2025 Audi SQ5 Night Drive - Turbo V6 SUV Sights & Sounds

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Topher Drives, where it is nighttime, and we are back with the 2025 Audi SQ5 Prestige. I've spent all week with this, and I figured tonight we would go out on a bit of a night drive and tell you what that's been like. Now, if you haven't seen my full review on this, that will be linked in the description. But I figured tonight we would let the car do some talking, and Audis just look the business at night. In fact, this has a ton of customizable and configurable light designs that you can set. I think there's eight different ones which we'll go through. And also, this new bit inside called the Dynamic Interaction Light, which you can actually kind of see the purple poking through the passenger window there. And I figured we had to show this thing at night. And also, this has just been a lovely thing to live with, and I'm excited to tell you what that's been like. Now, this is the new SQ5, the third generation. It's got a three liter single turbo, single twin scroll turbo, V6 with 362 horsepower and 406 pound feet of torque. It's got a seven speed S tronic, DCT, DSG, whatever you want to call it. And it is, of course, quattro all wheel drive. And believe it or not, this is the first Audi SQ5 I've ever lived with, and actually the first SQ5 I've ever driven, if memory serves correctly. So let's quickly poke around this, show you what this looks like inside and out at night. And then we'll drive it to downtown and do all of our stuff that we normally do. It's quite cold out. It's about 18 degrees, if you haven't noticed already. I'm wearing gloves to try and combat that a bit. But not a whole lot going on in the back. You've got some cargo lights to help you. Biggest difference here for the latest generation of Q5 is Audi actually put the taillights on the car and not on the hatch, which means that these lights still exist when the hatch is open, and you don't have to have the backup lights, which I always thought looked so funny. Standing behind this now, and I really hate to say this, it does kind of look like a Lincoln Nautilus. Now, the new design language is a little bit controversial. I don't think this has kind of the proper sharp Audi lines. But they kind of were going for a little bit more of a fluid design language. They wanted to make it look longer from the side, like a Q7. But when I saw this for the first time, I thought it looked like an e-tron, which is kind of just their current design language. You can see these headlights. I think we're in configuration number seven. We'll scroll through those in a sec. But let's jump in the back seat and show you this ambient lighting situation. This car is Daytona gray with an Aries red interior. It's a lovely spec. Oh, it's so nice and warm in here. I'm going to put the heated rear seat on just for a second while I'm sat back here. And you can see this ambient lighting is interactive. So I put my heated seat on, that turns red for a second, and it'll eventually go back to purple, as you can see there. But the whole cabin is like that. I'm excited to show you what that's like up front. But backseat room is pretty good. The seat is cozy. And since this is in its position, the car would be in while driving. I can accurately assess the rear leg room, which I couldn't do in the day drive that I filmed earlier this week. Got a fold-down armrest. Not a whole lot going on back here, but we've got some little foot lights. And I love that the ambient lighting extends not only to the door panel, but also kind of like onto this Alcantara here, which is still on the door panel, but I mean beyond this little line. It's cool to see. Let's hit these hazards on and show you what that looks like. You can see the little blinkers there on the edges of this big ambient light strip, the dynamic interaction light. I love that they gave it a name. I think that's fun. These door handles are fake in the way that they're just electronic poppers, unless you pull them all the way, and then they are a manual release. I think Audi does some of the best turn signals. You can see how these light up, and they kind of go across the back at those kind of dynamic. I hate to overuse the word dynamic, but it does kind of describe these quite well. You see one of these parked outside of a fancy hotel at night with the Park Anywhere lights on. It's just proper. Nice light here on the mirror as well. For tires, we have a snow, a dedicated snow tire, a Continental in a 255 section. What is it? I think it's a 255 40 21. I'm so cold I need to get in the car, but it's a Continental snow tire, so we're properly equipped for the conditions tonight. This prestige pack car is equipped with acoustic glass on the front. We'll have the full spec for you guys down in the description, but the new SQ5 starts just under $65,000. This one as spec is just under $75,000, so about $10,000 in options with the prestige pack and the black optic pack on the outside. And actually, since we didn't get a startup, let's put this into dynamic mode and give you a couple of revs so you can hear what this 3-liter sounds like. Of course, we have a soft limiter because this is a German car at the end of the day. Put this back into our individual mode. Four-corner air suspension on this, which you can watch the status of as it adjusts there on the screen as you switch between drive modes. What do they call it? Basic or something, if you don't have it customized. Dynamic, comfort, and off-road. And then if you go into off-road mode, you can also do off-road plus and lift the suspension all the way up. I think it's good for an