Porsche Cayenne Diesel review
Porsche Cayenne 3.0 TD V6 S Road Test
Test date 11 March 2009
Price as tested £41,031
For Low-speed performance, competitive price, on and off-road ability
Against Sluggish acceleration at higher speeds, excessive road roar, dated cabin
Sometimes, platform sharing provides unplanned benefits. It’s easy to forget, now that the Cayenne and VW’s Touareg have been around so long, that both stem from the same base architecture. But when the Cayenne was launched in 2003, Porsche certainly wasn’t planning to share a diesel engine with Volkswagen. Stuttgart has long resisted any pressure, and very publicly, to offer diesels, even when large, fuel-gorging SUVs began attracting criticism for their profligacy.
But with a recession in full swing, it must be relieved to have relented, not least because around three-quarters of the SUVs sold in Europe are diesel.
Porsche’s task has been considerably eased by the fact that most of the hardware was readily available from VW. The Cayenne enjoys differences, but they’re slight and mainly buried within its ECUs. This new diesel may be a short-lived stopgap, as an all-new Porsche SUV arrives soon, but that doesn’t reduce the pertinence of some key questions. Does this first diesel Porsche deserve its badge? And can the ageing Cayenne still compete?
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