Porsche Cayenne S 2024 Review

The answer to this question depends very much on what you’d like your 2024 Porsche Cayenne S to look like and your level of willpower when presented with the excellent Porsche online configurator.

Pricing starts at $179,500 plus on-road costs for the wagon, with the sleeker Coupe body style commanding a $9000 premium. However, our fairly nondescript grey-with-black-wheels test car cost $233,780 plus ORCs with options and you can spend a lot more than that.

Other premium SUVs swimming in the same pond are the Audi SQ7 ($171,900 plus ORCs), BMW X5 M60i ($172,900 plus ORCs), Mercedes-AMG GLE 53 ($179,900 plus ORCs) and Range Rover Sport P400 Dynamic HSE ($172,850 plus ORCs).

The good news is that a lot of the extra spend on our test 2024 Porsche Cayenne S is cosmetic: $5000 for the ‘Crayon’ paint, $7630 for the 21-inch RS Spyder wheels, $7720 for tinted lights front and rear, the list goes on.

Thankfully, a couple of very nice metallic colours are no-cost options (you can choose from eight in total without charge) but only the standard 20-inch wheels are ‘free’.

Before moving on, one option buried in the configurator worth mentioning is the Porsche Sport Design package, which not only gives the new Cayenne a much more attractive front (in this reviewer’s opinion) but also colour matches the various body add-ons instead of leaving them black. You may not like it, but check it out just in case.

You could make a case that various optional equipment could and should be standard at this price point, such as the $1140 heated sports steering wheel, $850 ambient lighting, $600 Porsche logo courtesy lights at $1560 active lane-keeping assist.

However, if customers are willing to pay the extra, it’s smart business by Porsche and will play a key role in CEO Oliver Blume’s mission to get profit margins to 20 per cent.

In standard guise the Cayenne is still well equipped, though, with keyless entry and start, dual-zone climate control, air suspension, matrix LED headlights, panoramic glass roof, 14-way electrically adjustable front seats with heating and ventilation, electric tailgate and more.

It’s just that if you want to have some extra niceties or add your own personal touches, the cost will spiral quickly.

Running costs aren’t a Cayenne strong suit, either. The standard warranty is three years or unlimited kilometres, though this can be extended for extra cost, and thanks to an $895 annual oil change and $1500 biennial inspection, as well as various fluid and filter changes, servicing will be almost $10,000 over the first five years.

There’s no official safety rating for the new Cayenne, its predecessor’s 2017 Euro NCAP rating having expired, which wasn’t carried over by ANCAP anyway.

There’s little reason to doubt its safety credentials, however, as there are airbags galore and all the active safety equipment you could expect, bar that optional active lane-keeping assist system that, dare we say it, we probably wouldn’t miss?

Ahead of the driver the 2024 Porsche Cayenne S lifts plenty from its Taycan electric cousin, with the curved instrument display, start-stop button and gear selector replacing the traditional embedded key and central gear shifter.

There’s also a head-up display with basic information and adjusting the various elements – whether it be the instrument display or the HUD – is as easy as you’ll find in any car with a button on the steering wheel toggling between each and a small wheel changing what’s shown.

Left of this is a giant widescreen display with wireless smartphone mirroring, gesture and voice control, digital radio, embedded satellite-navigation, Porsche Connect app functionality and the ability to stream audio or video from a variety of services. This all plays through a Bose surround sound stereo.

For an extra $2860 another widescreen display is fitted ahead of the passenger with functionality that more or less mirrors that of the central unit. There’s the ability to play with the navigation or music settings, but the video streaming will be useful on long road trips, the screen appearing black from the driver’s viewpoint to prevent distraction.

The screens are high resolution and responsive, with frequently used functions easily accessed. Aiding this is the relocated gear lever allowing space for plenty of physical buttons, but more on that later.

Here we get to the crux of the matter. It’s 2.9-litre twin-turbo V6 out – admittedly a fantastic engine the previous Cayenne S shared with the Audi RS 4 – and 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 in.

Outputs increase to 349kW/600Nm through an eight-speed automatic transmission and all-wheel drive, but the 0-100km/h time might not be as quick as you’re expecting at 5.0sec.

Top speed is 273km/h, but you’ll struggle to hit that in Australia unless you own a very long runway.

Unsurprisingly, upping the cylinder count and the outputs hasn’t done the fuel consumption too many favours. The claimed combined thirst is 12.3L/100km and if such a figure worries you, this probably isn’t the car for you.