extra couple inches of ground clearance, but we'll, I guess, confuse this and put it back into individual mode. Right, OK, let's talk ambient lighting in here because it is quite intense. There's a lot going on. We talked about the strip that goes across the dashboard, but it also goes down here to the center console and the cupholders and also your little wireless charger here. It is everywhere. And what I love so much about this is it does more than just stay purple. We showed you the turn signals and things that it lights up for that. But also, if you change your temperature here, you can see it'll go blue, it'll go red. Similar to Mercedes-Benz, I know they have done this in the past. Obviously, they still do it. But something like this is, I think, OK to copy per se because any sort of personality I can get on the interior of a car, I'll take it, especially in an Audi. I think this is dressed nicely material-wise, really nice Alcantara, really nice leather seats. And this night experience just adds to it. It's very classy in here. We'll say that, we'll use that word. Let's show you guys some of these lights here, some of these different colors. Infotainment screen is pretty easy to navigate. I haven't really had any trouble finding anything. Don't have a ton of colors to choose from. I lied. There's a fully customizable menu that I had not found yet. OK, we found that together. So you can have any color you want. But we'll go back to the preset ones here. You've got purple, you've got blue and teal, lime green. That's a cool one. Yellow, white. And then you've got your Audi S theme with the white and red. Or you can connect it to your drive modes. So normal mode or individual will have the white and red. Dynamic will have red. And then comfort, I think, is blue. I've been rolling with this in purple. I do actually kind of want to play with these custom colors though, because I could have purple with yellow if I want. Purple and blue, I quite like that. Got the brightness all the way up. OK, sweet. Or you can turn it off. If you're somebody that does not like to have ambient lighting, off is an option. But I am somebody that loves ambient lighting. So we'll have that on for our video tonight. We've got wireless Apple CarPlay, Android Auto in here. I mean, that's pretty standard these days when you're paying $75,000 for a car. Everything in here feels pretty nice. Everything seems pretty well put together. I haven't noticed any weird interior rattles this week. But I think with that, we ought to take this thing out on the road and go for a bit of a drive to the city. Some of you commented on my last night driver, DMed me on Instagram, all of the above, and told me that your favorite night drive was the Lexus GX 550 that I did, I think, over a year ago. Because I didn't really say much in that video. We kind of just drove. We listened to some music and kind of let the car do the talking. So we'll give you some final thoughts. But we'll also have kind of some empty bits in this video where we just kind of listen to the ambient noise of the car. So let's go for a drive. Into reverse, you can see our 360 cam and backup cam, which look quite good in the dark as well. Steering ratio here is so quick. And I especially like this because the steering wheel on the new third gen SQ5 is not circular. So I think if you're going to do a square steering wheel or just one that's got a flat top and a flat bottom, you have to make it so it's not awkward to go hand over hand. And I think the feel and the speed of this steering rack is just perfection. The Germans have a way of making this luxury SUV steering. And it's just unmatched by anybody else. I mean, Audi does a great job. Porsche, BMW, they all seem to nail it. We have auto stop start in here. I'm going to turn that off. It's too cold for that tonight. What is it outside? 19 degrees. OK. There's one thing I want to get out of the way straight away. And then we won't talk about it again. Love this ambient lighting. But it does reflect onto the windshield via the head-up display. Obviously, the head-up display has a little piece of glass that's on the dashboard. So it can then project the image in front of you through the windshield. And glass or plastic, whatever it is, it's quite reflective. And I can see it constantly. There's this line of purple. And I don't think you all can see it on the camera because you're sitting up a little bit higher than my eyes. But I'm looking in front of me right now. And there's just this big purple blob in the middle of the windshield, which is a little bit distracting. If I sit up like this, I can't see it. But with the seat in my preferred driving position, it's a little bit distracting. I think you could probably solve this by putting something over your head-up display. But then you lose the head-up display. So you win some, you lose some, as they say, I suppose. Chap doesn't really know what lane he wants to be in. I think he's choosing both. We're going to go dynamic mode. And we're going to get paddle click. I don't like being by people that can't pick a lane. It makes a cool sound, this car. Never the biggest fan of V6s. But the Germans, the Germans do it right. Lightning fast shifts from that seven-speed S tronic as well. We're going to drop back into comfort mode here. Air suspension does a lovely job of making sure I stay comfortable. I mean, this entire cabin is just very cozy. I feel like I'm in a space pod, but one that's got adequate padding. Let's try out this cruise control here. Audi still uses this little stalk down here on the steering column. Quite easy to set. This as well, you can see this little display in the