Diesel Cayenne? A what car thread.

My paid off 2010 Sequoia limited with 289,00 miles was rear ended late november and we got the word the first week of december that it was totalled.  We had quite a bit going on, so I've been driving our 98 single cab manual ranger.  This would be fine, except that I sometimes have to tote my teenagers, and it's more than tight in the cab.  Also, the wife can't drive a stick. 

I loved the reliability and smoothness of the sequoia, but hated the 15mpg.  It was also starting to get up there in miles.  

I work from home and most of my driving is driving the kids to school and picking them up- figure 25 miles max a day- many days are probably only 10.  

Because of all of this city driving, I began looking at the camry hybrid, accord hybrid and fusion hybrid.  Fusion hybrid went out once I read all the reviews of the hybrid battery dying at 100k miles.  Camry hybrid and accord hybrid are still on the table, but I'm not stoked about either being my car.  

This has led me to expand the search and now I'm considering Cayenne diesels.  There is a 2013 near me with about 80k miles and seems to be in good shape.  Looks like I'd average around 24mpg rather than the 15 that the sequoia got...that's significant.  Also, it's still an suv, and I like nice vehicles.  I love that i'd have heated and cooled seats and upgraded leather rather than the rental car feel of the camry and accord. I've always been more of a "buy a nicer older car rather than newer and cheaper" for the same money.  

I could go buy a new accord hybrid and it would likely last forever, but I'd probably be bummed to drive around an accord for the next 5 years.  I suppose it's also possible I take over my wife's gx460 and she drive the accord since she drives more than I do.  

Anyway- thoughts on accord hybrid vs camry hybrid vs cayenne diesel? 

My thought is that you're an ideal candidate for an EV or hybrid. Diesel usually comes with a higher buy-in and maintenance costs, and I don't know if you'd drive it enough to recoup the fuel savings. They do offer better resale, though.

Driving your GX60 might be a good option to try, as it's a known quantity and if your wife drives more than you do, getting her into a newer car may win you some brownie points!

Why not a Cayenne Hybrid?

I've got a 2014 Diesel Cayenne with way (way) more miles than that. I over-paid but bought a one owner, full dealer history example. Complete history of silly $1,100 and $1,200 oil changes by a doctor that drove a lot as part of his business. I wanted something that would tow a 20' trailer 5 times a year, with a loaded weight of about 5,000 lbs, and was a reasonably fun daily. A Cayenne is not a sports car, and is not a proper tow rig, but does both pretty well but fits that combination daily/ tow pig pretty well.

You should get better than 24 mpg around town, and I get about 14 mpg towing (or about 15 mpg if I tuck in behind a buddy with a big trailer and F350 beast on the highway).

There are some particular things to know on a Diesel Cayenne:

1. Diesel gate warranties. It's peculiar as the terms of the warranty start at the date of the diesel gate repair and not the car in service date. There are web-sites that you can enter the VIN and see what the remaining warranty. It pretty much covers anything engine related.

2. They all seem to leak oil if they haven't been "re-sealed" as part of the diesel gate warranty. Mine leaks about 1/2 quart per 5,000 mile service interval. I don't worry about it.

3. The coolant system leaks in the V6 valley under the intake. Parts are cheap, but its a major PITA to do. I've had more fun swapping engines that pulling that intake. Too much stuff in too small of any area. Basic oil changes, and fuel filter changes are easy. I just spent the holidays doing this project. It sucked but I hope to never have to do it again.

4. They have a different transfer case than the rest of the Cayennes, that suffered so many transfer case failures. 

5. Got all the typical modern diesel emissions "stuff", but an active market for delete kits and tunes if that is your thing.

6. Most diesels were pretty low optioned in comparison to other models particular the Turbo or Turbo S, but relative to their original sticker price, have held their value pretty well. Look at some of the recent low mileage examples on BAT. Finding one with air suspension is a unicorn. You won't find them with the alphabet soup that is Porsche options. No carbon brakes, active rear roll bars, etc.

7. Tow packages are pretty common. Figure 2k to put a tow kit on that includes the correct control modules to interface with the car, and programming at the dealer. 

8. There aren't exactly any Porsche parts in the engine bay, as everything is Audi / VW. The Audi / VW parts have less of a Porsche tax.

Happy to help with other Cayenne questions. Can't help on the comparison to the Honday or Toyota though.

I was looking for one for a while but gave up since I could never seem to find one with reasonable miles for a good price. Touareg TDI were a bit better, and the same car for the most part, the high trims are pretty nice. If i could find one with low-ish miles and the right options, I'd go for it as long as the price was reasonable

In reply to wake74 :

I just did the lower intake on the ranger and that was.....not fun. It was a many hour job and this sounds worse! 
otherwise though this sounds basically exactly what I'm looking for. 

