Off the beaten trail: Audi Q Drive

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It could have been a lazy Saturday morning, a morning to relax, maybe catch up on some reading, or do nothing at all. But, instead here I am in an Audi as part of the Audi Q Drive. The Q Drive is a customer engagement program run by Audi wherein Audi owners, prospective buyers and some enthusiasts tried out the Q range of cars from the Q3 and Q5 all the way to the Q7. The idea here was to showcase the capabilities of these urban SUVs in a not-so-urban-environment.

I started with the Q5, the oldest of the Q cars but I realised, there was nothing old about the Q5’s Quattro system. From rumblers to chicken holes to the axle twister, nothing bothered the Q5. One wheel in the hole and one wheel up in the air is what the axle twister does, and though the Q5’s Quattro system did take a second or two longer than we would have expected for its electronics to kick in, once they did, the Q5 sailed through it all without bother. The Q3 and the new Q7 though did better.

Both the small and large Qs had better axle articulation and in the Q3’s case, I couldn’t even feel the Quattro kicking in. Its small size, less weight, and more practical design for off-roading situations just made it more fun to tackle the obstacles in. The way Quattro detects wheel spin and sends power to the wheel with grip is outstanding. With proper throttle input, the Q3 easily crossed the axle articulation test. It was the same story with the new Q7 and even though the Q7 sits on a much longer wheelbase, we had no ground clearance issue with this one either.

The last three obstacles were little scary but exciting. The first side slope with a maximum bank angle of 30 degrees was easily done in the Q3 and the Q5. But in the Q7 because of the heightened sense of inclination, it was a little scary. The right side slope had a maximum bank angle of 35 degrees and I managed to touch 33 degrees on the Q7. How do I know this? Thanks to the infotainment screen displaying the incline and decline data along with lean angles.

Hill climb and descent was the last set of activity. All one had to do was get the driving line right and give the Qs a little throttle to go up the slope while staring at the sky and not much else. Then came hill descent. Here too, the driver must choose the right line and then leave it to the car’s electronics to do the rest while staring into the ground.

That uneasy feeling when you feel the ground coming up to meet you or the feeling of being suspended midair; when you’re fighting hard to stay in the seat on a side slope and still steering the car; or when you are swinging from axle to axle experiencing articulation and not knowing what’s in store next, that, my friends, is what I call an adventurous Saturday. But that’s what Audi intends achieving with the Q drive -to give Audi fans, owners and enthusiasts an experience they might not attempt on their own. Safe to say, I will not be trying these tricks without supervision either.