middle. I can adjust my distance. I can reduce it. It's like we're picking the slow lane here to switch highways. Let's go back into dynamic because it's more fun. Now, this air suspension does stiffen up a bit when you're in dynamic, but not to the level where it's crashy, which I can appreciate. Bang and Olufsen stereo in here. And as much as I wish I could play my Deadmau5 for you, unfortunately, I cannot. So let's get a sound system test song queued up here for you. In my main video, we used my new sound system test song, but I think we'll go back to our roots here and we'll use the one that actually started in an Audi night drive. So very appropriate. That's going to take a minute to queue up, or to get going, rather. So we'll see if we can make any noise here under the bridges. We'll brave the cold. Doesn't make a whole lot of noise. Pretty impressive Bang and Olufsen in this. I wouldn't say it's mind-blowing, but it's good for the $70-ish, $1,000 price tag that this car holds. And I'm also just now realizing I didn't show you guys the configurable headlight and taillight displays. So we'll pull over up here and we'll show you those in just a second. I'm going to put this back into comfort. This is probably an empty lot right now. Empty enough. Let's see. So they give you these customizable headlight modes. I know we showed you the interior lighting. Let's go back to exterior. You do have to be in park, obviously, to change these. But we've got number seven right now. You can see they're all sort of subtle differences. And they kind of just change these little DRL slash headlight things that are in the middle. So you can see they change the front and the back. That's a cool one. I like the one that had the little arrows on the taillights. We might go back to that one and see what's up with that. There's just so many cool choices here. That's kind of the standard. I'm going to go back to, I think it was number six that had the arrows. Let's see how that looks. Select that. I want to see if that immediately reflects onto the back of the car or not. Don't think it has. There must be some kind of trick to be able to do this. Because whenever I have these Audis, I go in and I try and change the little custom headlight things. And I feel like it never actually does it. Did it do it on the front? Is this what they look like in there, the little U-shaped things? I love that they have this. But no, it doesn't. See, it's supposed to be like four little guys. OK, well, we'll leave it on this. And we'll see maybe if it takes you to go on a drive or something for it to set. But when we get back out later, we'll check and see if it actually did that. But OK, I wanted to make sure you guys saw that as well. You can also dim the displays in this screen too, which I appreciate. I obviously would prefer to have a physical dimmer switch. But at least you've got one control to dim this whole thing. This car sometimes idles a little rough. You guys can hear that right now. It's like vibrating the door panels. I don't know what that's about. Jeez, we just missed that entire light. 9 PM, Ann Arbor finds a way to have traffic. Oh, it's snowing. Look at that. Good thing we're on a snow tire. We are well prepared. If you want to stop things vibrating, just put it in dynamic because it idles higher. This has a spicy V6. Over some of these bigger potholes, the air suspension compensates pretty well. But you can't get around the fact that you're on a 21-inch wheel. And for some reason, Audis seem to crash over bumps the worst out of any other car. I don't know what it is, if it's the way that they make their wheels or whatever. The reverberation through the cabin is painful. And it's no different here on the SQ5. I've kind of come to learn that this week, is the ride will compensate, but don't expect the wheel to. So I've been trying to be careful. So we don't want to smash a wheel. Would be very bad. This week, I've been doing 16.6 MPG, which is a little bit below the 22 that the EPA rates this for combined. But it is rated at 19 city. And I've hardly done any highway driving. So I guess we'll give it that. And also the fact that it's freezing and it's done lots of idling. But not the most efficient thing. Obviously, this is not going to be cheap to run if you're looking for something that's efficient and cost effective. Probably not the best choice. But you know what it lacks in efficiency? It makes up for in smiles per gallon, because it's been a heck of a lot of fun. And I know that's not what this night drive is about. We're going out and we're kind of just relaxing. But the V6, the 7-speed work together in harmony. The chassis on this car is lovely. And I think it's just very well-tuned for fun driving and daily driving altogether. Like, this is just a very nice, cohesive package that I really enjoyed living with this week. Let's get this into the city. Might honestly switch back into dynamic mode so we can make some noise, do some V6 ASMR. Look at that. The roads are actually getting a little bit covered. You are able to turn everything off. It's got launch control, all that stuff, which is all featured in my main review, which, again, will be linked down in the description. But we also have a sport rear differential, which means you can hang the tail out if the roads are slick enough. Now, this is most certainly not the setting to be doing that. But I'm sure if you watch the Topher's video on this car, I'm sure he'll be sideways in it. I can almost guarantee it. But our main goal tonight is going to be to sometimes get the odd pop and burble. Little baby one there. Even if you're not a V6 enjoyer, you have to admit that's a