​​The install really isn’t very technical. On the front, there are two bolts holding the caliper in place. Remove those, then pop out the pads and the spring retaining clips. From there, use a brake caliper compression tool. I found this tool to work pretty good (https://amzn.to/4vjWEtX#ad) to compress all the pistons at the same time. Once that’s done, reinstall the new retaining clips and pads.
I added a small amount of brake grease to the back of each pad and along the edges where they contact the retaining clips.

The fun part was getting the rotor off. The set screw, which I expected to be seized, actually came out easily by hand. The rotor itself, however, did not want to budge. After about 20 minutes of fighting it, I gave up and sprayed a very small amount of penetrating oil where the rotor meets the hub. A few minutes later, it finally broke free.

After that, I went through about half a can of brake cleaner to make sure all the penetrating oil was completely washed away. I also cleaned off the surface rust on the hub with a steel brush and followed up with more brake cleaner. Before installing the new rotor, I applied a light coat of anti-seize to the inner contact surface where it meets the hub. That should make future brake jobs easier, especially since these Q7s tend to go through brakes pretty quickly.

After finishing the fronts, I moved to the rear only to find that the pads were basically brand new. There were even mechanic marker marks on the rotor set screw, so it is clear someone had been in there recently and already replaced the rotors and pads. I was fooled by the caliper design and assumed the rears needed replacement too. At least now I have a spare set for next time.

For the rears, you can use OBDeleven by going to Car > Apps > Workshop and selecting the pad replacement function. This unlocks the electronic parking brake so you can service the pads. It is incredibly easy, but it costs 10 credits to open and close it. That ended up being a waste for me this time, but at least I know how to do it now.

As for other recent work, oil consumption has continued to improve. I have only added about one quart every 3,000 miles, which I consider perfectly acceptable for this engine. I am still running Valvoline Restore and Protect 5W-30 and plan to stick with it.

The Jackal tune has also been great so far. After the last update, I cleared all adaptations, and the car runs noticeably better. I think the fuel trims were out of range and never fully corrected themselves, likely due to the previous oil consumption causing some compression inconsistencies.

Next on the list is a transmission flush and engine mounts. The mounts are probably a bit too involved to tackle in the driveway, so I will likely have a shop handle that and do the transmission service at the same time.
Other than that, the Q7 is doing well. And yes, the S4 is still around. It has basically been my Toyota in an Audi body in terms of reliability. Just rock solid.

I went a little crazy as this was a 5 day process. 1st day I added 50ml Berryman B12 (affiliate link) to every cylinder and manually rotated the engine and just let it sit for the rest of the day. First day was like a pre soak and Day 2 I would put two pistons in TDC (top dead center) and 50ml of B12 in each of those cylinders. The other 4 cylinders I went in and sprayed Gumout 540028 Foaming Intake Valve & Turbo Cleaner (affiliate link). The thought was to keep every wet and since this foamed up really good I wasn't fighting gravity to get the full cylinder wall and piston covered. Between each 24hr cycle I would use compressed air flush out each cylinder, then manually rotate the engine for a few min. Then I have my next set of cylinders at TDC, add 50ml of B12, Gumout sprayed to the other 4 and soak for 24hrs. Repeat for the last set on day 4.

On day 5, I did the finally compressed air to flush everything out and let each cylinder air out for a few hours. While that was happening I drained the oil and installed a new oil level sensor. Now in the piston soak video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aY1yDxSiJw) they suggest not to drain your oil immediately, but I think I used far more b12 with the day 1 pre soak, so I did not want the oil to thin out too much. As well I'm only 2 months into this car loan and don't need a failed motors (possible foreshowing here). So new oil, new oil filter before the first start

Should I have rolled the Q7 out garage, yes, but I was home alone, excite and wants to see it running again. It was a smoke show for sure, but I was expecting it. Took about 30mins for it to really clear up. At this point it was mid December and we had some holiday gatherings to get too. We all jump in and took it for a good hour ride and no issues. 

Fast forward a few days, we are all commuting home. We are on the freeway doing 60mph and I want to open her up.. and massive misfire. Scanned with OBDEleven (affiliate link) and cylinder 1 & 3 are getting Air-Fuel Ratio Imbalance (P219E00). I'm immediately thinking we lost compression engine is done or if I'm lucky two injectors just went bad. I drive home as carefully as possible but no misfires are felt. 

