Audi Q7 Review & Prices

The Audi Q7 is a huge and luxurious seven-seat SUV that manages to be exceptionally comfortable and practical without falling apart when the road gets twisty. It’s packed with clever technology and feels properly posh inside, though some of that tech makes simple jobs unnecessarily complicated - and what’s under the bonnet is resolutely old-school.

It’s a bit like a flagship smartphone powered by a diesel generator. The Q7 has fancy headlights that can project things onto the road, three screens across the dashboard, and more autonomous tech than the average moon landing - but the only engine choice at launch is a good old-fashioned 3.0-litre V6 diesel. It sounds like an odd combination, but it works rather well.

The BMW X5 is the most obvious alternative, though it’s getting on in years and the new X5 has already been revealed. You could consider a BMW X7 if the Audi Q7’s three-row practicality appeals. There’s also the Volvo XC90, the Mercedes GLE and the Range Rover Sport to think about.

The Q7 certainly has the road presence to justify its enormous size. It’s larger than its predecessor at more than two metres wide, and the huge upright grille looks cool and aggressive. The slim headlights are packed with clever tech, including customisable daytime running light patterns, and high-spec versions can even project things onto the road such as lane lines.

Audi’s resisted the temptation to hide the exhaust away, so the pipes at the back are reassuringly real. Wheels start at an already substantial 20 inches and rise to gigantic 23-inch rims on top-spec Vorsprung models.

The interior is suitably luxurious, too. There are expensive-feeling materials on most of the surfaces you touch, attractive wood trim and a general sense of good build quality that’s actually been missing from some of Audi’s smaller cars such as the Q5 and A6. The front seats are extremely comfortable and have loads of adjustment, and on higher trims they’re not just heated but ventilated and massaging.

The Q7’s technology isn’t quite such an unqualified success. You get a wide digital instrument display, central infotainment screen and, rather unnecessarily, a separate 12.3-inch passenger display as standard. If anyone’s ever used one of these, we’d like to hear from you - cause our passengers just prefer looking at their phones instead.

The infotainment itself is responsive and reasonably intuitive, but the graphics are dark and some menus take a lot of learning due to the sheer amount of functionality they contain. Worse, Audi has moved functions such as adjusting the direction of the air vents onto the touchscreen, adding to the already needlessly complex climate controls. And what physical switchgear remains, such as the steering wheel buttons, doesn’t feel as satisfying to press as it should in a car costing this much.

At least storage for small items is plentiful. The door bins are huge, there’s a good-sized cubby beneath the centre armrest and the glovebox is a reasonable size, though the cupholders are a bit too big to grip smaller bottles or cans tightly. Audi’s fitted twin wireless phone chargers with magnetic grips, which work brilliantly with compatible phones but are pretty useless if your phone doesn’t stick to them.

Things get even more practical in the back. The middle row has loads of headroom, legroom and foot space, and it’s wide enough for three adults to sit across without too much argument. The individual seats slide and recline, and rear passengers get big door bins and plenty of charging ports.

The third row is a bit more compromised but it’s not useless - adults won’t have loads of knee room, but children will be perfectly happy and an average-sized adult can fit for a shorter journey without feeling completely folded in half. It doesn’t feel too claustrophobic either, thanks to big rear windows and, on some models, a huge panoramic glass roof.

One carryover from the previous Q7 is the provision of six ISOFIX child seat mounts - one in every seat except the driver’s. That makes the Q7 unusually accommodating for large families and better than a lot of MPVs in this regard.

The boot is a useful size with seven seats in place, though not quite spacious enough for a full family holiday. With the third row folded, there’s a massive 722 litres of space, and with all the back seats down it’s positively van-like. The load area is square and flat, and the air suspension can lower the back of the car to make loading easier. Opt for a towbar and you can pull up to 3,500kg, too.

At launch there’s just one engine - a 299hp 3.0-litre V6 diesel, which feels very old-school for a car launched in 2026. It has four-wheel drive and an eight-speed automatic gearbox, and its mild hybrid system improves both fuel economy and throttle response. The result is plenty of performance for daily use, though speed demons should look elsewhere. It returns up to 39mpg officially.

Expect a mild hybrid V6 petrol to join the range soon, as well as a plug-in hybrid at some point. It’s also likely there’ll be a high-performance SQ7 too.

Around town, the Q7 is much easier to live with than its enormous dimensions suggest. The air suspension deals with potholes and bumps brilliantly, the steering is light and all-wheel steering dramatically improves manoeuvrability.

Motorways are where the Q7 really comes into its own. The suspension is smooth and wafty without feeling car-sick-inducingly floaty, and there’s very little wind or road noise. Surprisingly, it’s not out of its depth on a country road either. The body leans a bit - inevitable in such a tall, heavy SUV - but it grips hard, the brakes are powerful and the steering is accurate.

Verdict

The Audi Q7 deserves a place on your shortlist if you want a luxurious SUV that can genuinely work as a family car. It’s comfortable, quiet, beautifully spacious and surprisingly capable to drive. The third row seats aren’t as adult-friendly as a BMW X7’s and the interior is a bit screen-heavy, though, and the lack of anything besides a diesel engine at launch does limit its appeal especially for company car drivers.

Check out our latest Audi Q7 deals here, or find out how much you could save with an Audi Q7 leasing deal. You can find used Audi Q7s for sale, or check out other used Audis for sale. And remember Carwow can even help you to sell your old car when the time comes.

The Audi Q7 starts at around £82,000, which makes it one of the pricier big posh SUVs. The current BMW X5 starts at about £76,000, while the Mercedes GLE costs around £78,000. The Volvo XC90 looks like good value at less than £70,000.

There are three trim levels. S Line comes loaded with equipment including 20-inch alloy wheels, seven seats, Matrix LED headlights, air suspension and all-wheel steering. Edition 1 costs around £90,000 and adds 22-inch wheels, ventilated and massaging front seats, a heated steering wheel and heated armrests, as well as sportier interior detailing.

Vorsprung is a whopping £103,000, adding 23-inch wheels, more advanced digital headlights and OLED rear lights, a panoramic glass roof which can turn opaque at the touch of a button and a seriously powerful Bang & Olufsen sound system with speakers in the headrests. It’s spectacularly equipped, but S Line gives you the important stuff for considerably less.