gonzobreath

My family and I moved from California to Amsterdam a month ago. We’ll be in Amsterdam for a little over 1 year. We opted to ship our 80k mile 2013 Cayenne S to have with us, not to use in Amsterdam, but for the many road-trips we plan to drive during our year away. As an added bonus, we got to use the Cayenne as a very expensive shipping container for lots of our household stuff.

Before dropping the car at the shipper, I replaced all the fluids (oil, tranny oil, steering, brakes), brakes, plugs, coils, filters, battery, wipers and tires. I also took apart my PCM and installed a Mr 12Volt for Apple Car Play. In short… not sure this thing could be any more prepared for a year of tearing around Europe.

Shipping a car to the Netherlands is relatively simple. Getting the car a Dutch registration is something else. That’s a whole other story I’ll save for now. Suffice it to say, it took us 4 weeks from arriving in Amsterdam until we could pick up the car and legally drive it… even though the car arrived in Rotterdam in the middle of April and required no modifications to meet EU road regs. This last Monday we were finally able to pick up the car in the morning, drive it to our home in Amsterdam, unloaded everything we packed in it only to reload it with all we’d need for the mother of all road-trips, and left Tuesday (yesterday) at 8am.

Our route over the next month will take us nearly 6000km from Amsterdam through Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, Talinn, Riga, Kaunas, Warsaw, BRNO, Prague, Stuttgart (of course…), and home… with many destinations in between in the 11 countries we’d be driving through.

We set up our first day as a bit of a sprint. We decided to do a long day and drive all the way to Odense, Denmark. In other words, three countries, ~800km, and 8.5 hours. Except not… this is the reason we brought the Cayenne instead of buying sh!tbox for the year. The Cayenne on the German Autobahn is a thing of beauty.

I’ve always said the Cayenne with 18-way is the single greatest road-trip vehicle… HARD STOP. It’s comfortable. It’s roomy. It’s got power and handling. It’s big but not too big for EU roads. Tuesday was our first day of really proving all this out on a grand scale.

Once we put the Netherlands in the rear-view and entered Germany, the Cayenne came into its own. We spent the entire day on the Autobahn, including the unlimited speed bits. Although this Cayenne spent most of its time on the Highway in CA around 80mph, it maybe kissed 100mph (160kph) only a handful of times in the last 11 years I’ve owned it. Today was the first time I could really drive this car the way it was designed, and OH DEAR LORD! … it delivered. I can think of very few cars I’d be comfortable cruising at 200kph (~125mph) with wife and son in the car.

In US driving, the 958 Cayenne S kinda loafs around under 2k rpms almost all the time. Unless you’re in sport mode, the car shifts lazily at higher speeds, and generally deliver a nice ride, but it doesn’t feel like the performant car we know it is. Having a handful of Cayennes in the garage, I acutally prefer my 2009 Cayenne S for a racier, faster revving engine for quick errand blasts, and the 2022 Hybrid Cayenne for most everything else. Because of this, the 2013 was the Cayenne I felt I’d be happiest bringing to Europe and leaving. Little did I realize it was the best choice to Continent Conquering.

The first thing you notice is that the big 4.8L V8 really comes alive when the car moves into triple mph digits. Something wakes up similar to the car being in Sport mode. The throttle seems more responsive, and shifts happen much faster when you want them. Accelerating from 150kph to 200kph happens much faster than should be possible for a car this size. I assume it’s that the engine is at a healthy ~3k rpms at 200kph. I’ve always looked at the little sticker in the car that reads, “Max Speed 155mph” and chuckled. After today, I see it. The car was still pulling hard at 200kph and would easily do 250kph (~155mph). I’m pretty sure the 155mph is a software limit, not hardware. I spent large stretches running with a couple big Merc sedans and a Bimmer 650… all of whom seemed a little shocked that an SUV was running with them at almost twice the speed of the traffic we were passing. We probably spent close to an hour running between 160kph and 200kph, traffic permitting, and then slowed to 150-160kph when it started raining.

