Taking The Plunge, A Modest Lowering of and Expectations

Just about all of my daily drivers have been stock, more or less. I did some engine, transmission and overdrive swaps on Volvos back in the 1980s, but everything was factory, if not on that particular vehicle when it left Goteborg. Also, there was a 1972 VW bus for which I built a high-performance Beetle *engine so it could cruise at fast enough speeds to be safe on the interstates. Other than those, I haven't done any mechanical modifications to cars that I've driven regularly, at least not to the chassis, but now I'm taking the plunge.

My mom just turned 90, may she live to 120, and as is often the case with older folks, she stopped driving when she could no longer do so without endangering herself or others. The car she stopped driving is a 2002 Saturn SL, pretty much a base car with a 1.9 liter OHC engine and a three speed automatic transmission. Mom never drove it much, usually for short trips to go shopping or to her part-time job serving lunches to other seniors at the JCC. Over the years it transitioned from the car she drove, to the car she was driven in. Now it's the car I take my grandson, Aryeh, to visit her at her new apartment.

Though GM is rightly slagged for not giving Saturn products the incremental improvements they deserved, with the same basic design of the S series coupes, sedans and wagons, staying in production for a long time. The Saturn project was a big deal for GM in the beginning. The company devoted a lot of resources to the Saturn project and the cars seem to be engineered well, even if interior QC and general refinement is lacking. They're honest little cars.  With plastic body panels, rust, at least the visible kind, isn't a problem, and they're relatively durable. If you look around, there are plenty of ten to twenty year old Saturns providing fairly reliable daily transportation to folks.

Yeah, the engine is a bit agricultural in tone and weak in traffic (though the DOHC versions aren't slow) and that archaic transmission is closer, in terms of available ratios, to a 1950s era Powerglide 2-speed, than to even the six speed automatics that enthusiasts today consider obsolete as manufacturers roll out DCTs and eight or nine speed automatics.

However, I've grown to regard what Aryeh calls "Zayde's blue car" with affection. Other than a serpentine belt tensioner going bad while returning from the recent 24 Hours of Lemons race at Gingerman Raceway, it's never let me down. Even that breakdown wasn't really a breakdown, since the alternator light came on about three miles from a populated exit on the interstate. Though the car was overheating by the time I got to the hotel just off of the freeway, nothing was permanently damaged and I still had enough juice in the battery to be able to start it in the morning and drive to the Chevy dealer that I passed on my way to the Holiday Inn.

I should mention that the Saturn S series cars, while not highly regarded by enthusiasts at large, have their fans. They're light, about 2,600 lbs, they have real independent rear suspension, not an inexpensive torsion beam setup, you can equip them with disc brakes at all four corners, and the twin cam engine can be tuned with good results. There were at least a couple of Saturns in the Lemons race.

With close to 100,000 miles on the odometer, the tensioner and belt repair was a reminder that there were lot of OEM parts that probably should be attended to. Over the past year or so I've noticed that the left front strut was beginning to creak while turning at low speeds and there's also the telltale clattering when turning left that indicates a constant velocity joint on one of the axle shafts of the front wheel drive car. It doesn't make sense to change just one strut and since much of the labor of replacing the axle is disassembling the front suspension I decided to replace both axles and both struts. With the rear shocks as old and worn out as the struts, they needed to be replaces as well.

I like cars that can handle and while the Saturn SL isn't a bad handling car, and the steering is weighted pretty well, it's not what I'd call sporting in character. Turn in could be quicker and there's way more body roll than I'd like. I've had real good results from KYB shock absorbers going back to those Volvos. According to the Saturn enthusiast fora, KYB GR2 struts are about 30% stiffer than the OEM units for which they're supposed to be direct replacements. To be honest, there aren't many choices. Bilstein doesn't make anything that fits the Saturn and I wasn't going to spend the money to get Koni coilover inserts set in the OEM struts, so KYB it was. By the way, KYB is moving from the GR2 brand familiar to North American enthusiasts, to the Excel-G brand sold elsewhere. They're the same shocks and struts, they'll just be painted black instead of silver.

