The new Q7 manages to provide a driving experience that, on tight, curvy roads, feels like that of a tidy mid-sizer.
Nimble, agile, and even tossable aren’t words that you’ll often find in driving impressions of a big three-row utility vehicle. Yet they most definitely apply to the 2017 Audi Q7.
The new Q7 manages to provide a driving experience that, on tight, curvy roads, feels like that of a tidy mid-sizer. You might actually forget you’re in a tall utility vehicle that’s around 200 inches long—the length of a full-size sedan.
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The 2017 Q7 is essentially the same size as its predecessor, yet it has a new aluminum-intensive body construction (alloy body panels and a structure using high-strength steels) and completely new platform. It’s nearly 500 pounds lighter (or by official U.S. specs, more like 300 pounds) and its center of mass is about two inches lower.
But it also has its tricks—like all-wheel steering. In top-trim form, with all the right option boxes clicked, this big utility wagon has a sophisticated, height-adjustable air suspension and well-tuned suspension that really work to maximize this vehicles ride quality and cornering potential.
With that top chassis combination, the Q7’s suspension soaks up the side-to-side pitchiness that can be unsettling to taller vehicles over mottled backroads, yet it’s exceptionally good in sudden weight transfers for tight corners and quick emergency maneuvers—when it doesn’t stay artificially flat but instead loads up like a good, very firmly tuned standard suspension.
Quattrosteer, not Quadrasteer
The Q7 is the first SUV with four-wheel steering since GM’s Chevy Suburban and GMC Yukon XL models offered it more than a decade ago.
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Victor Underberg, the head of chassis dynamics at Audi AG, rode along with us for an hour or so, and he helped us understand how the all-wheel steering works in the Q7.
According to Underberg, there are some serious differences in the behavior of the rear wheels between the Q7’s Drive Select modes (Comfort, Dynamic, Auto, and Individual, as well as Off-Road in some situations). The Q7’s Dynamic Mode not only reduces the maximum angle of the rear wheels in tight cornering but changes the entire way the system works in quick maneuvers and nearer to the limit.