While traveling at those speeds, I monitored all the temps and pressures. The water temp was pegged at 200 no matter what I did, but the oil temp actually came down below 200 at the higher speed (was ~207 in the speed limited areas). Tire pressures rose to 45 in the front and 54 in the rears due to the extra heat. Other than these things, there were no indicators the car was running at a high rate of speed for most of an hour.

I also had a chance to test the brakes… Just before the Danish border, a 90’s era minivan had a hood-latch malfunction. The hood opened in flight and smashed his windshield. The driver (who was in the middle lane) kinda freaked and began swerving across all three lanes. Not a full panic brake, but I brought the Cayenne down from ~180kph to 100kph within seconds without any real drama. Wife and son were aware of what happened, but no one had to dig fingernails out of the dash. It was just a simple event that happened on our drive.

Mileage was actually better than what I expected, which was a welcome surprise with gas at about $9.35 per US gallon. When I picked up the car, the shipper had drained all but a couple gallons from the tank… which meant is was a €200+ fillup (~$220). The 958 Cayenne S was rated new at 22gph. Before hitting the Autobahn (100-120kph speeds), we were just shy of 24mpg. I was expecting my time on the Autobahn to kill that. In the end, we finished the day at 20.5gph. NOT BAD!!!

By the time we reached Odense, our 8.5 hours of driving shrunk to 7:15. We were all happy to exit the car, but none of were sore. I think it was Matt Farah who said that the Porsche 18-way seats were the best seats in any car. We were all very happy with our first day on the road, and looking forward to a few Viking museums before staying in Copenhagen for a few days.

I have a renewed love for my 958 Cayenne S and am loving this trip even more than I thought I would.

Graufuchs

Please share some photos of this epic journey!

gonzobreath

I'll try to post a few pics along the way. For starters, here's the route we are driving -


We spent a couple days in Copenhagen, but left this morning for Oslo. This is us all loaded up in Copenhagen before driving the Malmo Bridge into Sweden and ultimately entering Norway -

ShdwFx

Very cool. Makes me want to ship my S over to Europe.

coletrain

I'd like to know what tires are you running? It cool to see you actually get up to those speed ratings & your reported temp/psi changes. More of that and pics please.

gonzobreath

I replaced the tires before putting the Cayenne in a shipping container ~4 months ago. I can't remember what I bought, but I believe I got good tires. I will get the tire info tomorrow when I get back to the car.

The last couple driving days have not been as much fun as the first - no more high-speed for hour's on end. After leaving Copenhagen we shot North up the West coast of Sweden, and crossed into Norway to stay in Oslo for a few days. Oslo is now one of my favorite cities in the world. Incredible city, but a little disconcerting for driving. The main ring roads around the city are mostly underground which makes things a little tricky if you don't speak the language and are relying on CarPlay GPS to get you around. The exit ramps are also underground meaning that you need to watch your mileage carefully, and be roughly familiar with the street name you can't pronounce. Once you exit the ring road, you spiral upward until you pop out at one of many locations in the city. It kinda reminded me of flying an instrument flight plan where you're in the soup for an hour, fly an approach, and then pop out half a mile from the runway threshold. What this also meant was that navigating around the city by car was a bridge too far if you didn't at least read Norwegian. The car stayed parked at the hotel during our stay... so no awesome pics in Oslo. As well, speed limits from Copenhagen to Oslo were mostly 60-65mph.

This morning we left Oslo to drive South to the Midgard Viking Center. Norway is much hillier than I thought it would be. Lot's of rolling hills through tall forest where you occasionally break out along side a beautiful Fjord. We all wished we had more time in Norway. This is a pic of the Cayenne parked outside an ancient Viking settlement with multiple burial mounds where Viking royalty were entombed in Viking ships. Because everything was buried in dirt, anything wooden disintegrated, but the anything metal was 'preserved'. In other words, the only way they figured out there was a ship was by the position of the gazillion nails that were once holding the ship together. Anyway, great stop to walk around and take all in, and dip your toes in the Oslo Fjord.



She's picked up a few bugs, but otherwise is still driving like new.

