FAMILY CAR REVIEW: 2017 AUDI Q2

There are two cup holders in the front of the car, situated in front of the gear lever and are only really suitable to hold a takeaway coffee cup in width and depth. You can remove the plastic divider and I could then fit my water bottle in, however, the bottle was too tall as the top of it knocked the button for the air conditioning!

There is a 12V power socket in front of these and a USB port. A second USB port is in the central console storage box between the front seats, where there is also a headphone socket. The Q2 has a built-in wi-fi hotspot too, great for entertaining iPad wielding little people on long journeys.

There is not a huge amount of storage in the front, the door pockets are not lined so anything in them will rattle and they are relatively small with room for only a drinks bottle and my wallet, they couldn’t fit an iPad.

In the back, the door pockets are even smaller having definitely no room for an iPad or a wallet and they only just fit my water bottle.

There is no sunglasses holder in the ceiling but the glove box surprisingly held the car manual, my wallet and my iPad with room to spare.

The doors have no wells in them just handles. I like there to be the little wells as I find them convenient to hold any little thing Tulsi might be squirrelling in her hands whilst I’m getting her in or out of the car!

The central console lid doubles as an armrest by moving it up and out and down and back!! It takes a while to get used to the lever like mechanism and I was never too sure what I was going to end up with each time I moved it!

There wasn’t a place to put your phone other than in the central console, there is a little rubber-lined ledge behind the cup holders but I found that was a more suitable size to hold my sunglasses. Although it is safer to keep your phone in the central console and with the Q2 having Apple Car Play it isn’t really necessary to be able to see your phone screen. I still like to be able to see it so I had mine on the passenger seat next to me which looks unsightly with the USB lead plugged in and wouldn’t work with a front passenger.

Space and storage are pretty tight in the back where there are no map pockets, you can add cargo nets but they would show whatever is inside them and come as an added cost, like most things with the Audi. There is no under seat storage and the door pockets are small, leaving nowhere for this tech-friendly car's passengers to store any of their gadgets! Legroom was pretty sparse too, made worse by the very upright seat backs from which the central seat back has a fold-down armrest section providing two small cup holders.

It’s in the boot that the Q2 really has something to shout about when it comes to BabyDrive comparability in the way of space!!

The boot space and its functionality are really important. I like to have a big boot space and little side wells or areas I can divide things into. So something I don’t want to move around while I’m driving such as Tulsi’s lunch bag or her wet swimming gear can be sectioned off in a little well where it’s not going to spill or get squashed by the rest of the things in the boot.

Hooks for securing shopping bags to are also favourites of mine, I like being able to secure the bag containing more fragile things like eggs so they don’t move around on the journey.

The Q2’s secret extra boot space is fantastic for seperating your load, you could put your picnic in the lower floor space and pram and beach stuff in the top compartment for example!

I measure the boot space in freezer shopping bags, prams and dogs. Not because I think all there is to a mum’s life is food shopping, prams and dogs. (Although it can feel like it sometimes!!) But because these are visually mesurable items we can all associate with. For me, the car company boot measurement of litres ia not an amount I can easily visualise and 400L in one car may differ in usability to that in another due to the configuration or shape of the space.

The floor of the boot has two depth settings. It came with the boot floor flush with the frame of the car and held a surprising amount, it was easy to access with no bending down and the rectangular shape of the space was really user-friendly. With the small H2 stroller diagonally across I could get five shopping bags around it and without anything else, I could get ten bags in the boot. It would however only fit my Mountain Buggy pram on its own laying flat on the floor, there was no room for any bags.

Then I discovered you can lower the boot floor for extra storage! I LOVE this feature! The boot floor simply slides out and back into its lower position using the plastic guide at either side of the boot. This gives you about six inches more space! You do have to lift things into the boot now rather than just sliding them in as the floor no longer sits flush with the frame but it is well worth it for this extra storage space and because the Q2 is higher it is not too low to bend.

With the boot floor in its lower position, I could put the Mountain Buggy pram flat and four shopping bags; two bags beside it and two bags on top of it. With the pram on its side against the back of the seats, I could get four bags alongside it and the parcel shelf came down flat when the boot door was closed.

There is also a small well on the left and a hook on either side toward the seat backs for fastening bags with delicate contents.

Bum changes were not a problem in the boot of the Q2! With the floor in the upper position it meant I didn’t have to bend down to do it and in the lower position I did have to bend a little but Tulsi couldn’t roll out so either way worked well.

The parcel shelf is solid and attached to the rear window with string loops and always covered the contents of the boot. Any tall loads in the boot you would have to remove the parcel shelf altogether and leave it at home.

With only one child seat installed there is plenty of space for any size dog on the back seat. Or with the front passenger seat only being usable by people around 162cm if you have a rear facing child seat behind them, it might be more practical to put the dog in the front!

