A Porsche for me? Blasphemy I say! Cayenne questions.

I've been shopping diesels to replace the Ridgeline. I'd like something to tow my boat (6000 lbs), and my commute is going to go to 80 miles a day in the near future. I also want something that isn't battleship sized. There isn't a lot out there. 

But the Cayenne diesel popped up in one of my searches and it intrigued me. 7700 pounds of towing. Call it mid-sized, and priced a bit cheaper on the used market than a truck or similar. 

They also don't seem to have as many issues as the Ford, Chevy, Fiat offerings do in the small diesel market.

Now you guys need to tell me why this would be a bad idea. 

Yes to Cayenne, NO to diesel! Read this: https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/project-winecheese-cayenne-diesel-overland/183736/page1/

A Cayenne Turbo or Turbo S would be my vote.

Seems like every autocross I go to there's another cayenne tow vehicle there. I assume most or all of them are diesels but don't pay too close attention. I personally know three people towing with them, two diesel and one turbo (okay technically one is a touareg but functionally the same thing) and to my knowledge none of them have had any substantial issues. Most people are towing open trailers but at least one towed a 7k lb enclosed for a few years and claimed it did just fine.

Filled up with gas in NJ yesterday next to a guy who was towing an m3 with a tdi toureg. He said it's been great and it was pulling it on a uhaul trailer. Those trailers aren't light and it was literally 102* on my dash. May want to look there as well? 

I have a 2012 BMW X5 diesel and it's rated in the same range. It is incredibly comfortable and eats up highway miles. It hasn't been trouble free but I love it. 

Don't listen to Javelin, we've had out Cayenne diesel for the last 4 years and it's been fine.  Bought it with 18k miles and it has just about 90k on it now.  A few small things have broken that have been fixed under warranty but nothing bad.  It's super comfy, handles well and regularly knocks down 33-35mpg on the freeway.

There's really nothing like it (well besides it's cousin the VW Touareg diesel, which is essentially the same SUV) on the market in size, capability and efficiency.

I wouldn't touch a diesel BMW X5 with a 20 foot pole, in fact one of my friends who's a BMW service writer expressly told me not to buy one. 

I came within a click or two of buying a 2014. As I was going back through the Carfax I realized it had spent 5 years in Connecticut. The thought of rust was enough to make me cancel it. 

One thing to consider about the TDI Touareg & rebadges is that when it was new, it took top prize as the most polluting production vehicle...and that was before Dieselgate. I don't think you need to be a hardcore environmentalist for that to register on your priorities.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

I guess now isn't the time to mention the possibility of a DPF/EGR delete and tune if those systems are problematical? 

My priorities are a vehicle that will do what I want with minimal cost. The large majority of complaints I hear about newer diesel vehicles are DPF and EGR related so...

In reply to Toyman! 
 

the studies show that removing the egr and dpf  increase emissions by 5 to 15x.    So driving one truck deleted is the equivalent damage to the environment of many many trucks. 
 

it's selfish to do so. 

Are the diesel Touregs actually reliable? What about the v10 diesel lol

In reply to yupididit :

From what I've been able to find, they are. Or else everyone that has bought one is lying about their experiences. 

The V10 is less so and it's a maintenance nightmare with several repairs starting out by removing the engine. The water pump comes to mind. 

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :

Which pollutes less? Driving a used vehicle another 100k miles or building a new one from scratch? 

Toyman! said:

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :

Which pollutes less? Driving a used vehicle another 100k miles or building a new one from scratch? 

 

Based on my time in the automotive industry, a used vehicle pollutes less. The refining of the raw materials, the welding process for the body, the casting of the various aluminum bits, and the paint all have their own pollutants that aren't talked about. Additionally, the EPA mandated controls for VOCs from the paint booths/ovens involve using massive natural gas incinerators (regenerative thermal oxidizers if you are in that industry) that burn all the air that goes through the booths. 

Basically, if you are debating driving your current car another 100k or buying an EV to drive until it needs a new battery, the used car is nicer to the environment.

Not all used vehicles are the same though, there's a whole range of choices between a used Leaf and a used TDI Touareg...

Have one, have had it about a year now. 2013 Diesel with 74k miles. Just towed 616 miles round trip from DC to Pitt Race and back with my 20' enclosed trailer doing 65-70 mph in the mountains of the PA Turnpike. It's a properly miserable tow and the Cayenne handled it as well as a half-ton truck does. My trailer is aluminum and loaded up with my E36 325is Spec3 car, weighs about 6,800 pounds.

You have to be mindful of tongue weight – most people towing want to just slam a trailer on the hitch and never think beyond that, which is not how to safely tow with any vehicle, let alone an SUV of this size. I've measured mine and it's within Porsche's specs. I use weight distribution and sway control on my hitch (Blue Ox). Porsche does not allow this per the manual because in Europe, it's not allowed at all. So, they don't test for it and thus don't certify it. But, with WD/SC I had 18-wheelers passing me and precisely zero movement at 65+ mph.

In 85-95° temps going up the Turnpike's grades – Wikipedia says they are a max of 3% – I could mostly maintain 65 mph. Slowed down to 55 or 60 a few times as oil temp was getting hot. 

