Porsche Cayenne Review & Prices

The Porsche Cayenne has long been the SUV of choice for people who don’t want their choice of a practical family car to mark them out as having given up on life. While it shares some of its mechanicals with various lower-priced cars from within the Volkswagen Group, the Cayenne is the sportiest and one of the most prestigious - it’s like choosing to eat your Sunday lunch at a Michelin-starred gastropub rather than a Wetherspoons.

There’s no shortage of gastropubs around, though, and so if you’re considering a Cayenne there are plenty of other options to weigh up. The Mercedes GLE, Range Rover Sport and BMW X5 all provide very strong competition, whether you opt for their basic models or one of the more sporting options.

For 2024, the Cayenne’s had a bit of a nip/tuck. Changes to the exterior are subtle, but include new wings, a wider grille and new headlights - which come with Matrix LED technology as standard. In its basic form, on small wheels, the Cayenne is rather understated - but Porsche will let you configure it almost any way you want, whether that means bright red paint with gold wheels or a stealth bomber all-black affair.

Group test: Audi Q7 v BMW X5 v Mercedes GLE v Porsche Cayenne v VW Touareg

The same goes for the interior, where you can have a wide selection of different upholstery choices, seatbelt colours and trim finishers. Porsche is one of the only manufacturers to let you customise every aspect of your car in this way - though it does come at a cost. In fact, by ticking absolutely every option box you can add as much as £70,000 to the price of your car…

Luckily, you don’t need many options to get the best out of the Cayenne. All models come with climate control, a leather interior, a big touchscreen infotainment system and basic cruise control. 

You also get plenty of space in the rear. Capacious rear seats make this Porsche easily capable of carrying four six-foot adults in comfort, while the boot is massive - bigger than the Mercedes GLE or the BMW X5, though beaten by the Range Rover Sport.

No matter which of the Cayenne’s engines you choose, you’re in for a satisfying drive. They range from a V6 with 353hp, right through to the ballistic 739hp Turbo S E-Hybrid. Porsche aims for a sporty drive over outright comfort, which means that while the Cayenne thuds over bumps in the road a bit more than, say, a Mercedes GLE, it’s much more fun to drive.

Fancy taking the plunge? Check out the latest Porsche Cayenne deals to see how much you could save. You can also browse used Porsche Cayennes on Carwow, or see other used Porsches for sale. And remember, when the time comes for a change, you can sell your car online through Carwow’s network of trusted dealers.

The Porsche Cayenne kicks off at a little over £70,000 for a V6 petrol model. If you want one of the plug-in hybrids, you’ll need to spend just under £80,000. That puts it neatly between the BMW X5 and the Mercedes GLE in price. Topping the range is the £130,000 Porsche Cayenne Turbo S E-Hybrid, which again sits right between the BMW X5 M and the Mercedes-AMG GLE 63.

It’s worth noting, however, that you’ll probably want at least a few thousand pounds worth of equipment from the options list to make the Cayenne feel as luxurious as you’d hope for from a Porsche - items that come as standard on some competitors, such as adaptive cruise control, surround-view cameras or even keyless entry are optional extras.

Great fun to drive fast, but not the best over bumps

In town

The Cayenne isn’t too difficult to drive round town. It’s a big car, but visibility isn’t bad thanks to quite a deep window line and good-sized door mirrors. You will need to head into the options list for a 360-degree parking camera, which we’d recommend - the standard reversing camera has quite an extreme fisheye effect that’s quite misleading.

The E-Hybrid models are the pick of the range for city slickers, as they can travel for around 40 miles on electricity alone, which is the smoothest and quietest way to proceed. Even non-hybrid models are good, though, with an extremely slick eight-speed automatic gearbox that’s totally unobtrusive shuffling through the gears.

The Cayenne’s suspension is set up to be sporty, rather than comfy, so it does thud over bumps more than a Mercedes GLE or Range Rover Sport - even on models with the optional air suspension. You can specify rear-wheel steering, like those cars - which is a great boon in tight parking spaces.

On the motorway

With plenty of power in reserve from even the cheapest Cayenne, you won’t find yourself lacking when you need to make a decisive overtake or gun it on a sliproad. Opt for the more powerful Cayenne S or Turbo S E-Hybrid and you’ll be able to put your foot down and leave most sports cars for dust.

The Porsche Cayenne isn’t bad at coping with the softer lumps and bumps of a British motorway, though once again you’ll find a Range Rover Sport more cossetting. It’s very refined, though, with even the most sporty engine options setting down to a gentle burble. 

On a twisty road

It’s here where the Cayenne shines. Amazingly for such a large and heavy SUV, it’s as much fun to drive as some dedicated sports cars. The steering is heavy, but it’s pin-sharp and you can feel what the front wheels are doing in the corners. And it does a marvellous job of containing its bulk, resisting lean in bends. The sporty seats help here too, holding you in place without being so aggressively supportive that you finish a long drive feeling like you’ve gone three rounds with a chiropractor.

The optional air suspension can be caught out if you hit a bump midway through a corner - it feels a little uncontrolled when you’re going faster, so keen drivers should stick with the standard steel springs. If you want to get really nerdy, you can show stats like a G-meter on the dashboard.

If your particular type of twisty road is off the beaten track, you can specify the Cayenne with an off-road pack and underbody protection, which make it capable of tackling rough roads or some light green-laning. However, don’t expect it to be as accomplished a mud-plugger as a Range Rover Sport.

