2014 Audi Q5

It has been very cold here in the North East. Under freezing for more than a month. My door lock sensors stopped working about 4-5 weeks ago. Two days ago I was driving and the power steering stopped working. Then after about 2 days it began working again. Just as the temps went above freezing. And the door lock sensors started working again. I had noticed over the last month or so that papers I had behind the front seat when I went to retrieve them were very wet, soaked. I took my car to my mechanic today and he told me that the computer is under the front seat. And water in this area may be causing the failure of the power steering and the door locks. So he said I should report it to you and you could possibly help.

Took my vehicle in for an alignment, was told by my local Audi dealer the rear subframe has rotted through and will need to be replaced. I asked how could this happen on a vehicle under 10 years? They said they see a lot of Q5's with similar rust issues due to a design flaw where a plastic protective cover cups and holds water directly on the structural part of the vehicle. They quoted me $8,000 to fix and offered no assistance on the price. Many, MANY others in forums and social media pages have the same issue and are forced to pay out of pocket for this issue caused by Audi.

Vehicle stopped while driving!!! Middle of the driving. Very dangerous. And it happened twice. With that as the headline, another known problem with this vehicle has been the engine oil needing to be filled literally every month. And time to time it resulted in “engine light” to come. So we kind of ended up in a “wolf cry” and really didn’t act. However, we did take care to Audi service for oil refill and they IGNORED to do the inspection on engine light well under 100,000 miles and 10yrs on warranty. So our recent car stopped when we were just about 2 months over 10yrs and 3,000 miles over 100,000 mile warranty Audi has for the problem needs repaired. Please help. Now Audi is saying we needed to pay almost $6,000 to get that repaired. Which they have seen for months prior to the 10yrs and 100,000. It’s really a unfair business practice.

The contact owns a 2014 Audi Q5. The contact stated that while driving at 10 MPH, the vehicle lost motive power. The engine and EPC warning lights were illuminated. The vehicle was consuming an excessive amount of engine oil. The vehicle was towed to an independent mechanic, who stated that the failure was due to the timing chain, piston rings, and a hole in the valve. The local dealer was not contacted. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not made aware of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 73,000.

On 12/1, around 7:20am my fiancé and I were getting ready to leave for work; there was frost on the car so my fiancé went out to start it and turn on the defrosters. After starting the car, he turned on the heater and front and rear defrosters, he then went inside to retrieve some items we needed to load into the car. He was inside for about 5 minutes before coming out to see smoke emanating from right side of the trunk, which quickly turned into a small fire, whose point of origin was the rear fuse compartment. He ran inside to grab water to try and put it out, but due to how quickly it was spreading, as well as the fact that it was electrical nature, the water only served to temporary diminish but not extinguish the flames. We then used an ABC rated fire extinguisher from our kitchen, which did suppress and extinguish the fire. The vehicle still started, and we were able to drive it from our driveway to the side of our home, however, with the risk of it igniting again or creating any other failures, in addition to the guidance provided by our insurance company and Audi Corporate, we had the vehicle towed to an Audi dealership for further investigation. There was no indication prior to this that would lead us to believe the car would catch fire. We consider ourselves to be lucky that we were not driving as we would have no way to extinguish the fire on the side of the road. Since this incident, an investigation was done by Audi corporate. It was determined that there was corrosion within the right trunk compartment caused by water at some point which caused a short considering the body module and fuses are located there. However, Audi claims no responsibility in the water getting into the trunk or any manufacturing defects. Upon our own research though, we’ve seen many reports of Q models have sunroofs draining into the interior. The car has since been totaled by insurance due to repair estimates nearing $29,000 and taken to Copart auction.

The car has a known "oil consumption issue" that has led to engine failure that Audi has failed to take responsibility for. This is a 2104 Audi Q5. The car is in San Francisco and available for inspection. The car vibrates and can't be safely driven at highway speeds, if the engine suddenly lost power on the highway it could be a major safety issue for the driver and other drivers. The dealer has reproduced the issue and diagnosed it as needing new Pistons and Rings at 99,000 miles (but it has had this issue since in the 60,000 mile range, they just said keep adding oil). It has not been inspected by police or insurance representatives, just the dealers. I'm sure some warning lights came on, but could not say which ones or when.

In 2017 while driving in 10 degree weather, the overheat warning light and message to turn off engine came in. The car was not actually overheating and we took it straight to the dealership. They were not able to get it to replicate and advised it was possibly a faulty sensor. Fast forward to fall of 2023, the same warning light came on as soon as the car was turned on. Still no actual overheating per the dial in the car. We did check the coolant level and it was low. Dealership looked at and stated the didn't see any leaks and suggested replacing thermostat. Took to another shop and they found a small leak in the water pump so we had it replaced. Car has less than 60k miles on it. Engine failure, fire are all concerns. Especially when commuting at high speeds on a highway. We're either dealing with a faulty water pump or thermostat.