DrJay

I come to this forum from the 911 forums, specifically 997 and 991.

I am considering a Cayenne Diesel. It would get driven by me in winter, to haul things home, and to tow a small sailboat around to various lakes.

abatis

I just picked my diesel up last Friday. I also have an older C4 so not new to Porsche. I had to drive it 187 miles to bring it home to Montana from Spokane. I think Porsche did a great job with their diesel version. Excellent torque, feels like a Porsche handling wise. I got the air suspension. I like that option. I went with the beige interior and as others have noted a bit of dash reflection but fine with polarized sunglasses. My only change might be to go with an interior package that had a darker dash. It was nice to get 29.5mpg on the way hope driving mostly the limit but hit some speed on a few stretches. Overall I am happy and could see owning this for a long time. One thing to note, the Porsche tow package still requires you to get a US tow electric plug to retrofit their blank wiring setup.

Needsdecaf

Mine should be here in about 2 months. I'm very looking forward to it!

pdxjim

The lastest Car & Driver has a comparo with the Porsche D included. That changed my order from a turbo to a diesel.

fincher

Interesting that the D came in second to the Touareg TDI, which I currently own. My main reason to consider the Cayenne is the fabulous seats. Would never consider the Cayenne before it came as a diesel in the US.

f4 plt

We currently have a 2011 Cayenne S which is fantastic and a 2014 Cayenne Diesel is on order for my wife and should be here in July. I drove the diesel for several days last month before I ordered her one and was impressed. Compares well with the "S" is all respects except a little slower in acceleration when passing at highway speeds but not very much. Agree Porsche did a great job on the Diersel and the Cayenne in general

philg3

Reason why CD came in second to the Tourareg in the C&D comparo, was the CD that they tested stickered at $90K. Sticker shock was the problem.

You don't need to spend that much for a nicely equipped CD. $70K will get you premium plus, BOSE, upgraded 18" wheels. Had mine for about a month, very happy with it. Plenty of power (coming off of a 2004CT), and fuel economy is outstanding -- getting +30MPG on freeway.

Very civil diesel vehicle, no smoke, no diesel smell, no engine clatter. If you like the engine roar sound, you will not get it here. Lot's of sound insulation.

Very good value, IMO, versus Touareg or other Cayenne models.

fincher

Agree. Don't have to convince me on the diesel. I love my TDI. I think Porsche did a good job in terms of pricing. The sticker on my TDI Exec trim was just over $60k. Still trying to comes to grips with certain features for the electronics. All Touaregs come with HD radio, SD cards, Satellite radio, etc. It's strange that Porsche still uses CDs as standard. You want those features, you gotta pay.

fincher

Agree. Porsche did a good job a pricing but not great. Some features such as HD radio, sat radio, SD cards, etc should be included on the Premium Plus. All Touareg trims have these features standard.

Don't have to sell me on the diesel. I love mine. Glad Porsche now has one.

Whyteone

I guess I don't understand wanting to pay the $7k+ extra for a diesel over the V6. It's not like we're in Europe where fuel is $8/gallon and diesel is CHEAPER than gas. And then there are the extra costs of urea, fuel filter, etc. To me, a diesel is just more expensive maintenance.

Obviously, this is all relative to my experiences of diesel vehicles. Just my $.02 of why I don't like them.

billyg

Yo fincher, your like the kitchen center that said their no name branded cabinet line was just as good as a Siematic Kitchen we were considering for about 1/2 the price! If it ain't a Porsche then it ain't a Porsche!

fincher

LOL. Sure the Porsche badge has value and for me the interior of the Cayenne is killer. A good deal of the rest is from the same parts bin as VW and Audi. The Touareg is the only VW like that.

And yes, I want one...why I'm here. Just giving my perspective on the some features that should be standard on the Premium Plus.

The diesel has the same engine as my Touareg. The chassis is the same. Even my spare is a Porsche spare.

I love seeing you guys get your panties in a knot...not my intention at all but still funny.

gnat

I don't know. When I put mine in sport mode (for the higher revs) and give it some WOT, it makes quite a nice Porsche-like sound. It's no 911, but it still sounds very nice in my opinion.

Actually when you compare apples to apples the price difference is significantly less. The base V6 is the only model that comes with a 6MT standard (or even an option), so to really compare it's price against the others you have to add the automatic to the V6. I haven't looked recently, but when I got mine the adjusted difference was about $3k.

The last time I filled mine up diesel cost me $3.759 vs $3.899 for premium. This morning when I filled up the 911 premium had jumped to $3.989 but diesel was still the same. Not nearly as drastic as Europe, but that difference still saved me an estimated $40 over what the V6 would have cost me to go the same distance. You won't get better than 40 cetane (I have yet to find better than 40 centane anyway in my area), but the trick to cheaper diesel is go to a station that is set up to cater to commercial trucking.

One of the upsides of diesel even when it is higher than premium is that it's price tends to fluctuate a lot less compared to regular gas.

The urea is about $20-$30 every 10-15k depending on your driving habits. Gas engines have fuel filters too that need to be replaced from time to time as well and the filters are that expensive.
Where it can get expensive is with the oil changes and that is specific to Porsche since they demand you change it every 5k (vs VW and Audi which have a longer (10k?) for the same engine). If you are paying dealer prices that will add up fast (did my first one myself for less than $100), but still only double the V6 cost for the same long term distance.

In general unless you keep the car for a long time (~100k miles) the diesel will not be cheaper than the V6, but it's not a massive difference in cost either.

You can also spend about $350 to add an additional 100 pounds of torque, 15% better gas milage, and about 80hp to the diesel which you can't do with the V6

Needsdecaf

As gnat said, adjusted for features, it's between $3k to $4k. I don't think of the diesel as a replacement for the V6. I think of it as a bargain S (more torque!) with nearly 50% increase in fuel economy.

Needsdecaf

For a Cayenne Diesel equally specc'd, you're looking at a $12k to $15k difference at most. And it's hard to get apples to apples because there are more features available in the Cayenne. It is not peanuts, and compared to the Touareg it isn't as good of a value, but then again, the Touareg isn't that well priced either. That should be a $53k car, not a $60k car.