To compliment the stiffer shocks, I'm also going to put some H&R Sport springs on the car to lower it. Now I'm not joining Stance Nation. This isn't for looks, though the car will look less like a guy wearing his trouser cuffs above his ankles. There's a modest 1.4″ drop in front, nothing you wouldn't see that distinguishes an "S" model from a less sporting version of the same car. The back will go down a little bit less, 1.3″, so there will be a tiny bit more rake. The springs are also stiffer than stock, 205/195 front to rear vs 126/129. One nice thing about the KYB struts is that they have an oval hole that allows for stock alignment specs without having to use a special camber bolt.

Those springs may be a bit too stiff for the bad road surfaces here in Michigan, or at least that's what Sajeev Mehta suggested when I circulated my plans with the TTAC staff. He thinks stiffer shocks on new OEM springs would freshen the suspension enough for my needs. He may be correct, but the springs were less than $200 and I'm already going to be paying for R&Ring the springs because I'm replacing the struts. What do you think? Will Michigan's scarred roads, a lowered suspension and stiffer shocks and springs loosen the fillings in my few remaining teeth, or will I actually have a better ride compared to worn out OEM shocks and springs?

Since I'm concerned about getting too stiff (no cracks from the peanut gallery, please) I asked my colleagues about wheel sizes. Jack Baruth suggested that I'm still going to have to go to a bigger wheel if I want to get performance tires, that there just aren't a lot of choices in 14″ sizes. For a performance tire he suggested Dunlop Direzzas or Yokohama Advan Rs. I don't know what owners of old Brit roadsters are doing, but Jack is correct, checking the tire warehouses, there aren't that many performance tires for 13s and 14s. I was able, however, to find some Direzza DZ102 tires, an update to the original DZ101, for $82 ea at Tire Rack. It's a directional, summer tire.  The widest tire that will fit on the car is a 205, so I'm going with a 205 55 r15. That gives me about 0.8″ more tread width and it's close enough to the original tire circumference to keep the speedometer within 1 mph accuracy in most driving conditions. Tire Size Conversion is a useful site, by the way, to check compatibility and things like speedo calibrations.

Two of the car's current 14″ OEM steel wheels had to be knocked back into shape by yours truly and a baby sledge after mom clipped some curbs. Detroit area potholes are deservedly notorious, so I'm not about to spend money on aluminum wheels. Steelies are cheaper and, as mentioned, you don't need special tools to straighten them. Every set of used alloy rims that I saw advertised on Craigslist had some kind of cosmetic damage or worse. Discount Tire, a local chain, had some U.S. made 15×6″ steel wheels by Unique for $55 a piece. They're pretty much OEM replacements, only bigger and wider. I think they'll look just fine with chrome lug nuts. Discount Tire's software simulation of what the car will look like with the steelies heads this post. Buying the wheels there gets me a discount on mounting and balancing.

I have to say that as a consumer I've been pleased so far. When I ordered the springs, I got a followup call from Tire Rack explaining that I should anticipate possible accelerated wear on the shock absorbers and other suspension components. When I called a local repair shop to get a price on labor, the guy asked me why I was lowering the car and said he'd had customers who regretted it. I explained that it wasn't about looks, but rather handling and that I was going with a fairly modest drop so I didn't expect to start scraping driveway aprons.

The parts are in.

So the adventure has started. The parts are all in. I can't get the car into the shop until next week, but in the meantime this weekend, if there's no precipitation, I'm going to take the car over to a parking lot and get some baseline data. I'll shoot video to record body lean and I downloaded a lateral acceleration app for my smartphone. After I get cornering data as is, I'll do it again after replacing the suspension parts, and if the snow holds off longer, I'll do it yet again with the new tires, reporting back after each step. If I'm happy with the results, I'll upgrade the base rear drum brakes with discs I can pull off a higher spec Saturn at the junkyard. That's a bolt on conversion. Long term, I'll keep my eye out for a DOHC/5-speed drivetrain I can get cheap.

Per my colleagues' suggestions, I'll be keeping the alignment at the OEM settings. As Jack pointed out, I don't need a darty car on icy Michigan roads.

