The 4.2-liter V8 engine under the Q7’s hood sings out 350 horsepower and 325 lb.-ft. of torque. It sounds good on paper, but while the engine is willing the flesh is portly: Tony Robbins would have trouble motivating the Q7’s whopping 5,467 pounds. The feeling of gutlessness is exacerbated by the V8’s lack of low-rev torque. It springs to life in the upper 2500 rpm, and that’s where you want to keep it if you’re driving aggressively, but fuel economy goes out the window: we got a lousy 11.6 mpg. The Tiptronic automatic helps, with quick downshifts in automatic mode, but we were disappointed with its manual mode. It upshifted at redline, and it doesn’t match revs on downshifts.