cool noise. Regular drive mode. Put the gearbox back into automatic. This actually has pretty attractive built-in navigation as well, as you can see there. Tested it out in my main review, too, if you're curious to see how it works. Can we classify this as a snowy night drive at this point? I think we may be able to. I love theaters and things at night. It's fun to look at. Cool, bright lights. There's another one up here on the right. All right. Well, let's wrap this one up. We'll get this pulled into the structure. Cool E46. Check that out. I say this every time I drive an Audi is I didn't really grow up an Audi guy. You know, I was always into BMW, and Porsche, and more recently Mercedes. But Audi has never really been my enthusiast brand of choice. But over the last couple of years, I've driven a bunch of Audis. And I've absolutely loved all of them. This whole love affair started with the RS5 competition. And it's just kind of evolved. And you know, I've driven the SQ7. I've driven the SQ8. Please select an event. Welcome. Please proceed into the line. It took me way too long to eventually drive an SQ5. But I'm glad that I'm finally here. And I see why the Q5 is Audi's best-selling car. I don't know that I can say the same for the SQ5. I don't know if this is the best-selling S car. It probably is. But you know, these cars just make sense. This is the size of car that people want. And it's a very important segment. It's very competitive. This feels really nice. I would say among its competition, it's one of the nicest. It feels a little bit nicer than the new X3. I'd say it feels a little nicer than the Mercedes GLC. It's close with the Genesis GV70. Now, I know these screens, these big screens and things, these are a little bit controversial. Haven't had a ton of trouble with these this week. The only thing I don't love is that my fan speed and things live in a submenu in the infotainment. But if you're somebody that likes to run your climate control in auto anyway, this isn't a huge deal because you can easily adjust the temperature instantly. You can turn your heated seats on. Those are all constant icons that stay on the screen. So not a huge deal. Infotainment screen seems to react pretty well. And we still have important things like a volume knob. The drive mode selector isn't in the screen. It's down here. Your traction off is separate. So I haven't really had to search for anything in this this week. And it's been nice. It's been a nice experience. Getting in and out of it is fine. I don't like the way that they've designed this switch on the driver's door panel. I think it makes it too hard to close the door. But for the most part, this has been an absolutely lovely car to live with this week. And I think starting in the mid $60,000 range, it's a pretty cool option in this segment. And I hope these videos kind of serve as something to make you not scared if you thought that Audi e-tronized the SQ5. Because this definitely does not feel like an e-tron. It still feels like a proper Audi should. And it's fast. It sounds cool. I'm not totally sold on the exterior design yet. But maybe someday I'll come around to it a bit more. But I think in the places that matter, this is really nice. Ergonomically inside, it feels good. The steering wheel feels nice in the hands. The seats have massage function, which is kind of mediocre. But hey, it's still there. It still does the thing. And come on, you got to give them credit for doing this super cool interactive ambient lighting that I'm just realizing we rode in purple the entire time. So I hope you guys were cool with that. It's always my choice because it mimics the Mercedes Ultramarine, which is my favorite ambient lighting color of all time. But let's get this pulled up here under some lights. And we're actually going to shut it off because I think there's actually one more cool lighting situation that you guys haven't seen. Because when you lock the car, it projects the Quattro badge onto the rear glass. So I want to see if I can replicate that. I did it a couple of times this week. Why don't we pull this nose in over here? Usually we back it. But we'll pull it nose in because I want to show you the back of this thing. Park there, and we'll shut it off. Use our fake door handle to get out. Yeah, there you go. That's what I was talking about, see? Doesn't have that lit up when you're driving. But when you exit the car, it does. Now, this is actually a new key as well. We should have a cool animation for when these lights go off. Oh, check this out. OK. So I wonder then if these only change when the car is off. That could be what it is. You can see also this lights up too for you to be able to open the back. Put your foot right there. And in theory, it should pop the trunk. But it isn't. That's OK. We don't need to get in there anyway. But this should have a cool animation for when you turn this on to unlock it. Yes. Always love seeing that. So all righty, guys. Well, that is going to wrap it up for us here with the 2025 third generation Audi SQ5. Again, I know I've said it a couple times, but my full review will be linked in the description. I know this didn't cover everything with this car. But I wanted to show what this looked like at night at least with their exterior lighting. And now they've stepped it up with the interior lighting as well. So I hope you've enjoyed this one. And well, we'll see you in the next one. If you use this to go to sleep, good night. I hope you sleep well. But if you're watching this in the middle of the day, then enjoy the rest of your day. All right, guys. Appreciate you watching. And we'll see you in the next one. Take care.