Speaking of icy roads, I'll be keeping the old rims and tires for winter use. The OEM wheels are mounted with some Cooper all-season tires with plenty of tread life remaining that should suffice in the cold. I know how Baruth feels about all-seasons in the winter and having test driven Bridgestone Blizzaks in a blizzard, I'm a fan of sticky winter tires, but I grew up learning to drive in big rear wheel drive American sedans with bias ply tires and since I haven't managed to get stuck or plow into someone so far, the all-seasons will do for winter driving for now.

So what do the Best & Brightest have to say? Am I on a fool's errand trying to make this rather unexciting car more sporting? Will the stiffer, lower springs and stiffer shocks ride worse than the OEM setup with 100K miles on the components? Either way I'll keep you informed.

* For you air-cooled VeeDub enthusiasts, it was an AE crankcase with 1648cc barrels, dual port heads (slightly milled), a street cam, 009 mechanical distributor and a Holley/Weber two barrel carb, plus a high pressure Melling oil pump and an external oil filter and auxiliary oil cooler (and homebrew interior heater using that hot oil).

** It surprises me that the Saturn station wagons don't get more love from enthusiasts. A small wagon that could be gotten with a DOHC engine, a 5 speed manual transmission and 4 wheel disc brakes checks a lot of boxes. I think they look pretty good too.

Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, a realistic perspective on cars & car culture and the original 3D car site. If you found this post worthwhile, you can get a parallax view at Cars In Depth. If the 3D thing freaks you out, don't worry, all the photo and video players in use at the site have mono options. Thanks for reading – RJS

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Capsule Review: 2015 Porsche Macan S

The Porsche Macan's diving roofline severely cramps cargo capacity. The centre hump in the rearward portion of the cabin is almost as high as the seat cushion, which could force the Macan into becoming a four-seater depending on the number of legs possessed by its passengers.

The driver's view out the back is far from expansive, and the driver must also deal with some odd layouts for cruise control, rear wipers, and centre-console mounted switches which are sometimes blocked by the shifter.

The Macan is a pricey piece of kit, with options required on a (USD) $50,895 Macan S to turn it into a car with parking sensors, a backup camera, heated rear seats, and navigation. Our tester costs $58,145 (U.S. market pricing including destination) and it still doesn't have cooled seats, auto-dimming mirrors, keyless go, blind spot monitoring, sunshades, a proper hi-lux audio system, or any of Porsche's performance options.

Moreover, even with optional 19-inch wheels, which are free of charge in the U.S. but cost $1440 in Canada, the Macan S still looks like it's wearing base footwear.

Life's rough.

Here I had a week of load-lugging to get through, a week that was to end with a 372-mile journey to the wedding of my wife's cousin in Cape Breton, and it's warm enough in mid-October to need constant air conditioning, and the Porsche only very gradually cools its occupants. All the while, I'm accidentally turning the heated steering wheel on and off because the button is on the back of the steering wheel, and the button doesn't have enough feel, and feel is essentially the only thing an auto writer worth his weight in press junket shrimp cares about.

And, in the context of small utility vehicles, everything else is basically perfect.

The experience is literally special from the start. A turn of the key prompts a large bellow from the quad exhaust pipes, and the rumble persists for an extended period as the twin-turbocharged 3.0L V6 (340 horsepower, 339 lb-ft of torque) warms up on a crisp morning. You won't hear this noise every time you remove your foot from the brake at stoplights – the Macan S has an auto-stop function that can be turned off (and which Sport mode turns off on its own), but the engine comes to life smoothly and quietly in those circumstances.

As a follow-up to the Audi SQ5 I drove the week before, the Macan S's powerplant felt almost imperceptibly underwhelming. Where the 354-horsepower supercharged 3.0L V6 in the SQ5 delivers its power with a brick-breaking punch at any moment, the Porsche's engine is more characterful, happier to rev for the sake of revving, and it also makes a better noise.

The SQ5's 8-speed automatic is also superior to the Macan's 7-speed PDK, particularly in everyday driving where the dual-clutch Porsche unit tends to lug around in the briefest moments of confusion at low speeds. It'll certainly snap off barking upshifts in a hurry when under heavy throttle, however. Indeed, outside of comparisons with ZF's renowned 8-speed, the PDK would likely shine.

