As an otherwise happy Q5 owner, we sold our 2010 Q5 primarily because in one week, my wife narrowly avoided a traffic accident twice. We live on a hill and when we exit our community; my wife has difficulty viewing down the highway to the right. Therefore, she will occasionally make a left turn in front of oncoming traffic from the right. When I am the passenger, I find this well beyond exciting.

Let me explain. If you consider the visibility area below the center rear-view mirror, and the rear-view mirrors on either side the most critical, then the greatest vertical distance between is desired. On the Q5, the distance is only about 3 inches of unobstructed visibility. On most other cars, including the Ford SUV I own, this distance is more than 8 inches. In this case, the right mirror obstructs our view down the highway. I addition, the left mirror sometime makes it difficult to see the island, when making a left turn on to a divided highway. Simply, the center mirror is too low, and the side mirrors are too high.

The other day, we decided to consider a new car and we went to our Audi dealer to see the new Q5. We observed the same problem continues to exist on the 2013 model, so we purchased a different brand with greater visibility.