In reply to Javelin :

Price. They seem to hold value extremely well. 

In reply to dj06482 (Forum Supporter) :

I've had two diesel obs powerstrokes so I do understand some of the cost. My thought is that as a VAG engine- Europe has been doing diesel forever- this should be a little more livable. 

The Cayenne is miles ahead of the 'rental car feel' of the other two if that's a major factor for you.  It's a nice place to spend time in.  

A coworker just bought an oiler Cayenne. It's been tasked with towing a 20' trailer on a 2000 mile trip and reportedly did pretty well. It got better fuel economy than my Cummins hauling a 28' (with an extra car inside). 

He bought it in TN and had a friend drive it out to CO. It threw a CEL and went into limp on the way, then healed itself. It has since had a turbo replaced under the dieselgate warranty, including a few weeks of a loaner Macan. So I suspect he has some mechanical adventures ahead of him, despite the fact that it's relatively low mileage and looks absolutely cherry.

He loves it. Of course, it replaced a 1987 Grand Cherokee with a howling rear engine and a third of a million miles and I had to talk him out of putting mud tires on it. But he's definitely enjoying it at the moment. 

grover said:

I work from home and most of my driving is driving the kids to school and picking them up- figure 25 miles max a day- many days are probably only 10.  

No specific VAG diesel experience, but in general this use case is the nightmare scenario for modern diesels. Diesels are designed as tools for work, and not urban stop/go DDs. They need to build lots of heat, and they need to be driven for some longer time periods to complete regens, etc. The majority of the horror stories that you hear about are from people misusing them. Need to tow often? Fine. Need to commute long distances at highway speeds? Sure thing. Short, stop/go trips? Negative Ghostrider!

And if the chance of a Ford hybrid battery failing bothers you enough to write them off, I can't imagine a VAG diesel maintenance/repair bill will be very pleasing.

If you want something nicer than the usual Camry hybrid, Toyota put their hybrid powertrain into just about everything they make that isn't a BoF vehicle. Avalon Hybrids can be nicer than some of the Lexus offerings, and skip the badge tax. They can even be less expensive than the more down market Camry hybrids because nobody knows about them, or they think they're only for Octogenarians. Rav 4, Highlander, Lexus RS, ES, GS would all offer the same basic concept as the Camry hybrid in different wrappers. Any of them would be a much better fit for your usage, and will likely be much less of a hassle/money pit than a modern diesel.

Do some number crunching, 25 miles a day at 15 gas vs. 25 diesel.  See how much the $/mile difference would be.

In reply to STM317 :

I have looked at a couple of Avalon hybrids and they do seem to be more affordable and better equipped. Boring though. 

In reply to porschenut :

The maths probably don't math. 

I'm pretty jaded about this, but I'm not very enthused with modern-era diesels.  The sum total of my experience is with the Merc OM642, but I've done a fair amount of reading and research and it seems like the engines themselves are fine but all of the accoutrement that are in place for emissions purposes can be problematic.  Fine, sure, I'll stipulate that rolling coal is bad and clean air is good and all that E36 M3.  But between stuffing soot into the engine via the EGR, adding a bunch of sensors to measure everything, using biofuel that will gel up, sticking a DEF system into the exhaust tract, and then adding a computer that won't open the pod bay doors for you if it thinks the slightest thing might be wrong, things can get a bit unreliable.  And if you live somewhere that might possibly get cold, don't forget to add in your fuel additive so that it'll start - but to be fair, modern-era diesels are much better about that than the old ones were.

Where these engines seem to be okayish is if you're running them long and hard.  Pulling three and a half tons through the mountains for 800 miles a day?  No worries.  Making a couple trips a day to the grocery store 3 miles away?  Oof.

I'll admit that I do like the fact I can roll around in a three-row SUV and pull down about 18mpg in town, over 20 on the highway, and about 18 when pulling a trailer.  And the grunt is fantastic.  But I don't think I'd ever buy another one* and I certainly wouldn't be enthused about only putting 10 miles a day on it.  Also, while the mileage is a big deal, look at it this way:  87 octane is about $3 there, right?  Looks like diesel is about $3.90.  So your per-mile fuel cost is $0.20 for gas and $.16 for diesel at those mpgs.  If you're doing 25 miles a day for a total of 9k miles/year, your fuel savings with diesel works out to about $337.50 for the year.  Figure you're in to an oil change and a half and a diesel oil change is going to cost about $50 more than one for a gasser.  If you're a Sam's club member, it looks like gas is only $2.37/gal there right now (and, again, my rant about how weird it is that almost no Costcos or Sams have diesel except for the one here in Florence...) which means it'd cost you $40.50 more per year to fill with diesel.