Yet it's the Porsche's manners when driven conventionally that cause the Macan to stand out. Yes, the SQ5 is a capable handler; a surprisingly adept vehicle on twisty roads. But the Audi's always telling you how sporty it is, while the Porsche walks more walk instead of chattering more chit-chat. It rides much more serenely. It's very, very quiet. The seats, while offering no adjustable lumbar support, are worlds ahead of most optional sport seats in terms of long-distance comfort and provide a huge range of head restraint adjustment. Nevertheless, when given an opportunity, the SQ5-related Macan shows which VAG engineers better understand suspension geometry.

The Macan S isn't that tall, and despite some true off-road credentials, it's more of a hatchback than an SUV. Yet viewed as a small luxury crossover contender, the Macan's planted stance and remarkable agility and lack of body roll are a real shock to the system. Its steering isn't full of feel, but it's pleasantly heavy and very direct. Nothing will upset the Macan mid-corner.

Setting aside its quickness and disarming agility, the Macan's brakes may be the car's most confidence-inspiring facet. Rotors measure 350mm at the front and 330mm out back. Their outright stopping force is modulated by a progressive pedal where the amount of pressure applied by your foot is perfectly matched by the rate of deceleration. No competitor brakes like this, and no competitor feels like this under braking, either.

Though not terribly special to look at outside, particularly without the 21-inch, $2555 Sport Classics, the Macan does have a few special exterior bits. It does look like a Porsche, and the taillights create a beautiful signature when lit up.

Inside, the Macan is certainly unusual for drivers accustomed to very upright designs. Most buttons and switches are laid out along the trajectory of your relaxed right arm. There are times when, with the shifter in drive and the armrest pushed forward, it's awkward to access lesser-used buttons. The climate controls also bring your eyes very far down from the road. The whole system is full of touch points, unlike the flush non-buttons in a Cadillac SRX, for example, and if a week isn't long enough to memorize placements, two should be sufficient. The rear wiper button isn't properly positioned on the wiper stalk, thereby constantly squirting wiper juice all over the tailgate when all I called for was a solitary swipe, and cruise control functions aren't intuitive. But the overall sensation in the Macan's interior, even a moderately optioned one like this, isn't of a car that is dependent on features to create the aura of luxury. Rather, it's the low-slung seating position, plentiful glass, thick-rimmed three-spoke steering wheel, and centre-mounted tachometer that produce a driver-centric cabin.

In other words, it feels like a Porsche. The Macan S also drives like a Porsche, and it is thus entirely authentic, like it or not. Perhaps the biggest disappointment isn't found in the bottom corner of the Macan S's window sticker but in the way the Porsche makes other otherwise lovely small luxury crossovers feel. How is it that the Macan S both rides more comfortably and handles more effectively and proceeds down the road with more enthusiasm?

No, the fact that the Macan tarnishes other small luxury crossovers is not its biggest disappointment. If utility is a prime concern, the Porsche Macan is a big league flop. The cargo area's flexibility was apparent when, with seats folded, I loaded 224 diapers, four litres of juice, two litres of milk, one cucumber, one dish rack, two pounds of goat yogourt, four bags of chips, and a king size memory foam mattress (still in its box, naturally) with plenty of room to spare. That's why a Macan driver doesn't want an M3 sedan. (Also, we drove up a rocky path to the top of Creignish Mountain, which we wouldn't have done in any rear-drive vehicle, certainly one with less than six inches of ground clearance.)

But with the seats up, the Macan S offers less than 18 cubic feet of cargo capacity, less than half the space behind the seats of a Honda CR-V, which is six inches shorter than the Macan from bumper to bumper. Our Baby Jogger Summit X3 looks tiny in the back of a Subaru Outback; it eats up most of the floor space in the Macan.

That's a real-world concern, but it's an issue which may well disappear after a test drive. It certainly did for me after spending a week in this Porsche Canada car. Dynamically, the Macan is in a league of its own, and Porsche has priced it as such. And remember, this is a Macan without performance-oriented rubber, without the ceramic composite brakes, electronically controlled dampers, air suspension, torque vectoring, launch control, a Sport Plus button, or a 400-horsepower 3.6L twin-turbo.

