You're walking away from a Cayenne because you think it won't be reliable, but you're considering an X3 or a Land Rover?

Someone said there'd be someone here to tout the reliability of their Cayenne, so I guess that's my job. I have an '05 V6 with 145k on the clock. It's left me stranded exactly once, when the fuel pumps went at around 110k. $500 and a day in the shop fixed that, it's been fine since.

My daughter attended the 928 Frenzy with me for the last couple years. This year she won a 928 key ring as a door prize, and suggested that she might need a car to go with it. I told her that if she was going to have a P-Car, she was going to learn to wrench it herself.

When my son went to college, I bought him a $500 car. He learned a lot about cars driving that for a year, until it spectacularly failed inspection, at which point he went back to school in my fantastically beat 928 and drove that for a few months.

The point is: Everyone complains about how people aren't self-sufficient any more, and here is everyone telling a prospective buyer two things:

• Don't buy a car that you might have to *gasp* work on!
• Treat your daughter like a delicate hot-house flower, not like a thinking, capable human being.

Get her the damn Cayenne, buy her a set of wrenches, pay for a subscription to Rennlist, and improve her level of self-sufficiency for the day when you're not there to take care of her.

It's a rough world, raise a tough girl!

 

A whole lot easier to work on a car when you have tools and garage access. Much more difficult to do that when you live in a dorm room and the car is parked in an outside parking lot across campus.

I'm also not thrilled with the idea of a car stranding my daughter by herself, god knows where, at night, alone.

 

It's not so much the working on the car because, as you note, you can teach a kid that part.

It's affording the parts by said "starving college student", unless you are going to fund the parts.

And, as pointed out by docwyte, having a place to work on the car is pretty important, too.

 

+1

 

Selling my 04 CS. 928 wrench I know wants to buy it for his daughter whom just started college 1100 miles away.

His wife does not what him to get her a Cayenne, instead she wants her to get a Hyundai or a Nissan SUV for the reliability thing.

My local Porsche tech that has been thru my Cayenne making sure it is in great shape says he would not have any problem putting his daughter in it. Said no matter what he got her he would want to make sure there was a local wrench he could trust, and he could evaluate Porsche wrench better than any others. And commented that there were only two failures that would leave you waiting for a tow truck. The fuel pump and an issue where the steering wheel locks up. Says you can go ahead and replace the pump and pretty much not worry about it.

Here is the web site I made for the car, haven't listed it anywhere yet.

 

^This.

It's not that they are unreliable. There are a couple failures that will leave you (her) stranded. A properly maintained P!g is a reasonably reliable car.

The big issue is the cost of the upkeep. Look how much a simple oil change costs.

If a "starving college student" has to pay a couple hundred for an oil change, that becomes an issue.

It's when the cost of upkeep becomes a problem that routine maintenance gets ignored. Or stuff that goes bad and should be addressed gets ignored. And that's a really good way for a car to become "unreliable".

 

That is a point, although I've done a lot of car repair under the open sky, and sometimes alongside the road in the rain.

That could happen with any car at any time. Hell, she could be driving along in the world's most reliable car and hit a deer. Make sure your daughter has a cell phone and a AAA card.

I did assume that Doc would be paying for that sort of stuff. Even so: I don't feel like I spend any more to maintain my Cayenne than I would any other similar vehicle. Of course, I have a good indy.

 

She will. I just don't want her having to use it a lot. Also not sure the last time you called AAA but they usually take at least 60-90 minutes to show up, under the best circumstances. Again, I'm not thrilled with the idea of her being alone, at night, in a broken down car waiting for help.

I also don't want to have her humping a tool box and jack across campus to work on the car.

I have a 06 CTTS with 125k miles on it. It's never stranded me but I've done a decent amount of "Catch up" maintenance work to do. My wife has a 08 GX470 with close to 100k miles on it. We've done brake pads and turn signal bulbs.

That's it. Literally. To think that a Cayenne is going to be as reliable as a Toyota/Honda is laughable. If I have a choice between the two for my daughter, it's the Lexus all day long!

 

But that's been exactly my experience. I did the cardan shaft at something over 100k (not a stranding event, doable in a parking lot with hand tools), and the fuel pumps went around that same time. Up to then, I'd only done normal maintenance (brakes, fluids, tires, wipers). Since then, I've done coils (easily done in a parking lot with no tools in the V6), the blower motor (another parking lot deal, done with two screw drivers in an hour), and flex pipes (indy did that).

Especially considering the miles I have on it, the Cayenne has been the most reliable and low-maintenance vehicle I've ever owned. The absolute worst vehicle I've ever owned was a Japanese SUV.

 

You just proved my point. I've done brake pads and some turn signal bulbs on the Lexus in the same amount of mileage.

I'm perfectly ok with doing the type of work you've done and feel that that's totally typical for german car maintenance. It's just more than a Toyota/Honda requires over the same mileage....

 

Safety wise, the P!G is a tank. I'd feel safe letting my son take it to Tahoe or anywhere else.

Is it reliable? That's a depends question. If you know the vehicle and it's not been neglected and the previous owner kept up with maintenance, you might have a decent chance of buying a reliable vehicle.

FWIW, I went a different route. No, I didn't give my P!G to my son. He did learn to drive in it, but that's about it. It's honestly too big a car (for him) so he and I set out to find a three pedal R53 Mini Cooper. We ended up with a semi-fixer upper that needed a little bit of love and some new parts to make it a reliable car. Parts are cheap and the car is relatively easy to work on.

Same as you are thinking, we got the car sorted for his senior year of HS and now he's commuting in it to college.

Oh, it's a fun car too.

 

Not sure what point was proven there. Fluids - all cars need those on about the same intervals. Wiper blades, tires... same. Coils, plugs, wires... those are all wear items and, since you haven't done them yet, will probably need to be done soon. I bet your maintenance manual has a recommended change interval for those items that probably isn't too different than the Cayenne (or any similar vehicle).

Blower motor? That could go on any car at any time, so that's more luck of the draw. Shaft? Known defect on the Cayennes, so I'd consider that an anomaly.

We haven't had ours that long (2 years), so I can only go on what I read for older and higher mileage cars, but we bought ours, in part, because of reliability. That said, I stand by my point of when something does break, it may be easy to fix, but the parts are still pricey for an average college student.

 

I think you misread me. You said your Lexus is under 100k, my Cayenne is over 140k. What went south on my Cayenne went south after 100k.

Let me know in 40k miles.

Why not? It's good for her!

 

I bought her a L3 because it was a tank. It may well have saved her life (and her passenger's) in the near headon with a bigger tank that totalled it.

May have been the best decision/purchase of my life.

to a smaller extent due to the fun factor - your first car should be a little fun\cool.

 

Ah, see, when my son went to college I wanted him to learn college sort of stuff, and pass courses and things like that. He had an old, but pretty reliable Volvo DL5 wagon that he hated, but that was OK so he wasn't out riding around in it all the time.

Of course he might be an exception - he no longer owns a car. Lives in LA and gets around by bike and public transit. His wife does own a car if they actually need to go somewhere.