The Porsche Cayenne is very practical, though the hybrid loses some boot space

There are plenty of options for front seat comfort in the Cayenne. As standard, you get supportive sports seats, eight-way electrically adjustable and heated. But you can upgrade them to 14-way or 18-way adjustment, and add ventilation or massage functions. Think carefully about how badly you want these features before ticking the box, as the price can soon add up! 

Whichever kind you opt for, you’ll find them very comfortable and supportive. Even the basic seats have more than enough adjustment for most drivers, and the steering wheel telescopes in and out a long way too.

Storage isn’t the best - there’s a wireless phone charging pad, a pair of cupholders and an under-armrest storage bin - but the most convenient place to fling keys or loose change is in the middle of the dashboard, in full view of passers-by.

Space in the back seats

Rear passengers have a pretty good time in the Cayenne. There’s leg and headroom aplenty, and enough space under the front seats for long-legged passengers to slide their feet underneath. The rear seats even recline for a little extra luxury, while the central armrest is wide and comfy.

The rear bench is wide enough to fit three, though the central seat is significantly narrower and higher than the outer two. The door bins will fit a one-litre bottle, while there are cupholders in the centre armrest and a small storage slot in between the front seats with two USB-C charging ports underneath.

Boot space

With a massive 772 litres of space, the Cayenne has one of the biggest boots around. Only the 780-litre Range Rover Sport really has it beaten - the BMW X5 and Mercedes GLE have 650 and 630 litres respectively. You do lose a fair chunk of space if you option the plug-in hybrid, though.

The seats fold down in a 40:20:40 split, so you can carry two passengers and still have space between them for longer items - it gives more flexibility than a traditional 60:40 split rear seat, what's slightly annoying is that there are no levers in the boot to fold the seats, requiring you to fold them each individually from the back seats. The boot is nice and square, and there’s an area over one of the wheelarches with a storage net that’s perfect for holding de-icer, jump leads and the like.

The seats don’t fold down completely flat, but it’s very near, and there’s no step between the boot floor and the folded seat backs. There’s also a modicum of storage under the floor, where a spare wheel would go - and you can specify one, if you like.

The Cayenne's interior is spacious and luxurious, but some materials look a bit less special than you'd hope without optional additions

The Cayenne’s latest interior makeover goes heavy on the screens. Not only is there a digital instrument cluster with a massive 12.6-inch curved screen, but a high-resolution 12.3-inch touchscreen infotainment system and an optional display for the passenger, too. 

The passenger display is particularly clever, as it’s invisible from the driver’s seat. It’s an option you could manage without, though, as it doesn’t really add anything essential to the Cayenne’s interior - if your front seat passenger wants to adjust the media or see where you are on the navigation, it’s not exactly a stretch to the central screen.

All three screens look fantastic and are really responsive to the touch, though the interface isn’t quite as straightforward as BMW’s - some functions are a little less obvious. You can bypass it with Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, of course.

Build quality is like a bank vault, with high-quality materials. Everything you touch feels dense and solid, and there’s no sign of any creaks or rattles. Some of the materials look a little low-rent, particularly the top of the dashboard - but again here it’s the options list to the rescue, as it’s not too expensive to have this swathed in leather.

Porsche Cayenne economy covers quite the range. At the low end, you’re unlikely to see more than 20mpg from the V8, and even the V6 will struggle to crest 30mpg on a long run. However, the plug-in hybrid models have the potential for very low running costs indeed - provided you plug them in regularly and make use of their electric capabilities with plenty of short journeys. On long journeys with a depleted battery, though, expect similar economy to the standard V6.

Competitors’ plug-in hybrid offerings are better suited for use like this. The BMW X5 and Mercedes-Benz GLE can both go further on their batteries, and will be more efficient when discharged, too. However, neither of them have a ballistically powerful halo model like the Cayenne’s Turbo S E-Hybrid.

Other running costs will also be high. Company car tax is moderate on the E-Hybrid models, but the V8 emits over 280g/km of CO2 - that means high Benefit-in-Kind rates, plus very expensive road tax.

The Porsche Cayenne was tested by Euro NCAP when it launched in 2017, and scored a full five stars. The updated model hasn’t been re-rated, though, and the tests have changed significantly in that time - so this shouldn’t be taken as totally representative.

However don’t panic that the Cayenne is an unsafe car. First, the four-wheel drive and excellent handling go some way to helping keep you out of harm’s way in the first place. All models also have autonomous emergency braking, lane-keeping aids and traffic sign recognition with speed limit assistance - and these are easily toggled on and off from the infotainment touchscreen.

Maintaining the Cayenne is a pricey business, but with Porsche dealers you do get what you pay for - customer service is excellent and loyalty rewarded. If you want to get yourself on the waiting list for the next limited-edition 911, buying a Cayenne might be your first step…

Sharing many of its parts with other Volkswagen Group products means many of the Cayenne’s components are tried-and-tested, though the previous model was subject to a fair few recalls for remedial work. 

Warranty-wise, you get three years of coverage with a roadside assistance package included. That’s broadly in line with what’s offered by other premium brands, though the cheaper Lexus RX comes with up to ten years of warranty.

Perusing the extensive Porsche options list once more reveals that extended warranty packages can cover as far as 15 years without any mileage limitations.