cayenne
 

I'm seeing quite a few pepper wagons for under $10K these days. What are the good the bad and the ugly of these things?

Lots of info in the Cayenne forum, but they are great vehicles. Get one thats an 09 or later. Turbos are beasts and a blast to drive. As with any Porsche some repairs can be costly, but otherwise awesome suv's.

As a person currently selling my 2004 Cayenne S it was bit difficult to try to set the sales price. Mine is for sale for just over the $10K at $10,5K. When looking to set the price I realized there are a lot of deferred maintenance issues that show up once you start driving them that has driven the prices down.

I learned this the hard way in the 2005 Turbo I purchase to replace the 2004 S. The main reason I upgraded to the turbo is to keep the air suspension my S has and to add the cornering lights of the Bi-xenon headlight to aid in my failing night vision. Not many older S's had air suspension and even fewer air suspension and bi-xenons.

The Turbo I got looked good, drove well, and checked out good with Car Fax. I thought I was getting a great deal purchasing the 05 Turbo for just 10K. But, all the issues I've had to deal with in the first two months has increased the actual purchase price to the $17K to $18K range a lot of similar year Turbos are selling for.

In pricing my S also went thru all the pricing services like KBB, NADA, and Edmonds. They vary WIDELY! KBB was the lowest valuing an S in excellent condition at only $7500. NADA was next at $11,000 and Edmonds at $13,000. I did notice that NADA and Edmonds had more complete lists of the options available and the higher prices were because of those options. If I chose no options using either NADA or Edmonds their price matched KBB.

There are lots of issues on these older cars that can rack up the repair costs. Besides the plastic cooling lines running thru the cam valley (which should have been replaced by now) there are wear and tear items that are not obvious when purchasing. Like brake lines, brake booster, cardin shafter (drive shaft bearings) suspension, various sensors including O2 sensors, various oil gasket leaks, vacuum lines and even things like intake gasket leakes, electrical problems due to aging wires or improper LED blub relacement and various little interior bits that can be very expensive to fix.

If you are good, and a bit lucky you can find one that has been well maintained and will be a reliable car that will serve for many miles (yeas) without incurring too much more expense as long as the maintenance is kept up to date. That was what I did withe the S I am selling when I got it 3 years ago. Failed doing that when purchasing it's Turbo replacement. Looked and drove great, but a LOT of issues popped up.

If you decide to get a pepperwagon, good luck and I gotta say...my 2004 S with air suspension is a nice one for a good price!

The early generations need the center bearing replaced at 70,000 miles.
The dealers will want to replace the drive line, but there is an alternative available from
EPS. (and others)
 Porsche Cayenne Drive Shaft Center Support Bearing - Cardan Shaft - Propshaft Replacement Repair — European Parts Solution

FWIW, I got 40,000 racecar towing miles up and down the east coast with my V6 - never let me down.
Bill K

hmm this is good info. just what i need,..

I put over 180,000 miles on my 04 Cayenne S, and over 100K were towing a 18' enclosed trailer and race car. Last year when I bought the Volvo, Rusnak (local Porsche and Volvo dealer) told me they would only give me $4500 on trade, so I gave it to charity.

Other then the well discussed and disclosed issues of Cardon shaft, coolant pipes, and coils, I never had any issues. The fuel pump went out at 115K, I replaced the battery twice, and the water pump failed at 90K...But I would consider those routine maintenance for any car with that many miles.

...Pre-09 they eat front tires, and the gas mileage is about 14mph combined city/Hwy.

Alignment (toe) changes slightly with ride height. Have the alignment done at the ride height most used and tires will last very long time. Well, I should add; I set my alignment at the low level, and drive at that level, knowing that the car auto-lowers at speed, from the mid level setting. So, perhaps the low level is the better place to set alignment and drive, as the level changes (and toe) will change the least.

About a year ago, I made a similar inquiry.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/886439-cayenne-tell-me-what-you-know.html

Summary:
coolant pipes need to be changed

Gets terrible mileage.

Brakes are expensive. ....
Plan on changing the drive shaft. ....
Have seen 4 or 5 develope bad piston slap. ...
Coolant pipes, pay someone to do it. ...like us. ...
Tend to eat batteries every couple years. ...
Fuel milage sucks....
Fuel pumps go bad, or the console for the fuel tank will leak...
Rear hatch shocks
Headlamp mount brackets crack, causing the plug to not plug in properly. .....so expect random light faults. ..

I bought an 04 new and just gave it to charity this year with 190,000 miles on her.

I make living off Cayenne repairs.

So how is the gas mileage on them? :rolleyes:

So from your post, a professional mechanic dumps one at 190,000 miles and it is worth more as a donation than selling it. Wow. That car evaporated in value in just 12 years.

That was a collection of quotes from 5 different people.
I posted the summary just because I knew some people are too ****ing lazy to follow the link and see what was said firsthand.

I don't know if Craig, the guy who donated his Cayenne, is a professional mechanic or not. How would I, unless he says so in his post?

Out or curiosity I took my S to the dealer. They offered me $4500 as well. The buyer told me in confidence they were making me an offer to pass it to a wholesaler without making anything in hopes I would buy it's replacement there. Said there wasn't enough profit in a $10K car to be worth them messing with.

Hmmmm...
maybe I should keep the Caddy.....

Are you suggesting that a used car dealership offer is indicative of value?

My understanding is that they typically offer 25-33% of what they expect they can get for it (assuming it's clean).

Nope, he said if they gave me $4500 and put it on their lot they would expect to sell it for $9000 and that wasn't worth their trouble.

Have never had a car dealer offer me anywhere near what a vehicle was worth. Even on trade in. They do not want to give more for a vehicle than they can immediate sell for a profit to a wholesaler. In 2001 I bought a new 2001 Boxster S. Had a very nice pristine 1990 928 GT at the time. They offered me $9000 for the 928. I said that was an insult and got up to leave. They immediately gave me $10K off their already discounted asking price for the Boxster S and said I could keep the 928. Sold the 928 for $27000 with an ad in Autotrader.

Listed my 04 Cayenne S with Air Suspension on CarGurus.com and their listing says the asking price of $10.5 is a good deal from their market values.

My experience.
BMW gave me $4,000 on a trade-in for my CPO 535.
The truck had all scheduled maintenance plus a bunch extra (coolant flush, driveline fluid flushes, new rotors and pads, new rear wheel bearings, and replacement drive shafts).
Truck was an '05 with 90,000+ miles.
Bill K

Are they really that bad?

There's a local 04 for $19,500 (in Aus). It's in great condition. I doubt it's ever been off road. (like most of them)
Very tempting.

http://www.carsales.com.au/private/details/Porsche-Cayenne-2004/SSE-AD-4223370/?gts=SSE-AD-4223370&gtssaleid=SSE-AD-4223370&rankingType=Spotlight

^^^ I like the interior but how hard ($) would it be to fix the steering wheel and its buttons?

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1479515000.jpg

If that was near to me I'd be tempted.

If you're not after the turbo then just don't bother. They are right around the same price as the S and about 10 times the fun.