Both the 1.4-litre petrol TFSI I drove and the 2.0litre diesel TDI Quattro Sport come with reversing camera and parking sensors as standard. As well as a very conveniently located button on the dashboard to turn off the ‘beeeeeeep’. Or so I thought! Not only does it turn off the beep it also turns off the whole visual display so you lose the reversing camera too! This is a bit of a dilemma as although it’s a small car the visibility is not adequate out of the back and sides, so I felt I really needed the reversing camera. It would just be nice to have it without the noisy sensors waking my child!!

Becoming a parent I soon realised there are some noises and sounds I feel are unnecessary and I could happily live without if it meant my baby stayed asleep!!

That often the distraction of my screaming, distressed baby is more dangerous when driving than not having a lane departure warning for example.

If it is the lane departure warning beeping that creates distress with my baby then which is safest?

It’s where I think we need to be able to strike a balance and choose when we can mute the warnings or swap them to a vibration in the steering wheel or flashing light perhaps?

A lot of these noises come with the increase in technology and especially linked to safety features and alerts. For me these all have their place.

Another thing I have realised is I spend my time in a lot more places where small children roam, parks, beaches, play gyms, swimming lessons, daycare centre etc. I have become more aware that when I’m reversing or manouvering in the car parks I have to tripple check for small children running around behind me or being in my blind spot when reversing. For this I LOVE reversing cameras, I just don’t like their beeping sounds!!

I have become so much more aware of safety and potential accidents or hazards since having a child and so I love the peace of mind that I get from the cameras and sensors combined with my own vision from windows and mirrors as I don’t trust cameras alone.

The indicators have a gentle tick so I didn’t find they interfered too much or upset Tulsi at all.

I LOVE the sat nav voice controls in this car! On the steering wheel there are two buttons, one allows you to mute the sat nav voice, the other allows you to repeat the last instruction.

This is a great feature as all too often I find I am stuck with the sat nav audio on and I have to listen to all the instructions I don’t need and then it is just as the one I do need is said that my daughter will start screaming! Usually, because she has cracked it for being in the car so long and she always seems worse for the last 5-10 minutes of the journey and that’s usually when I need the sat nav directions too!!

The doors and windows of the Q2 both close with a clunk, rattling anything that is in the door pockets.

Opening the driver’s door while the engine is on alerts another alarm with a shrill beeping sound, designed specifically to wake your sleeping baby so it screams and alerts you to the fact you have left your door open!!

The Q2 had Apple Car Play which connected relatively easily to my phone although I did have to click through the main menu screen using the mouse to get to it and get my nursery rhymes playing instead of them just playing straight away. Using the mouse with Apple Car Play felt a bit strange as I’m so used to it as a touchscreen. There were a wide variety of different knobs, switches and buttons surrounding the mouse and the volume controls were oddly positioned off on their own behind the gear lever.

I felt all the controls were too widely spread and needed consolidating in some way. I would press a mute button in one place, or I’d turn the screen off thinking I had managed to turn everything off and the radio would still be playing?! I am sure over time you would work out what they all do and they would become second nature but I felt they required far too much attention when I had firstly the road and secondly a screaming child to focus on.

All Q2 models come with the automatic engine cut out, but I find the turning off and on of the engine at lights distresses and wakes my baby. The button to turn it off is conveniently located on the central dashboard alongside the Park Assist, parking sensor, hazard warning, traction control and media screen on/off buttons.

The Q2 was a lovely quiet car to drive, there was very little road or engine noise and this is something it has as an advantage to a lot of the larger SUVs I have driven which can shake and rattle like a van.

There are seatbelt reminder lights on the driver display that indicates when a seat is in use but the passenger's seatbelt is not done up. If a door is open, it is accompanied by an alarm. These are great safety features but the alarm can wake a sleeping baby!

There are five seats in the Q2. The back row has two Isofix points on the two outer seats and top tethers for all three at the base on the backrests.

The Isofix points are very conveniently located in the seat backs with plastic casings rather than being buried in the folds of fabric between the join of the back and base of the seats. This makes connecting the Isofix very straightforward and I couldn’t feel them when I sat in the back seats.

The top tether points are positioned near the top of the backrests so there was plenty of strap available and no need for an extension strap. In the model I had you could bring down the backrests in three parts individually, which made fitting the car seats really simple, this is an optional extra however as I found most cool features are!!

I realised whilst installing the child seats that the seats in the back of the Q2 are actually quite generous and wide. I installed a rear facing Infasecure Kompressor child seat one side and Mountain Buggy Protect capsule on the other and both had a few inches of seat either side to spare. I couldn’t quite get my Infasecure Foldaway booster seat in the middle, but there was still quite a lot of room there. My little Labrador friend fitted easily and I think if you were careful with your selection of child seats you would possibly get three across the back row.

There is plenty of headroom, which helps make up for the lack of leg room and make it not feel cramped in the back with everything installed. However, there is not much room for the front passenger in front of a rear facing child seat.

The wider seats and headroom also helped when breastfeeding in the back and with posting bub into her child seat from inside and outside the car. I felt the higher driving position also helped make it easy when posting Tulsi in from the outside.

