New Sepang SQ5 in the stable - what maintenance to baseline it?

[Wrinkledpants]

I was originally looking for a unicorn TDI but the challenge finding one became too much. And, the more we thought about it, it would not live a happy life in Tahoe where there's a lot of short trips.

Found this SQ5 up in Portland and we pick it up next week. West coast car, 68k miles, Prestige with adaptive cruise and Luna interior. It's in fantastic condition but does not have any maintenance history - even on the Carfax. The used car dealer did let us know the local Porsche dealer doesn't report to Carfax, and it's likely the dealer it was serviced at was the same. That said, I'm not taking any chances. The dealer only deals with higher-end cars and they are replacing the front pads, valve cover gaskets, and fixing an adaptive headlight issue. I inquired about the cost to do rotors and a few other things, but they were closer to dealer prices. Rear brakes look like they were recently done.

The factory options list indicates it had the tow package, but there's no hitch on there. I'm hoping the module is there and we just need to find a factory hitch from eBay. Once summer rolls around, we'll find the OE 21" wheels to mount. I'll likely keep this car stock, at least for now.

My list so far:

- Oil change
- Plugs and Coils
- Osram Night Breaker bulbs
- New front rotors
- Fluid flushes (PS, trans, diffs, coolant)
- Viking Contact snow tires

Anything else I should add to this list? I feel like in other cars I did the water pump, thermostat, and pulleys around this mileage, too. I've been spoiled with our Sprinter in that everything seems to last 150k miles.



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[mrebusa]

I snagged a 13' 3.0T Q5 with 77k miles and intend to do the same as you. I will likely order everything for the PCV, thermostat, belts, and pulleys for the 100k mile service. The car goes in next Tuesday for an inspection and service, so that list may grow depending on their findings.

[Mpddiesel]

Post errors with brackets and symbols. Deleted.

[Dominick]

If the dealer is going to be replacing valve cover gaskets, maybe ask them to take pictures of what the top of the cylinder heads look like. They will likely be able to tell just by looking at it if the previous owners were good about oil changes, which in turn tends to be a decent sign that they kept up with other maintainence. In regards to the tow package, it might have a stealth hitch and the previous owner probably left the hitch in storage or something when selling the car. On my Q5 there's a panel at the very bottom of the bumper (basically invisible from behind) that you need to remove before installing the hitch into the reciever.

In regards to other maintainence, once you have to go under the supercharger to do PCV, you might as well have the thermostat replaced as well. Stock thermostat housing on the 3.0T is plastic, and eventually some plastic clips can snap and the thermostat fails in the closed position. Another thing to consider is getting a transmission service. Audi technically doesnt have a service interval for the transmission fluid/filter, but ZF, the manufacturers of the transmission recommend a 50k mile service. interval.

[Ace808]

I bought a 2016 Misano Red SQ5 Prestige from this same dealership in October. I saw them list this one and thought it was cool, and the exact spec as mine just with different colors.

[Wrinkledpants]

Pics or it didn't happen?

I'm usually weary of used car dealers, but this one was quite nice. Very good experience with them.

[Ace808]

Yeah they were fine for a used car dealership


Picture won't show for whatever reason but on IG it's @ace.s4

[Wrinkledpants]

Yeah they were fine for a used car dealership


Picture won't show for whatever reason but on IG it's @ace.s4

Great looking car! I feel like Misano has to be as rare as Sepang, if not more so. There were maybe 3 Sepangs for sale in the US, but zero Misanos.

[taarobaap]

Congrats on the find!!

In the market for b8.5 SQ5 as well...if you don't mind me asking, what did you end up paying and what was your initial investment on initial investment on maintenance?

[Wrinkledpants]

I paid $24K for ours with 62K on the clock. It was clean, well-maintained (from the inspection), and the dealer did quite a bit of work included in the price (valve cover gaskets, front brakes, oil change, fixed an error on adaptive lighting). The car has adaptive cruise which was hard to find.

I looked at another car with a well-documented history on the CarFax and being sold at a Kia dealer. Popped the hood and it look like they topped up the oil by just pouring it on top of the motor. It was in rough shape up close, but photos looked great. So, I was happy to pay a few K over market for a clean example.

So far, I'm in around 1500 for catchup stuff to include plugs, filters, and snow tires. I'm expecting another 2K from the dealer visit coming up for all fluid changes and another oil change to baseline. Other than that, no surprises. I've purchased LEDs for the fogs and D3S bulbs as the HIDs are original and getting dim. I've never done LEDs for an HID replacement, but these came from DeAuto. I'm in fog a lot commuting from Tahoe to Sacramento, and excited to see what yellow fogs will do. I also dropped $350 from ECS on a CarPlay integration.

