Riz

The day he buys a Cayenne and the day he sells it. I just got rid of mine. No big issues. Engine good, air suspension fine, no vibration issues. Just a lot of daily small problems like excessive wind noise, electrical problems, doors not locking/unlocking issues constantly. These problems wear you out if you have to visit dealer 2-3 times a week. Totally unacceptable in a $70K truck. I just bought a BMW 4.8is, it is awesome and happily not a porsche. I still love porsches, I still have three, just not the Cayenne.

GM Austin

Good luck with your new BMW. I hope you like it.

jamy85

Sorry to hear that and congratz on ur new purchase.

tahoeblue

I have never had any of these problems with my CS.

skl

Just back from a two day trip with my '04 CS with air suspension and 19's. Love it, great in some strong head and side winds. Wind noise not excessive and no vibes or problems. Plenty of room to take 6'1" "kids" out for dinner at college. And the wife loves it as well, when she's not driving her Mini Cooper S!!

urban_alchemist

I assume you had the turbo, so I'd be very interested if you'd care to do a comparison write-up between the 4.8is and the CTT. Have used a 4.6is alot, and much prefer my CTT, but I hear that the 4.8is is a revelation...

How about your 10cents?

Riz

I actually had the S with air suspension, although I have driven the CTT several times. The 4.8is is somewhere inbetween in performance. It has a lot more torque than the CS. I'm getting better gas mileage than the CS. The BMW feels lighter than the CS and CTT. The valvetronic, double VANOS stuff give it power everywhere. It does not have the top end rush of the CTT but is not lacking the low torque of the CS. I think the CS had better steering feel. The 4.8 seems a little overboosted. I know the CS/CTT are better offroad but I never went there. The 4.8 rides better than the 4.6 definitely. I think the 4.8 has air springs F/R whereas the 4.6 did not. The transmission is now a six speed. The panoramic sunroof is great. I could have gotten another Cayenne but the dealership told me that even the 05's had recalls and updates to be performed. He did say that they have fixes for them but I was just worn out. I had to cut my losses and move on. The BMW does have free scheduled maintenance for 4yrs/50K miles. For a vehicle I'm going to put many miles on, that is kind of important. I also have an X3, and a couple of M cars and I never had any issues as I did with the CS. I wish and hope that all Cayenne owners have luck with their vehicles.

GM Austin

I still have an X5 and, when new, it had tons of issues, far more than the Cayenne. It was in the shop constantly, usually three or four times on the same issue. These were mostly electrical gremlins like a battery that kept going dead overnight, instrument console going dead, phone problems, etc. We also had the standard issues like wind noise and loose trim. We had a broken rear window motor twice where the rear window woud not go up.

After a couple of years of that it seems fewer things have gone wrong. Over the past year I don't think anything significant has broken. The service at the dealership was always great. It was part of the Penske chain and they really work hard to keep you happy. If not for the great service we would have gotten rid of the X5.

On the X5 suspension, at the time we bought ours, only the 3.0 standard suspension had steel rear springs. The 3.0 Sport Suspension and all V8's had air springs on the rear and all X5's had steel front springs.

I have a Cayenne S (w/air) now and have the opportunity to compare it to our X5 3.0 (w/ Sport Suspension). The Cayenne is the better handling vehicle and has better steering feel. Going down the highway, they are about the same. Both feel firmly planted and solid. The Cayenne may be slightly quieter. The Cayenne clearly has the better sound system. The X5 clearly has the better throttle feel and transmission smoothness. Of all SUV's available, the X5 and Cayenne are definitely the best on-road performers. Off-road, as you mentioned, is no place to take an X5 but the Cayenne performs quite respectably.

philg3

BMW bought my X5 4.4 back because they couldn't fix the problems. I can't remember all of them but they included:
-- engine would fail to start every now and then (starter motor would not kick in)
-- heated seat failure
-- pixels failed on instrument cluster
-- transmission downshifted to 2nd at freeway speed for no reason / had to pull over and re-boot
-- power window failure
Actually, I liked the way the car drove -- when it worked; it was great in the mountains.

My CT experience is far superior with much better performance, and most problems addressed to my satisfaction. The only open issues I have are very minor and include:
-- clock says AM between noon and 1PM (I'm told they are working on a fix)
-- AM reception is a bit distorted at times -- scratchy (Improved a bit by cleaning terminal connections, but it's still there)
-- outside temp off sometimes by 1 degree when comparing PCM to instrument cluster (they asked for this one by displaying it in two different places)

I've had all the recalls completed, and there were lots of them, but the result is that I now have a great vehicle.

ozr

...you are trying to speak for everybody...
...you are mixing your "specific" personal opinion with the opinion of all owners...

...I had and still continue to have happy days with my CayS... and no X5 will change that (unless BMW makes their future X5 capable of not just comfortably going on a hiway but also through 3 feet of unplowed snow, like, for example, MB ML 320... ). BMW makes good sedans, but thats' it...I own one of their best...

...In my personal opinion X5 owner needs a 5series sedan instead of every X5 he has in his garage...

If you've driven your CayS to it's full capability, explored it's LIMITS and various COMPLETE capabilities, you would've appreciated it.


PS. ...to get "low torque effect" on a CayS you just needed to press gas pedal MORE and you needed to keep RMP ABOVE 3000... that's IT, try NEXT TIME...

Hypersonic

I agree with Riz, what a hassle Cayenne ownership has been.

mudman2

Its quite amusing the different tolerance levels I see on the board. We go from "Porsche should never have built one" from some sport car owners to "The Cayenne is the Best SUV ever built and I dont care what anyone thinks" to " mine has never worked, never will, glad to see the back of it" to "the dealer sucks" or "the dealers great"

Emotions run high with Porsche Cars don't they !

Certainly its has had its quirks BUT, it never breaks down, always starts and gives the driver thrills up the wazoo.

Trolling around the FX, X5, Cady and RR boards strangely enough shows exactly the same range of views, except more of them due to (I guess) the larger numbers on the road.

If you want boring get a Lexus, the Cayenne is for the rest of us.

philg3

Excellent point. I haven't checked the X5 boards since I got rid of mine, but I recall a lot more dissatisfaction than I see here -- and there were no solutions to some of the problems even after the vehicle was on the road 2 years+. Since Porsche has addressed most of the common problems with the latest extensive list of recalls, I would expect owners to cheer up a bit once they have these updates performed.

jhunt@huntinter

Mudman2... what RR boards have you found? I have had a heck of a time finding a board with the level of membership like Rennlist is for Porsches.

alex911s

Same here, no problems whatsoever on my CayV6. I've driven X5, rx330,lx470,Touareg and the FX-45, most of these are V8 cars still I wont trade my Cayenne V6 for any of these cars. ( Although, I wished I could spare more money for the CS). If I have all these issues with my Cayenne, I'll jsut get another one that's not a Lemon, but I wont settle for anything else.