* Okay, fine, yes.  I am sort of shopping diesel-pusher motorhomes kinda sorta.  But that's different.

We bought our Cayenne diesel 6 years and about 100k miles ago.  It's still under the diesel gate warranty for another year and about 10k miles.  It's been a very reliable car for us, one large service covered under warranty shortly after we bought it, just tires, brakes, etc since. 

As these get up in mileage though, they do start to break and the bills can be eye-watering.  If you get an oil leak on the rear of the engine, that's an engine out service and unless you're doing it yourself, it mechanically totals the car.  A friend ran his to 150k miles and then traded it in because of the oil leaks. 

Ours has 111k miles on it, we'll probably run it to 150k and see how it's doing.  It's my wife's car, she's averaging 27-28mpg in it. 

In reply to wae :

oh I read with much interest your drama with the benz.  

And I fully support the diesel pusher motorhome, I have a crazy motorhome story that I never posted on here about a 5 week roadtrip in an old P30 chassis that had blowouts, a wiring loom drop and rub in half on a tire in the hamptons and more...go with the diesel with the better transmission, frame and motor. 

With reards to this discussion, the irony is that I just talked my father out of a diesel 2 months ago.  He was buying the new F250 and he drives maybe 5 miles a day in rural east tennessee.  He does tow his race car to the track, but it's been down a year or so and he's talking about getting out of drag racing- he bought the 7.3 gasser instead. 

I'm not sure that over the long run that this would save me money.  But it may mean I have to stop and get fuel more often- which is annoying.  I'd use this for road trips, but 45 minutes will be a long drive the majority of the time and most days it will sit in stop and go traffic for 45 minutes.  so you may be right.  I guess I'm just looking for a nicer vehicle and am weighing if I'm willing to give up some reliability for that.  Also, I'm cheap.  

Sorry for the stream of consciousness- thinking about buying a different car is a lot more fun that actually doing it.  

In reply to docwyte :

this one has 75k....I may be pushing it. 

grover said:

In reply to STM317 :

I have looked at a couple of Avalon hybrids and they do seem to be more affordable and better equipped. Boring though. 

That's kind of the whole idea for this type of vehicle usage. Driving 20 miles per day (or less) in light-to-light traffic means you can't really enjoy the vehicle's performance. Any drama or excitement is likely to be the bad kind, which gets worse with kids in tow while you're running late for school drop off. DD/kid hauler/urban commuters are better when they're boring, efficient tools that just work. That frees up time/space/money/energy to enjoy actual fun vehicles in fun ways when/where you can. Get the features that you want to pass the time, and enjoy getting where you need to go in peaceful, reliable, efficient ways with no drama.

In reply to grover :

I understand there is more than $/mile, especially for this crowd.  Joy of driving is probably the top factor, followed closely by cost.  If we were into cost per mile we would be on the consumers reports forum!

Looks like this one is warrantied for dieselgate until 2028 and 175,000 miles. Still feels a bit like I'm playing with fire.  

In reply to STM317 :

Strong point.  I'm sort of stuck with one vehicle though other than the 98 ranger which will end up being the kid vehicle in 1.5 years when the oldest is driving.  To that end, I'd like to not be in an appliance.  I suppose this could just be my middle age freaking out. 

grover said:

Looks like this one is warrantied for dieselgate until 2028 and 175,000 miles. Still feels a bit like I'm playing with fire.  

Well, that does sort of change the calculus a bit, right?  I don't know what their warranty is like, but if you've got 4 years and damned-near 100k miles of warranty for the expensive stuff, then you're not too bad off.  My Merc is under their own diesel cheating warranty and I've had the DEF tank and the turbo replaced as part of that (as well as a few other things).  If that warranty is pretty comprehensive for the spendy diesel bits, then I'd say go for it.  Even if you're spending a little more in fuel, there's a bit of panache that makes it worth it, right?  Just remember to put a bottle of diesel treatment in the back somewhere just in case you ever travel northward in the winter!

And you've gotta write up your motorhome adventure some time.  That sounds like a hoot!

In reply to wae :

I drove by our local merc dealer the other day and there were probably 25 sprinter vans in the overflow parking lot...obv waiting on diesel repair. 

Yeah, will have to do the rv writeup one day

In reply to STM317 :

I was going to say this exact same thing. The diesels do not like short trips and stop/go traffic. We've had a 2011 VW Jetta Sportwagen for a few years and 50,000 miles. It's my wife's car. It takes forever to warm up in Chicago winter and doesn't like her short commute. I have to take it every now and then to let it stretch it's legs on the highway and run the regen cycle to clear out the soot and carbon buildup. For long drives it's great. It'll go 500 miles on a tank of diesel. Around town? It doesn't like it. I'm hoping to replace the TDI with a Honda Clarity.