Therefore, this may well be the least impressive Macan, and it's ridiculously impressive.

Timothy Cain is the founder of GoodCarBadCar.net, which obsesses over the free and frequent publication of U.S. and Canadian auto sales figures.

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Watch the First Trailer for Furious 7

At long last, here's your first look at Furious 7, the late Paul Walker's final acting role and the newest installment of the Fast & Furious franchise, which shows no signs of stopping. Without further ado, the long-awaited trailer:

Haters gonna hate, but the Fast & Furious saga has lasted 13 years (!) because it has mastered the formula. The cars are cool, the stunts thrilling, the action relentless, the stories are fun, and the cast of characters is a rogue's gallery we've gotten to know and love. I've said this before, but the FF franchise has an all-important ingredient that cannot be overrated: charm.

RELATED: Revisit the trailers for Fast & Furious 1 through 6

If you think success is as easy as assembling a bunch of cool cars, going fast, and blowing stuff up, you're wrong. See Need For Speed, which despite amazing stuntwork and a great lead actor in Aaron Paul, is a terrible movie crippled by a trainwreck of a screenplay and characters that are impossible to care about. NFS tried to ape the FF recipe and it failed spectacularly.

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• Paul Walker, 1973–2013: A Retrospective in Filmic Sheetmetal
• Fast & Furious 6: The Making of a Modern-Day Automotive Action Sequence
• Fast & Furious 7 Wraps, Dangerous Final Scene Canceled in Light of Paul Walker Crash

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James Wan (Saw, Insidious, The Conjuring) takes the Furious 7 directorial reins from Justin Lin, who stepped in at Tokyo Drift and ran the show through Fast & Furious 6, creating a cohesive movie universe, a la Marvel, in the process. Furious 7 opens nationwide in April. I'll see ya at the concession stand.

This story originally appeared on roadandtrack.com.

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Capsule Review: Volvo 240GL Estate

Volvo might have been one of the beneficiaries of the headlong rush towards European non-luxury in the Seventies but it, like Porsche, was permanently crippled by the American public's confusion of "unhurried model cycle" with "should only make one specific car, forever". For the boys from Stuttgart, it was the Yankee preference for the 911 that warped the next thirty years of their product plan into 911-looking things that were not at all like the 911, even if they said "911" on the rump.

Volvo made a different choice when they decided that the twenty-seven years between the 1966 debut of the 144 and the final 1993-model-year 240 were enough and that it was proper to make a clean break between those boxy RWD sedans and the boxy FWD sedans that followed. In so doing, they both doomed the company to permanent irrelevance and inadvertently created a cult.

Whenever the aliens finally come, they will no doubt conclude that Volvo stopped making automobiles in 1993 and didn't start again until about five years before whatever the invasion date turns out to be. The successor 700- and 900-series cars often fell prey to the first generation of Europeansdon'tunderstandelectronicsitis. The 850 and its successors raise absolutely zero interest from anyone unless they have a "T5″ or "R" on the decklid. The S80 is a lovely automobile but it doesn't have any enthusiast following whatseover. The SUVs, of course, are as disposable as any other SUV without a practical tow rating.

For that reason, most of the Volvos you see on the streets nowadays fall into two categories:

• recent model, possibly under factory warranty
• 240DL or 240GL.

There's just something about those old Volvos that inspires… passion. Most of them are now owned by young people who identify strongly with what the Volvo brand used to represent. They believe in the 240-series and they restore them for daily use, not the Cars-and-Coffee klatch. While the sedans are still popular, particularly the end-of-run aero-headlamp 240DL sedans, the hipster-Volvo equivalent of a '63 Stingray Fuelie is the late 240 wagon.

As fate would have it, I've had a chance to experience two of these lately; a 240DL with glass E-code headlamps and a permanent interior cloud of cannabis smoke, in which I rode to a hilltop park outside Portland, and this 240GL, which I had the opportunity to drive around rural Ohio a few weekends ago. The DL was in like-new condition, thanks to a rust-free life on the West Coast and a thorough restoration at the hands of an owner with considerable mechanical aptitude. This GL isn't nearly as perfect, being sourced from New York and with a reasonably long list of fixes yet to come, but it's mechanically outstanding and a genuine pleasure to operate.