Next day, pull the plugs, clean them, regap them, get out the borescope and peak around. I can't really find anything so just put everything back together, clear the code and hope for the best. Take it for a test drive and watch the misfire count on on OBD11. Nothing on 1 but a few misfires on 3 but never felt them. Cyc 1 code never came back after this point. This feel more like a bad fuel injector on 3 is more of the issue and 1 was a false positive. Drive it around for a few days and the Check Engine would come back for cyc3. I added a left over bottle of B12 in to the fuel tank and just pray it will clean the problem injector. We put about 300 miles over the course of 3 days just trying to get as much mileage as possible to see if the issue would clear up... but it didn't. Our plan like we do every Christmas was to drive about 5hrs to stay with family, but we were out of time. No way to get parts and install them and test the Q7 to make sure it was good before a long trip... and no way we all could fit in the S4. It hit pretty hard not being able to hang out with family. I ordered injectors for the direct injection and port sides and they arrived after xmas. 

Over the holidays I keep looking around and accidently hit the side camera button on my borescope and saw the injector. Started comparing with other injectors and Cyc3 certainly had more carbon buildup over it. Could we really just being getting a bad spray? I ran another bottle of fuel injector clean and we just drove it like we stole it for a few weeks. I would clear the code but it would come back 2-3 days later. Come Jan 7th I get a text from my wife asking if I cleared the code and I hadn't. The CEL went off on its own which is a really good sign here.

Fast forward another week and ​I happy to report still no check engine light. During the past few weeks of honestly regretting this Q7 purchase I completely forgot about why I did all of this, the stupid oil consumption! There hasn't been any! We are nearly 1k miles post piston soak and haven't had to add a drop of oil. Prior, I would have needed to add at least 2qt by now.

What caused the Check Engine Fault? 
Honestly I'll likely never know. 

Theory #1: I might not have blown out Cyc3 good enough post soak and or the b12 wasn't fill high enough to clean out the carbon around the injectors. So using more fuel injector clear in the tank help clear a path around the injector. That said I would expect more misfires if that was the case.

Theory #2: The piston rings on Cyc3 were still slowly breaking free and while the rest of the bank the compression was already improved. AKA Cyc3 air/fuel was out of balance because of a lower compression. Going with the method of just driving it hard just help finally free the piston rings to bring the compression back up may have done the trick. Note, I'm 100% guessing here as I didn't compression test it. Yes I should have, but I started fearing that it was leaking intercooler blocks and that distracted me. Thankfully a pressure test of the coolant system put that fear to rest. 

At this point the Q7 is back and on the road. Up next is a brake job, transmission flush, and new motor mounts. Will wait until spring for that. Happy new year!

​Fast forward a week post PCV replacement guess what light showed again... and yes we topped off the oil. Clearly it wasn't just a PCV issue but far more. This kind of confirming my theory we are now battling carbon issue specifically around piston rings. There is simple way too much blow by happening. ​Pull the spark plug and this is what they look like 2 month old. All soaked in oil. 

Time for the piston soak. ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aY1yDxSiJw 

Now I am already running Valvoline Restore & Protect and yes I could wait 3-4 months and a few more oil changes to allow it to clean, but I'm going through a shocking amount of oil. Below is the inside of cylinder 6 and she be crusty. I will post back with the results of the soak. 

So like normal, I went over to my buddy's place and we got this knocked out. Nothing too existing about removing the supercharger, but once we got to the coolant pipe that goes over the passenger side fuel rail, it cracked while taking it out. I had read this was possibility so I had a new one read to replace. Once the runners were all out, we only had one fuel injector come out with them. That go a new set of o-rings. I went around to each intake valve to soaked them with "CRC GDI IVD Intake Valve & Turbo Cleaner". There was some carbon, but it wasn't crazy and of course I forgot to take a picture. By the time we started putting the runners back in I forgot to look back in there to see how well the spray  removed the carbon. I also stupidly forgot to suck out all of the chemicals so we had to do a spark plugless crank (fuel pump fused removed as well) to flush it all out. 

As for the crankcase vent valve everything went in smoothly. I opted for a new "y" shaped breather hose assuming the old one was likely very brittle. Man they took some effort off of ports near the rear coil on each site of the engine. 

As for the oil filter housing, that went pretty smoothly as well, it is just in weird position. I had a lot of people say they could remove this housing without removing the supercharger, and I struggle to understand how that is possible. That said, after removing it, the old gasket was certainly flat and hard. Since I replaced the entire housing it came preinstall with a new gasket and oil filter. I think if I ever need to do a tstat or waterpump job I would likely replace the oil filter gasket again just as preventative maintenance. I'm sure my B8.5 S4 is likely due for a new gasket as well.

