitting in the supply chain for months now. The grill itself came with an "RSQ5" badge, which of course was a non-starter.

The one I got is Type D. Only difference between Type B and Type D is the colour of the border/surround - I went with chrome finish as it looks good with the silver and fits with the other trim that has chrome finish elements. Type A and C are without the 'quattro' section at the bottom which, in my opinion, made the main honeycomb section look too expansive.

The grill works well with the honeycomb fog light surrounds. I'm currently hunting for new fog light surrounds because the grill, being newer, is shinier. Whilst minor, I notice it.

[Lucas_R]

Thanks for the info on the grille - ive saved the link and will buy one once all the covid freight delays calm down to reduce the chance of it getting lost or damaged etc. It looks good - i think ill get the exact same one you have as my car has all the chrome trim on it already (which im not too fond off but costs a fortune to change it).

Another thing for you to consider to improve the driving experience, it a throttle controller. That was one thing in particular that frustrated me when driving the car was the delay in throttle lag (especially noticeable when taking off from a standstill, but also when on the move and trying to accelerate. The lag has been significantly reduced (basically zero lag now) and the engine feels much more responsive now.

I have a Torqit one which for some reason they no longer offer a Audi Q5/SQ5 version on their website?!?! The Pedalbox is another well known and popular version which does the same thing and looks very similar to mine.

If you decide to get one, just get in touch with them first to confirm it works with the SQ5 (im sure it will be fine) because they do not actually have the SQ5 listed on their vehicle list. So the link below is for a Q5 with the V6 diesel engine.

PedalBox – AUDI Q5 (8RB) – From 11/2008 – … 3.0 TDI quattro, 258PS/190kW/580Nm 2967 ccm | Performance Tuning Australia

[Daniel_M]

Throttle controller sounds intriguing. I've heard from some colleagues of them making a big difference to their cars, from Commodores to X5s... Hadn't actually considered it for mine though!

Through my work I can easily source an Ultimate9/iDrive/EVC unit or a CommandGO unit. Preference for CommandGO in terms of my ease of access. I might give them a call and see what they've got.

Is there much work in installing one?

Don't know what I'll do without the acceleration lag, I've adapted my driving style to allow for it now!

In other news the spacers arrived from Florida in about 5 days, which is remarkable as the mount inserts took even longer just from Sydney! I ordered the mount inserts from Vagparts Australia rather than directly from 034. I have them stashed for now pending getting in touch with Underground.

[Lucas_R]

Yes most modern cars with a drive-by-wire electric throttle will have some kind of lag. Some cars are ok and you don't really notice it, while others are quite obvious and there is a noticeable delay. In my opinion, the SQ5 was quite bad (especially from a standstill and at low speeds) and the throttle controller make a definite noticeable difference. Anyway, something to think about for you.

As for installation, it really is quite basic. There is a plug on the back of the accelerator pedal, so unplug this and then the throttle controller plugs in works by basically just speeding up the signal that is being sent. They are adjustable to you can fine tune it to a setting you are happy with (I have mine on about 1/2 way and its great without being too sensitive).

Yes the freight situation is crazy at the moment here in Australia - unbelieveably slow. Hopefully now that NSW starts opening up again things will settle down, but in the meantime its quicker to buy something from USA or the UK than it is to buy from within Australia.

Throttle controller sounds intriguing. I've heard from some colleagues of them making a big difference to their cars, from Commodores to X5s... Hadn't actually considered it for mine though!

Through my work I can easily source an Ultimate9/iDrive/EVC unit or a CommandGO unit. Preference for CommandGO in terms of my ease of access. I might give them a call and see what they've got.

Is there much work in installing one?

Don't know what I'll do without the acceleration lag, I've adapted my driving style to allow for it now!

In other news the spacers arrived from Florida in about 5 days, which is remarkable as the mount inserts took even longer just from Sydney! I ordered the mount inserts from Vagparts Australia rather than directly from 034. I have them stashed for now pending getting in touch with Underground.

[Daniel_M]

Hey Lucas - do you have any experience with BMC air filters? I just had one of these handed to me at work - be interested if you had any experience v K&N etc?