The TDI is a reliable engine with a few known issues. They develop an oil leak from the lower timing cover, and it's an engine-out service (per Porsche) to fix. Dieselgate gave these an extended warranty that lasts 10 years, 120k miles from date of first sale and it covers the entire long block - including leaks - and all emissions gear. Mine being a 2013 means the warranty expires this December, but any slightly-newer model will have the warranty for a bit longer. They sold them through model year 2016. This work was over $12k billed to Porsche N.A. and $0 to me, and they replaced every single seal, nut, bolt, and part they could while the engine was out. I got a new oil pump just because they don't want to pull the engine a second time, for example.

Once "the big re-seal" has been completed, the TDI seems to be durable so long as you drive it hard and don't just putter around town. Towing counts. 

Transmissions on these are an 8-speed Aisin torque-converter automatic, not unlike what Toyota uses. The 958 generation Cayennes have transfer case issues but the Diesels used a different model that doesn't fail. Mine has the basic shocks and steel springs - it is rare to find a diesel with PASM + Air but you can. 

I find them to be, frankly, astonishing vehicles. There is no other SUV on the market, new or used, that can tow a 20' enclosed trailer at 65 mph and immediately do 65 mph on windy back roads after unhitching said trailer.

Oh, and I got 14 MPG towing this past weekend and can do 32-34 MPG unloaded. 

How well does the v8 tow vs the diesel?

In reply to Toyman! :

You're not buying new car. Silly question. 
 

also I'd say this is such a Nox gross pullover that it's worse to drive it uncorked than buy a brand new car. The emissions are that bad. 
 

From my time with Cummins the biggest issues with any emissions devices were the light duty cycles people put on Diesel engines.    Think dude with 2500 who drives it every day and dosent tow.  The trucks that had less replacements were the ones that towed and worked hard. 
 

yupididit said:

How well does the v8 tow vs the diesel?

 

I've never towed with (or driven) the diesel, but the 955 Cayenne S V8 tows 7,700 lbs and I can confirm that it does so with aplomb. A Turbo would be pretty exceptional it I would think.

The diesels have fantastic capability, I think they are just aging with really expensive repairs that make them not worth it compared to the gas ones these days once they are out of warranty.

And I quoted the data wrong. It's not 5-15x more nox is 50 to 300x more Nox.  

so one truck deleted could pollute as much as 300 unmodified trucks.   
 

https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2021-01/documents/epaaedletterreportontampereddieselpickups.pdf

yupididit said:

How well does the v8 tow vs the diesel?

I think they all do a good job, in different ways. I wanted the turbo-torque of the diesel vs a N/A V8, and buying a turbo V8 wasn't something I had a ton of interest in. The V8 would undoubtedly be more fun day to day. I like the goofiness and relative rarity of the diesel.

Malone makes a variety of tunes for these, you can add roughly +40 HP and +70 lb-ft while retaining the factory emissions equipment. If I keep mine (which... why wouldn't I with the engine-out work done, fresh tires, fresh brakes) I plan on doing that basic "stage 1" tune. Ripping the emissions gear off allows even more gains, and despite Washington DC declaring all diesels "emissions exempt" for whatever odd reason, I would rather keep it all installed for the sake of people I share the city and air with.

Toyman! said:

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :

Which pollutes less? Driving a used vehicle another 100k miles or building a new one from scratch? 

 

Driving a deleted diesel 100k miles is going to be far worse than producing a new vehicle.

From FbC's linked report above:

"Based on this analysis, for the cases that EPA has investigated (further described in Sections 3
through 5), AED estimates that the emissions controls have been removed from more than
550,000 diesel pickup trucks in the last decade. As a result of this tampering, more than 570,000
tons of excess oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and 5,000 tons of particulate matter (PM) will be emitted
by these tampered trucks over the lifetime of the vehicles. These tampered trucks constitute
approximately 15 percent of the national population of diesel trucks that were originally certified
with emissions controls. But, due to their severe excess NOx emissions, these trucks have an air
quality impact equivalent to adding more than 9 million additional (compliant, non-tampered)
diesel pickup trucks to our roads."

So, if emissions from 550k deleted trucks are equivalent to emissions from 9 million non-deleted trucks, then each deleted truck has the same impact on local air quality as 16 equivalent trucks that haven't been tampered with.

If we think about it on a per mile basis, an average deleted truck does 16 miles worth of damage for every 1 mile that it's driven. That means that driving a deleted truck 10k miles per year is equivalent to driving a stock truck 160k miles. So the 100k miles that you'd hypothetically put on the used vehicle after an emissions delete would be as harmful as 1.6 million miles of driving in a new, unmodified version of the same vehicle. If we count emissions from the production of the new vehicle that would of course get closer, but it's not going to be anywhere near enough to justify a delete on an emissions basis.

And keep in mind that the report is heavily focused on smog forming, air quality harming pollutants rather than GHGs. These are the things that give kids asthma and make your dad's COPD worse. This isn't about saving penguins, it's about giving your family clean air to breathe.

Javelin, my personal experience belies that.  Our diesel has been pretty bomb proof, with no aging problems.  As they age, they're going to do what any old german car does, which is try and empty your wallet unless it's been maintained properly.  Even then it'll still try and empty your wallet here and there.  Our powertrain warranty expires in 2025 or 120k miles, we probably won't own it past that, as that'll be 100k miles and 7 years of time with us.

My 955 Turbo S towed really well but never passed a gas station, it got abysmal mpg unloaded that got horrifically worse once towing.  All the cayennes will tow 7700lbs but the diesel does it best because of the torque and mpg it gets vs the regular V8 or turbo models.