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Audi Q7 or Mercedes GL owners advice please


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Cayenne, Touareg, Q7"s  are all built on the same assembly line at the VW plant in Bratislava. inner body panels are mostly the same so you are just playing with specifications from them as VW call all the shots. I designed the first Cayenne dash 2000-2002 , did part of the leather launch on Touareg 2002, last one was the lifting central display on the dash of the Q7 ca. 2016.

They all get street tyres, I once met a hunter who could not get knobbly winter tyres to fit in his Cayenne wheel wells. They are all Chelsea tractors imo.

Merc is made in Alabama.

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1 hour ago, bavarianbrit said:

Cayenne, Touareg, Q7"s  are all built on the same assembly line at the VW plant in Bratislava. inner body panels are mostly the same so you are just playing with specifications from them as VW call all the shots. I designed the first Cayenne dash 2000-2002 , did part of the leather launch on Touareg 2002, last one was the lifting central display on the dash of the Q7 ca. 2016.

They all get street tyres, I once met a hunter who could not get knobbly winter tyres to fit in his Cayenne wheel wells. They are all Chelsea tractors imo.

Merc is made in Alabama.

Have you had anything to do with the new Audi E-Tron? 

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Cayenne, Touareg, Q7"s  are all built on the same assembly line at the VW plant in Bratislava. inner body panels are mostly the same so you are just playing with specifications from them as VW call all the shots. I designed the first Cayenne dash 2000-2002 , did part of the leather launch on Touareg 2002, last one was the lifting central display on the dash of the Q7 ca. 2016.

They all get street tyres, I once met a hunter who could not get knobbly winter tyres to fit in his Cayenne wheel wells. They are all Chelsea tractors imo.

Merc is made in Alabama.

 

No, I retired at 68 y/o 2 years ago. I did the Q5 dash in Puebla Mexico 2016 where they told me not to expect the quality to match the outgoing model from germany for expected 10 years as it was a new plant with no history (plant was 70 kms out of town as Mex gov wanted to spread the work around the nation a bit.

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My wife has run a Q7 with the 4.2 engine and has put almost 90k miles on it over 5 years. Its been brilliant. Its huge, no problem filling with two child seats and all the gear that goes with them. If you get one then try and find one with the reverse parking camera, it was an optional extra I think and it needs it! The road performance and economy, (considering what you are shifting) is very strong. Absolutely nothing has gone wrong with it. The only problems we've had have been punctures and one alloy cracked on a pothole. I would suggest getting the smaller wheels rather than the largest ones. The giant tyres on these big 4x4s are expensive and sadly very few carry a full spare now to reduce carried weight, it is what it is.

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Always liked the look of the Audi and Merc, but we went for the XC90 (2009 model), we have 3 kids all in car seats, it fits them perfectly, not even needing the third row of seats, giving a massive boot.  My wife is addicted to buying different buggies, and quite often will have 2 single buggies and a double buggy in the boot, still with extra room to put anything else in you like.

I was skeptical about it before, always felt it was a nail in the coffin getting a Volvo, but we love it. 

Hayden

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I had a X3 for 7 years, and now have an X5, and I love them; as everyone has mentioned, the tyres makes all the difference on the terrain, the X3 had P7s which were surprisingly good on snow and mud, the X5 has P Zeros "sports" tyres which I'm not going to event going to try on anything slippy.

I tried the audi, the mercs, and the land/range and I prefer the X5, for normal driving on A road, the ride and response is WAY ahead of the others. You can actually enjoy driving (even tho it's the size of a bus). The Audi and RR were particulartly dire trying to drive them, you press the pedal and can count ONE, TWO before the car starts to move, it was embarassing really. Not even mentioning trying to make a corner without getting sea-sick.

TBH I havent' tried the porshe -- I just got lost on the website trying to spec one and gave up :-)

 

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  • 1 month later...

The new model Q7 (2015+)  fits three Isofix child seats across the middle row. It’s my next car, will have to put sensible tyres on it however. If you look at children that die or are severely injured in car crashes it is normally the poor fitting of the seat that is the issue. My wife’s car has 3 isofix points but I can only take two children at a time as my 3rd isofix point is in the front seat, whilst the air bag disables it is not the best place for a child. We are not obsessed about safety but conscious of it when making purchases and decisions. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thread update, I decided to get a Q7 after viewing everything discussed. Ended up with a 07 4.2 with 21 inch wheels. Despite some comments this is by far the most comfortable ride I’ve ever had (used to own a merc cl500 and that was amazing). So happy with it so anyone in a similar boat to me definitely worth getting if you don’t plan on off-roading 

38D994DA-92F1-4CFD-A290-27DF81511CD3.jpeg

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