Hi i was told by a dealer that if q5 2016 has full glass sun roof cant tow caravan with it as it might crack the glass in sunroof any heard of this ? 

Welcome Mike,

Have you talked with Audi Customer Services to confirm/refute that?

Kind regards,

Gareth. 

I have called audi today and couple of different towbar fitting companies no one has heard anything about the q5 sunroof issue there was an issue with q7 with sunroof when towing.

Just wanted to fully make sure get much research and info

Thanks for replying 🙂 

Thanks for coming back on this Mike. It may well be worth having a search on here about issues with panoramic sunroofs. Can leak under under ‘normal’ use, and it would be reasonable to expect a higher potential for body flexing if using it for towing.

Kind regards,

Gareth. 

Shattered sunroofs are heard of on the q7. Not heard about it in the q5 now. 

Not heard of the sunroof cracking, I have heard that you can't have side steps, sunroof and a towbar due to the weight limits.

Sorry for late reply. My car has factory fit sunroof. sidesteps and tow bar. There are no towing restrictions,

Hi all, just joined and awaiting delivery of a '69 40 Vorsprung ( After 40yrs & 15 Volvo's ). It has pan/roof, side steps and having towbar fitted! Do hope I ain't dropped a clanger!!

Can't imagine it would be a problem

Not been a problem for mine with 1500 miles of towing a large caravan

Welcome Ray,

If you bought the vehicle to tow, then you can only hope it does so without problem, and base that hope on the fact that there is previous experience of trouble free towing with a glass roof. If you are having the tow bar fitted in case you might want to tow then the consequence can only be the outlay in fitting.

As I see it, a significant part of the vehicle’s strength rests in an integral steel roof section, which locks the whole shell strength together, and ‘removing’ the steel structure and replacing it with glass is engineeringly averse. It can be argued, that the bonding of the glass to the side structure replicates that rigidity, but that is controlled by the adhesive bond between glass and body. There has been reports of bonding breakdown (usually due to flexing) and subsequent leaking, across a number of marques - sometimes leading to shattering at stress points. 
Having said that, I recall successful trials being undertaken with adhesive bonding of chassis members on light commercials, even under sub zero temperatures and simulated crash/impact tests - and that was 30 years ago!

My personal take on all this is I wouldn’t buy a glass roofed vehicle if I was going to tow a reasonable (caravan type) load, but…

Regards,

Gareth. 

My earlier reply about not being able to have Sunroof, towbar and sidesteps came from these threads....

 

https://www.myaudiq5.com/threads/panoramic-roof.18513/

https://www.myaudiq5.com/threads/running-boards-side-steps.2782/

 

General gist was the weight of the towbar and sidesteps added on top of the sunroof weight pushed the car over it's permitted weight limit. But this was based on the Mk1 and Mk1 Facelift Q5.

 

 

Thanks Mark,

Please note that the posts are very old, some poorly written, and opinions are diverse.