Last on the list was to get the coolant replaced. We vacuum filled it, but on first crank realized we forgot to plug in one of the fuel injector connectors. So supercharger had to come partially off again to get that connected. We did swap over to the metal 034Motorsports supercharger bleeder screws so getting the air back out was quick. There certainly was a good smoke show with all the cleaner from the intake values once it was running. Reminds me of Seafoam treatments back in my MK3 Jetta VR6 days. 

The next day after everything was put back together I gave it a fresh oil change with Liqui Moly 5w-40. Gave it a good drive and everything seems to be good. No noticeable performance change, maybe a little more torque down low, but the puff of smoke on hard pulls seems to be gone.  Too early to tell if oil consumption had gone down. We have 600mile road trip coming up so we will be testing this. Fingers crossed everything goes well and maybe we can finally get a aftermarket heat exchange and go Stage 2 later next year. 

Parts List/Links:

• Coolant Pipe - Part # 06E121065N
• Audi Supercharger Bleeder Screw Kit - Part # 034145Z043
• Audi Crankcase Breather Kit
• Breather Tube Assembly - Part # 06E103217AF
• Oil Filter Housing Gasket - Part # 06E115446
• Oil Filter Housing - Part # 06E115405K
• ​Audi Engine Oil Change Kit - Part # KIT-06E115562AKT55
• NGK 94460 Spark Plug

What helped me was to have the new grill lay on top of the old grill so I could see what needed to be trimmed. I think I spent maybe 10mins using the dremel to make quick work of everything. A bit of advice, a lower speed for dremeling plastic is better to avoid melting it. I will say that my grill didn't have dedicated mounts for the euro plate. I know other versions of this grill does, but this one didn't. That alone likely saved my a few hours of work. This grill included "U" brackets for the plate holder which was useful later on in the project.  

While that was happening I was laying down coats of flat black paint over the crash bar. I may have gone a little crazy to mask off the front of the car, but since the Q5 is white, you have to be cautious. I likely should have put some primer down first over the crash bar, but honestly I got lazy. If I redo this I would likely go with a bed liner type of paint at it is more durable, you just need to apply it in warmer weather. At this point the we are encountering one of the coolest wettest springs in a long time. I was cheating a little using a heat gun at the lowest temp to keep the drying process relatively quick.

Putting the bumper back on with the new grill was pretty straight forward. Trying to hide the parking sensor wires was kind of impossible without cutting the wire up to make them run outside and around the grill. Since I wasn't going to do that (might be a future project), my only option was to have them go straight back and go over the top lip of the crash bar. While I was there I add a few layers of electrical tape around the harness ends for the parking sensors to both hide the wires better and offer a little more shielding from the elements as they are far more exposed with this setup. Obviously this pictures wasn't taken in direct sun light, but the wiring is still pretty hidden. 

Sadly my last step was getting the front license plate installed. It is required in my state, so it is a must. As I hate the look of a US spec license plate on a euro plate holder, I went with this from Amazon (https://amzn.to/3xncdFX) (affiliate link). What I liked best about it was that there was a lot of different mounting holes to give me a lot of flexibility to mounting it properly. I reused the bolt and "U" like bracket that came with the grill's euro plate holder for the new US spec plate holder. As well added 4 black zip-ties in each corner to keep it solid on the grill (sorry forgot to take pics of that portion of the install).

And for the final result we get this.... The wife loves the look of her car, so I'm happy. 

What's next with the Q5 and is the S4 still around?

Yes the S4 is still around, just hanging out in the garage a lot more than normal (still working from home). I got a few little drivetrain rattles I need to look into, but other than that it seem running good. Hopefully some day we will go dual pulley. 

As for now the next Q5 projects are little unknown. We might play around with a different color for the stock wheels. While I would love to get some 20's as they keep that meaty tire look (21in are just too big in my opinion), I'm just not sure I want to drop the money for new wheels and tires just yet. I certainly will be adding some wheel spacers, just not sure if we want to go with the super flush 15mm (front) 20mm (rear) setup or something a little less like a 10/15mm. Again I like the OEM+ look vs the "hey look at me I'm super modified look". Any future performance upgrades are pause at the moment as I chase down a oil leak. Seems to only leak while the car is running and it collecting right around the oil pan. A mechanic buddy of my already checked the oil filter housing and upper timing chain covers (no leaks), so the most common places seem to be out. The location of the oil doesn't always tell the true story as air flow moves it around. That said it just seems like the oil pan is the likely source as it seems to be sweating oil, but there is no area where it is dripping. Hopefully it is just bad drain plug, so I got a new one with proper copper crush washer ready to install for the next oil change. If that doesn't help, either the oil pan seal is the problem, or maybe we got a PCV issue and it is just collecting down there. It being a car with over 100k+ in miles I'm sure the PCV is near the end of it's life. Anyway, I'll start with the most basic fixes and go from there.