However, if you still want a Porsche SUV, the Cayenne S E-Hybrid is a fraction cheaper ($178,300 plus ORCs), a tick faster (0-100km/h 4.9sec) and much more frugal, though its plug-in hybrid system means the 1.9L/100km official consumption claim is misleading.

The decision to return the 2024 Porsche Cayenne S to V8 power is justified with one push of the starter button. It erupts with a savage growl and settles into an aggressive idle and it’s easy to imagine plenty of prospective buyers signing on the dotted line there and then.

It is almost too much of a good thing, however. It is extraordinarily loud on start-up, to the point that if you’re loading kids into the back seats or luggage into the rear with the car on – to cool the cabin, for instance – it’s quite uncomfortable.

This is a small price to pay, though, for an engine that gives the new Cayenne S so much character in all driving scenarios, whether it’s burbling away in the background on light throttle or snarling under full acceleration. Porsche has managed to keep the pops and bangs alive on the overrun, too.

There was nothing wrong with the previous Cayenne S’s V6. It was a great engine and it was a wonderful thing to drive, but the new car has an aggression that is guaranteed to make any enthusiast smile. Whether any non-enthusiasts in the family will appreciate it to the same degree is less clear.

The new Cayenne S also isn’t a particularly fast car. Yes, it’s plenty quick, but no more so than the likes of a Honda Civic Type R or Volkswagen Golf R. However, this is almost of benefit as pulling onto the freeway you can enjoy the noise for longer, rather than in the berserk Cayenne Turbo GT, for instance, which gets to licence-losing speeds in a flash.

In general, the Cayenne’s eight-speed auto works fine, but does have the tendency to jerk and hesitate in some scenarios. Its behaviour that isn’t necessarily out of place for a dual-clutch unit, but for a traditional auto to do it is both unusual and unwelcome.

Other than that there really is very little to complain about with the way the Cayenne goes about its business. The standard air suspension gives it wonderful ride quality yet in Sport it can handle as well as any SUV you care to name.

We’d save the $6870 for the adaptive chassis control, though; it may make the Cayenne a fraction faster around a track (and there is an onboard lap timer) but cars that don’t body roll feel weird.

Theoretically, yes. The standard air suspension gives the 2024 Porsche Cayenne S up to 238mm of ground clearance in its off-road mode, which also improves approach, departure and ramp-over angles, and the clever all-wheel drive system and traction control will get you out of plenty of sticky situations.

The trouble is tyres. Finding off-road suitable rubber in a 20-inch size isn’t super easy and smaller wheels won’t fit over the monster brakes, so really the Cayenne’s all-terrain ability is going to be of most use in the snow.

An underrated, or at least often overlooked, feature of the 2024 Porsche Cayenne S is its 3500kg maximum tow rating, matching all the rugged dual-cabs and the likes of the Toyota LandCruiser and Nissan Patrol.

That makes it caravan-capable, as well as being able to handle boats and trailers and race cars and all sorts.

The interior is arguably the most impressive feature of the 2024 Porsche Cayenne S. Especially with optioned this is an expensive car but it feels expensive, especially with $8170 of two-tone smooth-finish leather applied.

Leather is everywhere, it’s very comfortable, the seating position is excellent and widely adjustable, it feels well put together, there’s ample space in the second row and a sizeable 745L boot. It should swallow a family and associated paraphernalia with few issues.

Up front it’s a lovely place to spend time, there are quite a few cubby holes for storage but the highlight is probably its ease of use.

As mentioned earlier, moving the gear selector to the dash frees up space in the centre console for a control panel. Rather than having to jam everything into the touch-screen, functions you use on every drive like temperature or fan or heated seats or volume or recirculation are all just a click away.

We frequently mention this in reviews and this is a textbook example of how to get it right. Having these physical controls may only save a couple of seconds but it makes the car feel so much easier to live with.

If you’re more worried about having a quality vehicle than the price tag associated with it – and chances are if you’re looking at a 2024 Porsche Cayenne S you are – then this should be very, very high on your list.

Porsche has done a great job with the new Cayenne, which brings a fantastic interior, really well-integrated technology and the excellent dynamics the brand and model is renowned for.

As for the new S, it’s almost like an enthusiast litmus test. Compared to the model it replaces, why would you want it to be thirstier, noisier and no quicker? Because it’s wonderful.

2024 Porsche Cayenne S at a glance:
Price: $179,500 (plus on-road costs)
Available: Now
Engine: 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 petrol
Output: 349kW/600Nm
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Fuel: 12.3L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 281g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety rating: Unrated