Playing with an Audi SQ5 TDI

[Lucas_R]

New swaybar fitted yesterday. Those billet brackets are automotive porn and add some underbody bling (although no doubt totally unnecessary). Not a fan of the allen head bolts used to secure the brackets so will pay a visit to my local nut and bolt shop to find something else to replace them with.

Only taken the car for a short drive (in between the all the rain) but the car is sharper to react to steering inputs and the rear end rotates better now. Feels like less of a 2 tonne heffa now. Happy camper.

Stock sway bar is 23mm and hollow, 034 Motorsports swaybar is 25.4mm and solid (and much heavier).

Still waiting for new endlinks to arrive, so just fitted up the swaybar to the stock endlinks for now.

Also had the front windows re-tinted last week. Went with a darker 18% to try and match the rear privacy tint. The car already had tinted front windows, but they were too light (35%) and had some scratches on the drivers side. New tint looks much better - will have to grab a few pics.

[OnetoothCracker]

Hi Lucas, nice car and I like your outline (+pics) of the changes you have made.
I'm looking at fitting an upgraded rear sway bar to my Superb 206 4x4. Can you tell me is it advised/required to have wheel/axle alignment after fitting a rear sway bar w/wo end links?

[Lucas_R]

Hi Lucas, nice car and I like your outline (+pics) of the changes you have made.
I'm looking at fitting an upgraded rear sway bar to my Superb 206 4x4. Can you tell me is it advised/required to have wheel/axle alignment after fitting a rear sway bar w/wo end links?

Hi - no not necessary to do a wheel alignment when fitting a swaybar. Only if you are playing around with actual suspension geometry like springs/control arms etc.

In saying that, I normally get an alignment done once a year and the car is nearly due for it.

[Lucas_R]

Nearly lost the SQ5 in the floods in Newcastle a few weeks ago. Lucky I came outside when I did, as was checking every 30 mins or so and the water rose out of nowhere. Was thankfully able to move the SQ5 out of the driveway and onto higher ground before the water damaged it, but unfortunately could not save my Subaru which was in the garage and it has been written off.

The water rose so fast (and went away just as quickly not long after).

Thankfully didnt make it into the house (although came very close) so damage was limited to the garage and back shed.

[Tuan]

NO the subaru !!!!

Sorry to hear mate !

[Fergs]

Hi Lucas,
i have an sq5 too and had to do this intake clean twice so far - i was thinking of adding the same catch can setup but do you think this issue is more around the egr system? did you end up doing the EGR delete - if so would love to hear what the result was -

cheers
Chris

[Lucas_R]

Hi Lucas,
i have an sq5 too and had to do this intake clean twice so far - i was thinking of adding the same catch can setup but do you think this issue is more around the egr system? did you end up doing the EGR delete - if so would love to hear what the result was -

cheers
Chris

Hi Chris,
The EGR delete attempt (software change and EGR block off plate) was a complete failure, as it stopped the car from doing a DPF regeneration (which it does every 400-500km) and several thousand km’s later my car went into a soft limp mode, shortly followed by a full on limp mode. Mechanic couldnt force a DPF regen, so I took the DPF’s off and back-flushed them with chemicals and high pressure water to clean them out.

Then flashed the software back to standard, and using VCDS software had to reset all of the DPF information in the cars brain so that it thought the DPF’s had been replaced.

Massive massive stuff around - don’t recommend it. Upon further investigation, both the EGR and DPF need to be blocked off/removed together at the same time along with software updates. You cannot successfully just delete the EGR.

So, long story.....sorry, but my car still has the EGR and DPF fitted and operational.

And yes I do believe the EGR is responsible for most of the intake buildup, with the remainder coming from blowby in the PCV system.

My plan is to just keep cleaning the intake every 6 months before an oil change to try and keep any buildup to a minimum.

[guile]

The EGR delete attempt (software change and EGR block off plate) was a complete failure, as it stopped the car from doing a DPF regeneration (which it does every 400-500km) and several thousand km’s later my car went into a soft limp mode, shortly followed by a full on limp mode.

hi Lucas, reading this is making me a bit nervous...

a friend of mine my have blocked his girlfriends Audi A5 EGR and had a hardings Stage 1 tune to code it out. feels like it drives awesome and because the GF only does short trips to town and back I do manual regens with VCDS. I have to say the soot mass doesn't go up a huge amount between regens done every 6 months or so, she doesn't do much driving though...

do you know if its an issue with all the 3.0 tdi's please?

[sn809]

Hi, good mods with photos. Could you please post a photo of your provent filter and when do you intend to change it??

[Lucas_R]

hi Lucas, reading this is making me a bit nervous...

a friend of mine have blocked his girlfriends Audi A5 EGR and had a hardings Stage 1 tune to code it out. feels like it drives awesome and because the GF only does short trips to town and back I do manual regens with VCDS. I have to say the soot mass doesn't go up a huge amount between regens done every 6 months or so, she doesn't do much driving though...

do you know if its an issue with all the 3.0 tdi's please?

Sorry mate - only just saw this question of yours. The single turbo V6 TDI used in the A4, A5 etc is quite different to the biturbo engine in the SQ5. A lot of people (myself included, before I did research) think that because they are both 3.0L V6 engines they are much the same, but they have different heads, pistons, inlet manifold, DPF setup, and of course the turbo setup - and no doubt the EGR system and ECU are different too. So with that in mind, what works on your mates car may or may not work on my car and vice versa.

And while I still have much to learn about diesels, I have also learnt quite a bit during my ownership of the SQ5. Put it this way, I will never buy another modern diesel vehicle again. Even if our driving habits changed drastically or we moved to the country I don't think I would do it. And with how good modern turbo petrol cars are in regards to fuel usage these days, diesels for passenger vehicles are just no longer required IMO.

We do regular 25-30 minute drives on 80-90kph motorway each week but this is not enough time to get the car up to temp and then trigger the regen and let it run its course. You really need to do regular 45min+ or longer drives to avoid issues.

If you are manually triggering the regen's on your friends car with VCDS then in theory it should be ok. Im not sure if there are any limits to how many times it can be done or downsides to always manually triggering a regen?? Another alternative that would remove you from the equation is this VAG DPF app on Android to monitor DPF which would allow your mate to monitor the DPF level himself and then take the car for a 30-40 minute drive when getting close to 100% to allow the DPF to do its regen process. Doing it while driving is much safer as the airflow will help cool the DPF and exhaust as it gets very very hot during the process (and sitting idle in a driveway while this happens is asking for a fire IMO). I use this app and the Carista dongle all the time in my car and its great. If they subscribe to the Carista software ($50 USD per year) then they can use Carista to force a regen themselves, just like what you do with VCDS.

Crazy that the regen process is only required every 6 months or so in your friends car. I wish that was the case with my car!! My car does a regen every 450-500km which is generally once every 7-10 days for us. I use the VAGDPF app to monitor the levels, and when it gets close to 100% ill take the car for a drive to let it do its thing.

Hi, good mods with photos. Could you please post a photo of your provent filter and when do you intend to change it??

Hi mate. Its not a Provent (they were too large to fit anywhere in the engine bay). I have a Flashlube Catch Can Pro which is linked here: https://www.allfourx4.com.au/Flashlu...-Flashlube-FCC

The Flashlube is smaller in size (length mainly) while still being able to flow enough to not be restrictive on the V6 BiTDI engine.

I have drained the catch can 3 or 4 times already and I check the filter each time I do an oil change - the filter is damp but looks fine still. I think the manufacturer recommends changing the filter every 40,000-50,000km from memory, and at the moment ive only had it fitted for around 15,000km.