Once the oil leak is resolved, next on the list would be a MercRacing heat exchanger and a 207mm crank pulley. This allow us to jump from a Stage1 to Stage 2 dual pulley without touching the supercharger pulley. I don't want to deal with belt slip and this is honestly way easier to install than crank pulley. Supercharger pullies are hard to install, but why bother renting the tool and doing the oven dance of heating pulley and racing to get it installed. I like to think I'm older and wiser now... Maybe ;) 

You can find my existing steering wheel for sale here: 
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/223996693257818/

​​My wash method:

Stage 1, key step is to find and park your car in the shade. Next I get out my pressure washer which is a Sun Joe SPX3001. I swapped out the gun and hose for something better, but zero issues. I use a foam cannon to pre-soak the entire car in a nice thick layer of soapy foam. The soap I use is CarPro Reset, it's expensive, but does the job. While that is soaking I clean the wheels and tires with a detailers brush and brush stick for the inside of the wheel. Depending on how dirty the wheels I do that again and with a second foam cannon use P&S Wheel Cleaner to really get everything off. While the body of the car is still soaking, I go over seams like the edges of the windows, doors, bumpers, and grill with another detailers brush as it will reach areas the wash mitt can't. Once that is all done, rinse the Q5 with the pressure washer.. 

Stage 2, I fill up a single bucket and add some soap into the bucket. Then drop in about 6 wash mitts as each mitt is for specific areas of the car. Never does a dirty mitt go back into the wash bucket.  I use 4 of these mitts for any glass or  painted portion of the Q5. And then I use two of these mitts for trim, exhaust, and if needed tire/wheels. Now back to the foam cannon again I lay down another layer of foam this time using Turtle Wax Extreme Foaming Car Wash. This soap really hold on to the car and is very slick so its perfect for washing the car with out scratching it. Again one mitt for each side of the car, and washing from top down to the bottom. The bottom of your car is always has the most dirty so you want to wash the portion of each side at the the end so you don't bring the dirt to the top of the car. Use side to side or up and down motions... never washing in a circular pattern (unless you like swirl marks on your car). Throw each mitt into a second bucket for collecting anything dirty. Lastly rinse off the car. I still use the pressure washer so it forces water in areas where soap likes to hide. Rinse top down so all dirt is pulled down with the water. 

Stage 3, time to dry. As my theme is to try and avoid touch the car as much as possible, I use a electric Leaf blower to blow of 90% off the water.  On a car that is has a sealant or ceramic coat, you can dry the car with the leaf blower in no time. I also dry off the wheels and tires to avoid any water spots there.  I will lightly go over any area that water still exist using these drying towels. The key for drying towels working good is that you only ever use them for drying and no chemicals or anything get on them. That said, go over just the areas on the car that need extra attention to dry. 

Stage 4, decontamination. Before I  polish I do a decontamination treatment to really clean the car of all the hidden crap on the paint. I use CarPro Trix which is a tar and iron remover. This stuff does not smell good, and if you get it on your grass, it will kill it... anyway you basically just spray it all over your car (minus wheels), and them come back with towel or clean wash mitt to wipe around further wipe it down to break off any contaminates. Metal specs on your paint surface will turn purple so you know it is working. I leave it on as long as I can without it drying, maybe 5-8mins and then rinse it off with the pressure washer. If there is any step where being in the shade is critical, this is the one. I typically will repeat that process again until the surface feel smooth and less like sand paper. After the last rinse, any areas that are really bad I use a synthetic clay bar pad to rub out whatever is on the paint. The same Turtle wax soap with some water in a spray bottle works great as a lubricant. I typically do not clay bar the entire car as it is not need. A clay bar is abrasive so I try to avoid adding more damage to the clear coat. Lastly rinse again, and one more dry.