Absolutely love this car. It's exceeded expectations and is perfect for the environment we're in. The B9 SQ5 was well-within budget, but I'm over turbo cars. Having spent the better part of 20 years driving and tuning turbo cars, the HP race seems to never end. Turbo lag and the lack of engine noise just ruins the experience. I think I was spoiled with the '88 911 we had. Slowest car I've ever owned, and by far, the most fun to drive. I never took the short way to the grocery store. The SC 3.0 motor is incredible from an experience perspective. Brutally instant throttle response and sounds incredible even stock. I'm a button guy, as well, and have really started to warm up to the MMI button placements. Not having to reach forward to the dash has been something I didn't know I needed in my life.

Good luck with the search. You won't be disappointed!

[taarobaap]

I paid $24K for ours with 62K on the clock. It was clean, well-maintained (from the inspection), and the dealer did quite a bit of work included in the price (valve cover gaskets, front brakes, oil change, fixed an error on adaptive lighting). The car has adaptive cruise which was hard to find.

I looked at another car with a well-documented history on the CarFax and being sold at a Kia dealer. Popped the hood and it look like they topped up the oil by just pouring it on top of the motor. It was in rough shape up close, but photos looked great. So, I was happy to pay a few K over market for a clean example.

So far, I'm in around 1500 for catchup stuff to include plugs, filters, and snow tires. I'm expecting another 2K from the dealer visit coming up for all fluid changes and another oil change to baseline. Other than that, no surprises. I've purchased LEDs for the fogs and D3S bulbs as the HIDs are original and getting dim. I've never done LEDs for an HID replacement, but these came from DeAuto. I'm in fog a lot commuting from Tahoe to Sacramento, and excited to see what yellow fogs will do. I also dropped $350 from ECS on a CarPlay integration.

Absolutely love this car. It's exceeded expectations and is perfect for the environment we're in. The B9 SQ5 was well-within budget, but I'm over turbo cars. Having spent the better part of 20 years driving and tuning turbo cars, the HP race seems to never end. Turbo lag and the lack of engine noise just ruins the experience. I think I was spoiled with the '88 911 we had. Slowest car I've ever owned, and by far, the most fun to drive. I never took the short way to the grocery store. The SC 3.0 motor is incredible from an experience perspective. Brutally instant throttle response and sounds incredible even stock. I'm a button guy, as well, and have really started to warm up to the MMI button placements. Not having to reach forward to the dash has been something I didn't know I needed in my life.

Good luck with the search. You won't be disappointed!

Nice!! Congrats!

I just purchased a very well example in white - 2016 SQ5 with 47k for $23.5k!! Paid about $1700 in shipping from west coast to east coast, but had a budget of $25k, so not mad at all!

Would be interested in your bulb swap from Deauto, so keep us posted.

Will be doing a lot of the fluid swaps at 50k as well! I’ll on do the filters too, but no need for plugs as they were done at 40k.


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[sledneck_joe]

Have you installed the ECS carplay integration? Was looking at RSNAV but this is an interesting option.

[taarobaap]

Have you installed the ECS carplay integration? Was looking at RSNAV but this is an interesting option.

Ordered RXNav, but I believe they're 3 weeks out (at least)...haven't received any communication from them yet besides the order confirmation.

[Wrinkledpants]

I have had both the DeAuto D3S and fog LEDs installed. The main beams are pretty good, but definitely not as crisp as an HID. I think it's less the bulb or LED technology, and more to due with the fact that the projector is built around a D3S bulb.

The DeAuto LED fogs are pretty bright and are the switchable kind. It's been nice to experiment with the yellow vs white settings, but after awhile, the novelty has worn off. Doing it again, I'd get just a single color fog. The problem is that when you turn the high beams on, the fogs turn off. So, if you've clicked through to yellow, turn the high beams on, the fogs reset to white once the high beams come off. Cycle the fogs off/on again or do it with flashing the high beams (to cycle the fogs off/on) to bring back yellow. I've also had an issue where the fogs occasionally turn back on with the flashing setting, which is really annoying. I commute daily from Tahoe to Sacramento, which is 90 miles one way on mountain roads so my usage may be different than others.

Doing it again, I'd likely invest in the euro code housings and keep with the top-line D3S bulbs.

[Wrinkledpants]

I have, and it's OK.

The navigation of CarPlay is simple enough and works fine. Resolution is good enough. The problem is the sound quality is terrible. For whatever reason, the sub doesn't work. I can't find any settings to fix this, and ECS has not been helpful. I got around it by connecting audio to the Audi MMI, but still using CarPlay. It's occasionally annoying when sound reverts back to CarPlay, but it's a quick change on the Spotify sound source. The other issue is I can't easily change phones via CarPlay. You have to disconnect with your phone, and then have the other person re-connect via BT.

I wish I would have done the RSNAV factory-looking option, and still may upgrade to that. I don't love the look of the floating unit, though. I thought I read that RSNAV was doing away with the built-in option, and if that's the case, I'll stick with what I have.