First things first: this is not a large car. Dimensionally it's similar to the 2003 Accord. Opening the square-shouldered door and taking a seat, however, reveals a quality of seating and available space that both exceed what you'll find in any Japanese-brand mid-sizer. The almost complete lack of tumblehome allows the seats to be both wide and widely spaced. The overall feeling is airy but solid, thanks to pillar thickness that was rare in any of the decades in which this model was sold.

The controls and instrumentation are absolutely straightforward, although the mouse-fur trim is no improvement over the more sparse appearance of the DL model. (Apparently there's a bit of reverse snobbery among Volvo wagoneers, with the DL and its roll-up windows considered the more desirable car nowadays. More Volvo-ish, dontcha know.) Visibility is outstanding all the way 'round, with only the skeletonized rear headrests offering any significant impediment.

Even after more than twenty miles, this "estate" feels impeccably solid as I pull out onto a 45-mph back road. The steering is trustworthy and the brakes seem up to par. Acceleration, on the other hand…

The Volvo 240 of this era mustered 114 horsepower from its four-cylinder engine, but I'm not totally sure that all of them showed up for work in this particular example. It's remarkably slow. To the customers who looked at the midsizer Volvo as an affordable alternative to the Mercedes-Benz W123 240D, it was probably a rocketship. Compared to a modern Hyundai Accent, it might as well be a diesel. (Yes, there was a diesel variant, but it did not survive to the Nineties in our market.) Progress is steady but in no way quick.

In just ten or so seconds, however, I'm up to 45mph and ready to try a little bit of the old swerving back and forth for purposes of warming tires and checking lateral stability. Well, there's not much of that either. Best to calm it back down and just enjoy the Volvo's core virtues. The ride is steady and relaxed, with plenty of compliance for potholes and rough shoulders. Ten minutes behind the wheel of the 240 will make you feel better about your place in the world, assuming you're not in a hurry to get anywhere.

What's not to like about the Volvo, other than the lack of pace? It's spacious, comfortable, quiet, and reassuring. It's entirely and refreshingly free of the merest pretense of "sportiness" and all the better for it. It feels as if it will last another twenty years without difficulty. The old phrase "boxy but good" applies here. The current Volvos feel uneasy in their own skins, half-heartedly going through the motions of enthusiast focus and swoopy design, but this is the real deal. I'd rather have this than any brand-new car in a Volvo showroom, both now and twenty years from now.

The Chinese owners of Volvo are no doubt perplexed by the long shadow this vehicle continues to cast on their current lineup. But if they had any sense at all, they'd dig up the old drawings and build it again — or at least come as close to it as the current Mustang does to the Sixties car. In a world where "brand" is all-important, the Volvo brand is nearly worthless. The Volvo 240 brand, on the other hand? That's a moose of a different color.

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Capsule Review: 2014 Audi SQ5

The number of double-takes was odd, I thought. In the summer, with the top down in a red Camaro ZL1, rubberneckers are a dime a dozen. But the SQ5 is a subtly enhanced version of the Audi Q5, a small crossover that's been around for more than five years; the best-selling model at one of America's/Canada's fastest-growing luxury brands. Sure, this one has optional 21-inch alloy wheels, valued at $800, but are big wheels enough to cause the majority of passersby to turn for another look?

Ah yes, the noise, that's what did it. Audi's supercharged 3.0L V6 does have the tendency to bark melodically, particularly when Audi Drive Select is used to switch engine noise (along with engine/transmission and steering) to Dynamic mode, up a notch from Comfort and Auto. Added to that was the 14-speaker Bang & Olufsen sound system, which was used extensively at wake-the-neighbours volume. How civilized.