The leather-appointed seats would be easy to keep clean and they were nicely unfussy with minimal stitch detail or seams to trap child detritus in!!

Comfort in the front of this little SUV is very good. The front seats were easily adjusted and enjoyable for long journeys and the seat bases were not too long for shorter legs! The headrests are some of the best I’ve experienced for wearing a ponytail too!

In the back, however, the seats had very upright backrests, which I quite like, I know a lot of passengers don’t and combining this with the distinct lack of legroom meant it wasn’t too comfortable for taller passengers.

The Q2 I drove only had aircon vents in the front which were pretty ugly, I imagine in brushed silver they may look stylish, however in shiny black plastic, like the media screen casing, they looked flimsy and a bit 80’s boy’s bedroom!

Becoming a parent doesn’t mean we no longer want style, good stereos, choice and adaptability, but we do want well thought out and clever design, using simplicity and practicality for its inspiration and making life so much easier. It’s as if Audi got that with the front of the car and the boot but forgot it all again with the control system and the back seats!

The air-conditioning, however, was very good! The controls, on the central dash, were simple to navigate and the flow effective enough to cool the front and rear of the car, without being overpowering.

Apart from the air-conditioning vents and the media screen, which looked like it retracted into the dash but unfortunately didn’t the aesthetics were good in the Q2. It was a stylish design with a few too many buttons and switches! The surfaces used would be all easily wiped down and cleanable except for the area around all the controls and the window switches, which is matte black and feels beautiful and smooth but marks dreadfully with just the oils from your skin. Considering this is the areas you are going to be touching most it will take a lot of cleaning and upkeep to prevent it from looking greasy and grubby, especially with little fingers!

The forward and side visibility was really good as you sit slightly higher in the Q2, but the pillars at the back made visibility quite difficult especially if you turned the reversing camera off to mute the sound, you felt quite blind out of the back. I had a similar problem in the Range Rover Evoque, which I think the Q2’s appearance reminds me of.

The reversing camera is very clear, making parking simple especially combined with the car’s footprint on the tarmac being smaller than that of most SUVs. The windows were adequately tinted so we didn’t need to put window shades up and the Q2 doesn’t come with any fitted.

The lighting inside the car is subtle and clear due to the optional LED package in the model I drove. There were two lights in the front and two in the back and the boot was especially clearly lit.

There are lit vanity mirrors in the front too which fade with the same subtle lights.

There were no handles in the back or any way to hang a toy above a child seat. Instead, there was a tiny coat hook in the side pillars so no option for helping to keep Tulsi entertained!

Simple floor mats are included in the Q2, they are removable so would be good for cleaning.

There was just one 12V socket in the front dashboard however you can add one to the boot and central console as optional extras.

The Audi Q2 has a 5 Star ANCAP Safety rating. All models come with six airbags; for the driver and front passenger are front and side airbags, as well as head level curtain airbags for both the front and rear passengers.

The Q2 also comes with Audi pre-sense city with Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) and pedestrian detection Electronic Stabilisation Program (ESP) with Anti-lock braking system (ABS), Anti-slip regulator (ASR) and Electronic differential lock (EDL) Progressive steering as standard in all models.

For an added cost you can add more safety features to the Q2 with the Assistance Package which contains- adaptive cruise control with stop and go function including pre-sense front, Audi active lane assist which when activated helps the driver stay in lane by gentle corrective steering intervention and through steering vibration. Audi side assist includes blind spot lane change warning as well as detecting vehicles approaching rapidly from behind at the side. High beam assist switches automatically between low and high beam. Hill hold assist holds the vehicle on gradients indefinitely to enable smooth driving. Park assist helps to steer the vehicle into a parallel or perpendicular parking space.

I really liked the Q2’s digital display to let you know which doors were open and which seatbelts were in use in the back too. It’s a great way to keep an eye on little nippers taking their seatbelts off!!

The Q2 feels really safe to drive, it hugs the road so tightly, corners well and I feel I would have to drive it like a lunatic to get it to spin off the road, which is exactly what you want with a BabyDrive.

However, there are two sides to this Q2, as I have described in my summary at the beginning of this review.

I had a very scary experience in the Q2 when it came to almost an emergency stop from 70km/h in seconds because a car had stopped to my right to turn down a side road. This was completely out of my control and due to the electronics and programming of either the adaptive cruise control, Audi

pre-sense city or autonomous emergency braking, I don’t know? Whatever it was it was I was very lucky there was no one travelling behind me. It was extremely unsafe and what made it scarier was that the car did it without me having any say over it and the very things we are sold as being safety features could have been the very thing that caused a horrendous accident!

I know the arrival of self-driving cars is imminent but I don’t want one that does that!!

Some of these safety features are also features that drive me crazy as a mum! Like the lane departure and forward collision alert or the parking sensor beeping sound.

I want all the safety technology AND to be able to mute the sound when Tulsi’s asleep!