2022 Porsche Cayenne owner review

The Cayenne purchase was perhaps the fastest decision I’ve ever made in buying cars.
Owner: Happy Owner

After plugging away in a faraway land/island/city-state in South East Asia for the past 20-odd years, the urge to come home to roost started brewing, and the call only grew louder when international borders were sealed shut some three years ago during the pandemic. So, the decision was made for my wife and me to make plans for a permanent return home.

We would end up making multiple trips back and forth between Singapore and Sydney, shopping for white goods, house furnishings and, like any self-respecting suburbanite, we also found ourselves trawling the dealerships for the quintessential accompaniment to any home: our cars.

I’ve already written about taking delivery of the 911 Carrera GTS earlier in July 2023, so this write-up is a brief review of our earlier purchase made in 2022.

The first buy was for a 2022 Porsche Cayenne. I thought it would be prudent to be practical. Sydney is a large city, and Australia is a bigger country. I would need something with a little bit of heft, if not a smidgen of road presence, and nothing does that better than an SUV.

The Cayenne purchase was perhaps the fastest decision I’ve ever made in buying cars. We rocked up at 4:30pm, about an hour before closing time, and were assigned a rather helpful sales agent who cheerfully threw the keys in my direction and said I could take the family (I was there with the wife and our goddaughters) for a test drive.

I asked “Where?” and he said, “As long as you don’t cross state lines”. The deal was signed when we got back to the Porsche dealership at 5:30pm – Her Majesty suggested the full leather interior (over the rather tacky faux leather/plastic trimmings), and together, the girls helped to decide the colour and as usual they conspired to decide on yet another shade of silver…

A week later, I went back to the dealership and signed the contract for the 911 (that story has already been told), and with the deposit paid for both cars, we flew back to Singapore. In July 2022, my Cayenne landed, and we flew back to Sydney to collect the car. We paid for the car via bank transfer, much to the dismay of the dealership, and drove the car home.

We’ve since taken the Cayenne on long drives to the South Coast and to the Mountains, and the Cayenne has more than ably acquitted itself with distinction. Its road manners are impeccable, and the urgency with which it moves when my right foot prods the accelerator in anger can genuinely surprise me. Surefooted and with enough torque to get me into a free lane, it’s no wonder that the Cayenne is Porsche’s top-selling vehicle worldwide.

The head-up display is crisp and just the right brightness as to remain unobtrusive – although for the life of me, even after a year’s ownership, I still have not figured out a way to adjust the brightness of the damn thing without having to adjust the brightness of the entire dashboard display.

The (optional – really, Porsche? At this price point? Really?) Bose sound system is a treat and a half, playing Her Majesty’s perennial favourites by Westlife and Celine Dion, although the subwoofer does take up nearly half the free space underneath the trunk (the other half being occupied by a space-saver spare). Audiophiles have commented that the bass is over-represented, but for semi-tone-deaf plebeians like us, it’s by far and away one of the better systems ever fitted into a car – choice of songs being bleated out notwithstanding.

I did not specify the Cayenne with a sunroof – I’m not really into sunroofs, and I specifically chose the base Cayenne because it came with an honest-to-goodness standard solid item. The Cayenne S or any higher grade came with a sunroof as default. The sunroof has a thin mesh that covers the inner roof lining when closed but still lets in heat and light. Personally, I don’t wish to wear sunscreen when I’m inside the car, so thanks but no thanks, I’ll pass on the sunroof. Your mileage will obviously vary, and rightly so.

In the Cayenne, 360-degree parking cameras and Lane Change Assist come as standard equipment. Which in turn are extremely helpful for pointing and piloting this chubby little porker accurately along the narrow garage spaces that plague new homes these days, and when traversing the nightmare that’s Parramatta Road with trucks on either side!

The Cayenne has been further embellished with some of the finer accoutrements as required for a cosseting, pillowy ride: as previously mentioned, a full leather interior (for tired backsides), 14-way comfort seats as opposed to the standard eight-way or the harder 18-way Sports seats, and perhaps, most importantly, full adaptive air suspension that soothes away the potholes and magically melts away any expansion joints of a highway. It’s really quite like a magic carpet ride – all dream, no drama.

The only two drawbacks to the way the Cayenne was specified are the lack of LED Matrix headlights (Porsche’s Dynamic LED Lighting System is standard) and the lack of motorised adjustment of the steering column. Both of these issues were not available as options – ostensibly a casualty of the war in Ukraine, or so the salesperson told me.

And, if I had a chance to build a Cayenne again, I would also have specified ambient lighting as an option: the car is great to drive at night, with minimal distraction and minimally reflective surfaces inside, but when you need to look for something in a cubicle or a cubby hole, the lack of ambient lighting can be a frustrating endeavour. Thankfully, there are still the interior lights in LED to help out.

Sure, my 911 is special and I look forward to the contortionist act of sucking my belly in as I slide and squeeze myself into position every weekend, but for every other day of the week, for the IKEA runs, for the trips to Coles, the long cruises to nowhere and back, and the jaunt to the local bottle shop, nothing beats the chubby porker that is our beloved Cayenne.

Owner: Happy Owner

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