Less civilized is the amount of understeer and the way that understeer is encountered prematurely. Yet that's only a surprise because of the dynamics manifested by the SQ5 most of the time – it's not a high-riding SUV that you drive like an SUV. At all. Naturally, when taking corners like the TTS you forgot it wasn't, the SQ5 plows sooner and with more disconcerting pressure on the outside front tire than you expected. After all, you forgot you were driving a 4400-pound, 65.3-inch tall utility vehicle, not a 3858-pound, 55.4-inch tall S4.

That you could forget something so obvious is a testament to the SQ5's overall balance. Of greater interest to those who prefer the SQ5 over conventional Q5s like the 220-horsepower 2.0T and 240-horsepower 3.0L TDI because of the SQ5's rate of acceleration, ride quality is firm but compliant over the worst roads, if slightly busy in routine driving.

But what acceleration it is. The SQ5 is less expensive than other hyper-quick SUVs, the AMGs and M-badged BMWs, less costly than the Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT, as well. Audi's supercharged 3.0L, with 354 horsepower and 346 lb-ft of torque, is mated here to an 8-speed automatic, not the 7-speed dual-clutch from the similarly engined S4.

Not at any moment do you feel as though the meat of the power band is located elsewhere, although Comfort mode does seem to use very economy-minded programming for the 8-speed auto, refusing to drop down a gear without a real kick in the pants. Audi's famed Quattro all-wheel-drive means firm prods of the throttle always result in instantaneous forward motion almost regardless of surface. (We'd strongly recommend something other than 255/40R/21 Dunlop SP Sport Maxx GTs if you'll be driving in snow. Nothing kills the benefits of all-wheel-drive quite like skipping out on winter tires.)

The true brute force of the supercharged V6 is felt not from rest but at speed, however. Squirting around traffic to get to an off-ramp ahead, rather than behind, of a line of slow-moving CR-Vs and RAV4s is a task completed with shocking quickness.

All the while, SQ5 pilots are ensconced in a typically classy Audi interior. There are letdowns. For starters, the interior doesn't feel fresh, perhaps because of the overarching darkness. Even the optional aluminum inlays ($1100) don't spice up the ambience. I wouldn't say the SQ5 offers luxury-like silence, either, with wind noise being rather prevalent. There are a number of blanked-out switches in prominent locations, too, which always causes you to wonder what you're missing out on after spending $53,595, or $68,745 fully equipped ((U.S. market pricing including destination). Audi's MMI is simple, though, with shortcut buttons spread around a central control knob, and everything feels so very expensive. As it ought to.

Rear seat space does not stand out, not for its snugness or its abundance of space. Yet cargo dimensions are a letdown. The Q5 is 183 inches long from bumper to bumper and 75.2 inches wide. That's nearly five inches longer and nearly four inches wider than the Honda CR-V, but the CR-V offers 24% more seats-folded cargo capacity and 28% more space behind the rear seats. The SQ5 remains a flexible cargo carrier, but the sloping roof which helps to make all Q5s so handsome reduces the SQ5's ability to take a young family away on vacation.

The SQ5 is not alone in this luxury crossover cargo conundrum: GLKs and X3s are also down on luggage capacity compared with America's similarly-sized top-selling utility vehicles.

The Audi SQ5 is the fast Q5, an older and popular vehicle, and thus a common vehicle. It's also tiny in the back and, not unexpectedly, quite a guzzler. We averaged 18.7 mpg during the week Audi Canada allowed the SQ5 to visit our driveway, in keeping with its ratings and appropriate for a pickup truck. Fortunately, Audi adds a healthy dose of standard equipment to the SQ5's performance credentials, the kind of stuff we often see on premium brand option sheets: panoramic sunroof, power tailgate, three-zone automatic climate control, keyless access, twelve-way power seats with driver memory.

One could make an argument that with this amount of power, unavailable in the Q5's direct rivals, and this level of equipment, the SQ5 is making an overture to the value-conscious corners of our brains. Meanwhile, the SQ5 is also playing another tune, courtesy of Bang & Olufsen and a supercharged 3.0L, in order to tug on our heartstrings.

Timothy Cain is the founder of GoodCarBadCar.net, which obsesses over the free and frequent publication of U.S. and Canadian auto sales figures.

The post Capsule Review: 2014 Audi SQ5 appeared first on The Truth About Cars.

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