2019 Porsche Cayenne Review

[MUSIC PLAYING] CARLOS LAGO: Right here is the all new third generation Porsche Cayenne. We've come all the way to Greece to drive it. But before we do that, let's talk about what's different between this version and the previous generation. Up front you have new headlights for the new character and the lights. You'll see more and more headlights of this style across Porches as they come out. But the big difference is this wide grill that runs almost the entire width of the body. But this visual appearance is something that makes it feel a bit wider than the previous model. You also might not notice until you look up close is the Cayenne now has staggered wheels. The front wheel and tire are a little bit smaller than the rear wheels. You have a light bar that now runs across the entire of the rear. That's something that you would see on the 911 Carrera 4, and it's a nice little design element that brings some cohesion across the Porsche brand. And, of course, this is the turbo so it gets unique exhaust pipes-- [CAR ENGINE] --and up around 540 horsepower. So we're inside the new Cayenne Turbo. Of course, we're driving the Turbo model, because who could say no to 540 or 550 odd horsepower? The first thing you notice is, of course, the acceleration. There's a ton of it. This thing delivers power very quickly-- immediately when you crack the throttle-- and it's very satisfying. The second thing that's really impressive about this particular Cayenne is the steering. There's an immediate sensation of rotation that comes from the vehicle when you start cracking the wheel. But the real thing I've noticed with driving this Cayenne is the nimbleness that Porsche has managed to find in what effectively is a large SUV-- a large, powerful, and heavy SUV. There's just an eagerness that the Cayenne displays as soon as you turn the wheel. It feels very satisfying. Not a lot of feedback coming from the road itself, but the control you get through the steering wheel feels really good. Now, there's a couple of things that could be helping that. This vehicle-- this Turbo-- is optioned with rear wheel steering that's going to turn the rear wheels in and out of phase with the front wheels depending on the speed you're going which can help you turn in tightly like we just did there or keep you stable at high speeds. We've also got a Torque Vectoring Plus system on this vehicle that's selectively overdriving the outside rear wheel to help the thing rotate in corners. Now, one of the reasons I appreciate this nimbleness is because we're driving this car in Greece and their roads are basically a lane and a half wide and don't have center markings on them. And as we've been going pretty quick, it's been I feel like I can put this vehicle exactly where I want it to be in each corner. That's something you don't expect from an SUV so it's nice when it delivers that. Of course, this is a Porsche so there is a higher expectation on the sports car-like behavior. And so far it feels like the Cayenne is delivering that experience quite handily. But the road quality gives us a chance to talk about the suspension. All the Cayennes we've been driving so far have the optional air suspension. And when you take it out of sport mode-- like I'm going to do right now-- the ride does calm down appreciably. It feels like a very smooth riding vehicle. And that's impressive because all the cars we've been driving have 20 inch or 21 inch wheels. That's a lot of wheel to be moving around and a lot of weight to be moving around and controlling. But this air suspension-- this adaptive air suspension-- seems to do a really good job on rough roads like this one. Another thing I've noticed driving this car so far is how quiet it is. We have optional acoustic and thermally treated glass. And right now it's doing a great job of eliminating a lot of the wind buffeting, exhaust sound, and other exterior unpleasantness that you would not want to hear in a luxury car. It's a very quiet experience inside this vehicle and that's nice because this is also a luxury car with a luxury price tag. The vehicle we're driving right now is optioned up to about $155,000. A lot of money but you're also getting a lot of car for that money. We should also talk about some of the brake options. You have the normal breaks like you would on any standard vehicle. And then there's this carbon ceramic brakes-- like you'd expect from a Porsche sports cars-- but in between there's a tungsten carbide coated brake option. Now, what that is there's a coating on the brakes that helps them last longer, provide more braking force, and reduce brake dust. And Porsche says they should last longer than the standard brakes. So hopefully the ownership costs won't be as long either. A lot of the stuff that's come from the most recent Panamera has looked really nice and worked really well. Down here at the bottom there touch sensitive controls for most of the vehicles functions and when you touched them there's a little haptic response, or a little feedback, that you get in the form of a vibration. It works generally well, of course I would prefer real buttons but this is what you get. The only downside I can think of so far is that this piano black finish is going to attract all kinds of fingerprints, smudges, and hairs and oil and stuff. So you want to keep some kind of cloth with you if you want to keep that clean. With this being the twin-turbo V8 you would expect massive performance out of the Turbo model. The base model and the S-- which use V6s-- the base model has a single turbocharger, the S has a twin turbocharged engine. Both of those supply decent acceleration too. You'd probably be totally fine with the base model, although the GPS is a little bit faster-- as you would expect from having 100 horsepower more. That turbo is just ridiculous in terms of acceleration. But again, that's what happens when you have 500 plus horsepower. Cayenne's nimbleness is quite an accomplishment but that's kind of what we expect from Porsche these days. This is a company that keeps making extraordinarily high performing vehicles that have less than 400 horsepower. So they keep setting the bar for themselves. And they keep overcoming it. This being a large SUV, it's important to talk about things that may not be as exciting as horsepower. There's plenty of head, leg, shoulder room in both front and rear seats. The optional sports seats have the head rest integrated into the seat back-- kind of like what you would expect out of a sports car-- but they don't seem to affect the rear seating space at all. It's pretty comfortable back there-- at least for the outboard seats. There's little bit more cargo capacity in the back as well. So if you're concerned about hauling a bunch of stuff there's a solution there. One of the other features improving the handling on this vehicle is an active anti-roll system. While previous Cayennes used a hydraulic actuated system, this one is electronically controlled by the 48-volt system that Cayenne now has. What does that mean? Well, it means it works and you can't really feel it working. You just notice the vehicle stays flat in corners and stays pretty smooth on the road because that would be the advantage of adjusting the anti-roll. Where it doesn't work when you're going straight but it works when you're in the corners. But you can tell that it's working because there's a little display in the gauge cluster here that tells you, hey you're getting some active anti-roll here and some here and here. But other than that you just notice that this vehicle just handles really well. As far as performance goes the base Cayenne Porsche says will do zero to 60 in the high fives. And the S and Turbo models will do zero to 60 a second faster than each. So you have high fours and high threes. That's a lot of performance, especially out of the Turbo vehicle. But hey, again, it's a Porsche. Overall this first impression of the Cayenne is a very good one. And we're eager to test it more once it shows up on our shores in some time next year-- like July or something. [MUSIC PLAYING] Well, thank you for watching. If you would like to see more videos like this, keep it tuned right here and be sure to visit edmunds.com.