and what about Toureg v. Cayenne?
 

Any info on how the Touareg stacks up agains the Cayenne?

td

A buddy of mine spent over 30 hours replacing his water cooled, alternator on his wife's X5. I never heard such a blue streak from him describing the job. Why would BMW design such a bad idea? I think the base Cayenne with a 6m gearbox would be kewl. Buy the Cayenne Mike. YMMV

I agree.

Most all Cayenne repairs start with "remove front end of car" and are followed by "use custom jig for holding car during repair.

BTW, if anyone is looking for the Cayenne FSM I have it, can put it on a few disks for you. Not that it's very helpful without a PIWS and a box of custom tools.

Get a 100 series cruiser!

Hey IROC- I cant tell you about owning one, although a friend hs just bought the new diesel version and is delighted with it. He also has the big Q9 TT Audi, and that is a hell of a thing.

I can tell you that ten years ago I did a Porsche drive day where we drove all the 996 gen cars and the relatively newly released Cayenne (the V8, S?).

Like many at the time, I coudnt quite get to grips with a Porsche SUV. But- what a machine. In the Cayenne, I held on to pumkins driving Carreras and Boxster S on the high speed track- its plenty fast and handles better than anything that big really should. But- in the hands of an instructor, to go screaming down the road at 110mph, stand the thing on its nose, and turn off the asphalt and drive straight up a STEEP shale incline, stop halfway up and the let the drive magic hold the thing on the hill....on hi-po road rubber- and that was just the start of the 4WD course.

I came away mightily impressed...if the cost of ownership question works out, I wouldnt think otherwise anything could touch a V8 Cayenne for capability as a road car- and certainly not a Cruiser.

Just a small point in favour of the X5 - its much bigger on the inside than a Cayenne while barely any longer outside. Big enough for a 3rd row of seats if specced with such. I have done thousands of miles in our X5 and driven my friends Cayenne from Switzerland to the UK a couple of times - both very enjoyable comfortable places to spend time when you need to haul family and gear. The diesels make much more sense in the UK/Europe and when even a base X5 like ours has 231hp and ~400lbft of tq, its no compromise.

Also worth noting that the X5 is over 200kg lighter than a Cayenne. With multilink front suspension and air suspension in the rear its a pretty tidy handling car - in my experience, the equal of the Cayenne.