Stage 5, polish time. Prep is key here so I tape off any area of plastic or rubber trim that I do not want polish to get on. When polish dries on those surfaces it can be a pain to get off. As for the polish itself, I use 3D One as it is both a cutting compound and polish at the same time. Meaning I don't have to go over my car multiple times. I use a Torq X polisher that I've had for over 4 years. Came with all the pads I could need and is a great starter kit. While I know the clear coat Audi uses typically requires a "hard" cut pad, I went with a "medium" cut just to play it safe. As this was going to be more of a cleaning polish then a show room look. I work 3 by 3 foot areas for about 3-4 mins, wipe off, and move onto the next section. Going slow give better results so this portion for most cars with a 6in pad will take many many hours. Once everything is polished, you need to clean the surface up to make sure all the polish is removed. Most people use what is called "panel prep cleaner", I use use some water down 70% Isopropyl Alcohol and it works just fine. I just make sure to take the time to clean the entire car of polish or it will dry on your car and become a pain to remove. 

Stage 6, wax/sealant. Typically at this stage I will add a true ceramic multi-year coating like CarPro Cquartz, but this time of the year we get rain randomly and the week curing time of no water is not possible. I'm more interested in just getting the paint corrected and coated for a temporary solution so the car is easier to wash. For now I went with a Turtle Wax Graphene sealant. Using a soft application pad on the polisher, I added a very thin layer over the entire car, and wiped it off at the very end.

Stage 7, tire shine. I use Turtle Wash Graphene Coating for the tires. Unlike other stuff you spray on, this will last a few months. You do have to treat it more like a wax or sealant where you apply, let it set for a few mins, and then wipe it away with a microfiber towel. If you skip the secondary wipe, it will make the wheel like spotty.  If you want the tires super shine (I'm not a fan) you just add another layer once the first one dries.

And done.... I hope early summer when the weather is both good and the car will not be used as much, I can do this again and add a layer of CarPro Cquartz. For now, I just wanted something on the car. In all I think I spend 6hr from wash to finished product. Obviously I can't remove any deep scratches, but Q5 looks new from 10ft away. I'll take it. 

​The last time I did a cat-back exhaust install was back in my MK3 Jetta VR6 days, 10+ years ago. I remember that being a extremely  frustrating experience with almost everything going wrong. Didn't have the right tools, clamps broke, saw blade respectively broke (this was a hand saw)... and worst, I was young and inexperienced. Thankfully this AWE Touring kit was a super easy to install, and I've gotten wiser with ago... maybe. I will say using some silicone spray with  exhaust hanger removal pliers made the process of removing stock exhaust stupid easy. The stock exhaust was off in less than 20mins. I did used penetrating oil on the down pipe clamps, waited 15mins and remove them no problem while the exhaust was still warm. Figured I could use the existing heat to my advantage to break them loose and it worked great. One thing to remember when removing the stock exhaust is to keep the stock down pipes from sagging if you plan on using them. I found using a floor jack and some wood keep them in place no issue. If the down pipes do sag they can tear and leak. 

Installing the actually AWE system was pretty easy. You don't want to fully tighten any of the clamps just enough to keep the pipes all loosely connected. From that point it was just about aligning everything. I likely spent about 50% of the time getting the rear mufflers to be parallel with the ground and all the upstream pipes aligned properly. I did run into one problem where I didn't have a deep 16mm impact socket for the clamps, but Harbor Freight saved me

Lastly, I had the wife decide how far out we wanted the exhaust tips to poke and we were all good to go. I think in total it about an 2.5-3hr job and this was just putting the rear end up on ramps to raise the car. I'm sure this would be even faster on a lift. More videos to come when the exhaust has at least 400-500 miles on it.

Yep, we went with the AWE Tuning setup for the wife's Q5 3.0T. Ceder from Rowe Tech in Portland, OR hooked me up with a great deal and with the added bonus of no sales tax because Oregon doesn't have any... it was meant to be.

I just finished going over the entire AWE Tuning setup with Blue Magic Polish as it also has a sealant in it. I'm not too worried about rust as salt is not really used in my area, I just want the exhaust looking good for a long as we own the Q5. The muffler really do pop now that they are polished. As for the exhaust tips, I did two coats of CarPro CQuartz Dlux Ceramic Coating. As it is made to withstand high temps, I'm sure it will last a solid year or so. I've used CarPro Ceramic coating on my S4 and after 3 years it is still holding up. 

I hope to get this system all installed before the end the week. It's funny the last time I bought and install a cat-back system was in my MK3 Jetta VR6 days over 10 years ago. Man times fly by.