I do want to call out Mr. 12Volt. When I get back to the states, I'm gonna find out where that dude lives and plant a big wet kiss on him. Having CarPlay in the PCM is a total game-changer... even more so in Europe. I assume I could have gone to Porsche and gotten the EU DVD for my PCM... but that would probably still be problematic for many reasons. Driving the navigation from an iPhone with up-to-date maps and traffic is a godsend. I wrote a little about this elsewhere, but for those of you who have not done so already, the install is relatively painless. I added a Mr 12Volt to both my 2009 and 2013 Cayennes. My wife commented that adding the unit to our 2013 Cayenne S made the car feel more like a 2020 Cayenne S.



Leaving Midgard, we hopped a Ferry from Horton to Moss to get across the Fjord without needed to drive back to Oslo. From there we drive to Orebro, Sweden where we're sitting right now.

Driving across Sweden is like driving through a beautiful national park that's hundreds of miles long. Beautiful forests, pristine lakes and rivers... Great if you're not in a hurry and want to take in all the scenery.

If you do want to hurry... you're kinda screwed. Most of the driving is on 2 lane roads with no center divider. Passing is a little sketchy other than in the areas where there's an extended hill and they mercifully open up a second lane in the uphill direction. Again, this is where the Cayenne was awesome. For most of the trip to Orebro, the speed limit was set to between 55 and 65mph (90-110kmh). But... people pulling trailers seemed to enjoy a more leisurely pace of ~35mph. There would be lines of 10-20 cars backed up behind some dumbass who refused to pull over. Worse was when the ~6 cars behind them would not pass when passing was available. Punching the 'Sport' button to remap the throttle and tranny, and then punching it could get me un-mired quickly. Jumping from ~35mph to ~90mph within the first couple cars passed was usually enough to get me out in front within 1-2 passing zones.

Because of all the passing, my mileage took a bit of a hit. Before I got to the worst parts, we were up around 24mpg (60mph speeds). By the time we reached the hotel in Orebro we were at 22mpg. Temps were all about the same as what they were the first day. Water temp pegged at 200. Oil sat round 207 for most of the drive. Tires stayed at 45 in front and 54 in back.

Tomorrow we drive ~2 hours to Stockholm. We'll stay there for a few days before putting the car on another ferry bound for Helsinki.

gonzobreath

I'm running Pirelli P-Zero tires.

Interesting day today. We've been in Helsinki for a couple days (Ferry from Stockholm). Helsinki is an interesting city, but much more industrial than either Stockholm or Oslo... meaning that you can see all the interesting bits of the city and tour Suomenlinna in a little over a day. Given that, we decided to do something completely different - drive to the Russian border. This is a little tricky being that Finland has closed their main boarder with Russia and forbids cars from getting within ~10 miles or so. Instead of going to that border crossing... we got a little creative and found a Finnish Coast Guard station in Hurpu. We stopped to grab lunch to-go and picked up extra. We then set out on the maze of tiny roads (asphalt and dirt) winding through remote Finn villages. When we got to the Coast Guard station, they were more than a little surprised to see a family from California driving a Cayenne WAAAY off the beaten path... and with a gift of lunch. They let us park on the helipad and hang out. Russia was in full view less than a mile away across the Baltic inlet we were at. in the pic, the place with the house is a small island that is still Finland. Just on the other side of that island is where Russia starts.


After finishing lunch at the edge of the Western World, we said goodbye to our new Finn friends and headed back the way we came to Helsinki.

Before Helsinki, we did spend a few days in Stockholm. Stockholm is a much easier city to drive in. Mainly, *most* of the roads are above ground meaning that CarPlay GPS works for routing you around. The City is also very nice to visit. Stockholm will be the city we make plans to come back to simply because we could not see everything with the limited time we had... and there is a ton to see.

To get to Helsinki, we booked passage on a Viking cruise. Picture a large industrial ship a couple levels below the cheapest cruise line you've seen. BUT! it was awesome to board, get settled in a square cabin with no windows, grab a decent burger and an awesome Swedish beer as you sail through the Swedish islands for open sea. After a little time in open water, you go to sleep only to wake up as the ship is pulling into Helsinki Harbor. Very, VERY cool.


Tomorrow we finish our time Finland, and board another ferry for Tallinn, Estonia. After docking in Estonia, we will be 'on our way back' to our home in Amsterdam and over halfway done with this trip.