ouch...

[Overdrive]

Always take stats with a grain of salt.

Porsche's customer base is also much smaller than say, Toyota, so you can expect more extreme fluctuations in satisfaction, and problems to take a bigger hit on quality standings.

The Cayenne is a dolled-up VW Touareg...expect typical VW issues.

And in my rather outspoken (at the moment) opinion, every car maker's quality has gone to crap in the last 15 years. Cost cutting and only designing something to the point of functioning is what everyone is doing these days, save the high 6 and 7 figure price tag boutique manufacturers (and even then). We all know that car making has turned into designing parts to have a shorter lifespan for more frequent replacements, and lately it's gone a step further in making components as assemblies. So you can't just buy that one switch, you have to buy the whole cluster that's been built as one replaceable unit. I understand it from a business standpoint, but as a screwed consumer, it's not pleasing.

So I'm not saying Porsche is a saint in any of this. On the contrary, they took their cost-cutting advice from Toyota and ran with it, and it's only going to get worse with VW pulling the strings. The prestige of the name is still there, but when you're basically looking at a rebadged VW SUV, you get what you pay for, AND you have to add a $30,000.00 premium on top for sheetmetal and badges.

Also keep in mind that in an effort to save weight, things aren't going to sound as solid because they're not. It doesn't give you that feeling of quality like a solid door close without window rattles and tinny sounds, but if it were built like an old 911 and stuffed with airbags, I think the Boxster would easily weight at least another 500lbs, and no one wants that.