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[Tall Steve]

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[quikag]

If the size is good for y'all, the Macan GTS is one of the nicest and best driving SUV's on the market. You cannot go wrong with one.

 

[ArgentWing]

I can't really comment on any other model and I realize it's a seventeen year old car but I am thrilled with my Carrera S! Excellent reliability and tons of smiles per mile!!

 

[rdollie]

I think if you test drive both, it will become obvious that one is MUCH more engaging and better engineered than the other...and you will pay for that excellence!

 

[Rjandern]

I had the same exact thought for my wife. Got her one this fall. 2023 Macan GTS. Fun to drive. Not a ton of space. Good steering and suspension. My only driving gripe would be that it doesn't have very linear pedal feel. I was expecting better but that's probably not what they were tuning it for.

Main thing is that she absolutely loves it. Turned driving from a task into something she enjoys.

She picked out the colors (black with black rims) and interior (tan) and i picked out the performance options and the Burmeister.

 

[Matt27]

If you want to save a few bucks vs. the Macan, I just got an Alfa Stelvio for my wife.

Really stylish, drives exactly like my old Giulia (which is to say, really fun), but on a lift kit.

I think it's a nice middle ground between an XT4 and a Macan.

 

[rdollie]

I think if you test drive both, it will become obvious that one is MUCH more engaging and better engineered than the other...and you will pay for that excellence!

I will say, in my experience Porsche makes some of the absolutely finest sports coupes and their SUVs are very good buy I find the current BMW M SUVs to be a bit better performers. In this class, I'd suggest a spin in a X3M Competition.

 

[John]

My wife had a 2018 Macan GTS. We loved it but traded it this past July for a new Escalade. We had our first child at the end of 2021 and the Macan, baby, baby stuff and dog just was not working. We both miss it a lot. She loves the Escalade but it's a different machine than the Macan was. The Macan can do things you just don't expect an SUV/CUV to do. The gas pedal can be changed with a pedal commander if it really bothers you/her. The carmine red paint is beautiful. The Macan does run a staggered wheel/tire setup FYI. It's not a big deal but limits tire rotations to side by side or not at all depending what tires you run. The new engines are Audi engines so the oil leaks issues that some of the first gen's had should be of no concern. I'd get sport + because the launch control is fun.

The Stelvio suggestion is also worth test driving. We have an Alfa Giulia Quadrifoglio that I bought when it looked like I would never get a Blackwing. I had my wife drive it for a week while I detailed her Escalade when it arrived and she decided to keep it for her summer car. I had a Stelvio loaner for a day and didn't get to push it much but it wasn't a bad place to be. For the Macan GTS price a Quadrifoglio model would be the direct competitor. Alfa also has some beautiful red paint colors.

Both the GTS and Quadrifoglio make some great noises as well. Obviously they are no LT4 but they have some nice sounds for turbo sixes.

I believe the Genesis CUV thing is supposed to be highly rated as well.

 

[Exia]

The Macan is the best of the small luxury crossovers, if the price is right and you don't need the space of something bigger its a great driving luxury crossover.

That said there's a lot of crossovers out there and at that price an X3M or Stelvio Quad are comparable, however the Macan will be better then the Stelvio in most categories but you will most likely be able to get discounts on the Stelvio.

Honorable mention for the F-Pace SVR, the only small crossover with an exhaust that will make you giddy, but it is for your wife so this might not be a positive attribute (it probably is for you though)

 

[Dcrets]

+1 on BMWs. I test drove the Macan and BMW X3. Ended up with the X3m40i. Great suv and didn't pay the Porsche tax.

 

[NorCal Blackwing]

Owned a 95B.1 (first gen) Macan GTS for 4 years before selling it to replace with a new daily driver ... the Blackwing!

There was nothing wrong with the Macan per-se, it was fun to drive for a crossover.

• The handling on summer tires is supernatural. Corners flat and has more grip than you think would be possible in a car that tall and heavy.
• PDK is a great gearbox (though just not as fun as a manual). Changes rip off fast in manual and in automatic mode it almost always seems to be in the right gear.
• Storage and legroom isn't that awesome. Tight squeeze for folks 6ft or taller in the back and cargo capacity is basically equivalent to a VW Golf.
• It was dead reliable throughout my whole ownership, but I would not own one out of warranty. I didn't keep mine because the warranty ran out, and I read too many threads on Rennlist about Macan gearboxes going out and requiring a $20K+ replacement -- dealers and indies unwilling or unable to repair.
• Porsche buying experience (at least up until 2019, I don't have experience after) is amazing and there will be no jack cooper searches to figure out where your car is.

Side opinion - you should look at a specced Macan T. It has the smaller engine but in all other respects is like a GTS. I got one as a loaner and in regular city/freeway/mall driving you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference.

 

[strohw]

The primary benefit of the Macan GTS over its competitors is its steering, handling and ride comfort. If you don't necessarily want the absolute best in class for steering or handling then the product is over priced. You could also just step down to the S if you aren't optioning any of sportier options.

 

[DinoPower]

Steve,
If a USED vehicle is an option, check out the pre-refresh of the Macan. (Think you'll need to chase a 2021 model or slightly older.)
For me, I LIKED the physical buttons, plus those STILL have Apple Car Play with a touch-screen interface.
I can also vouch for the Porsche Certified Used program. It is an EXCELLENT warranty extension (it's 2 years and unlimited miles BEYOND the end of the factory warranty coverage). I bet you could find a compelling combination of a Macan GTS from 2020 / 2021--and you'll save some bucks and appeal to your wife's thriftiness all in one shot.

 

[565565]

I will say, in my experience Porsche makes some of the absolutely finest sports coupes and their SUVs are very good buy I find the current BMW M SUVs to be a bit better performers. In this class, I'd suggest a spin in a X3M Competition.

I got my wife an X3M comp. Let's be real here, most wives would be just fine with a base X3 2.0T or Macan base. The GTS or M comp part of it is for us.

Our main reason for going X3M over Macan GTS was 3 fold.

1) Rear seat space and cargo size. The Macan was noticeably tighter in the rear seat that made the rear facing child seats more of a challenge. This was her concern

2) S58 vs the porsche/audi V6. The X3M had significantly more thrust from that underrated straight 6. It is underrated and quite durable by most reports.

3) X3M was much cheaper. I'm not made of money like Tall Steve is. The Macan was probably 15k more option for option than the X3M. A well option Macan GTS is into 5BW territory.

That said the Macans definitely handle more sporty than the X3s.


Also wasn't the CT4 V Blackwing supposed to be the wife's car? Are we going to see a thread next year that you need to buy a Ram TRX for the wife because she apparently didn't like the CT4 Blackwing or the Macan GTS and you had to take one for the team and begrudgingly drive both?

 

[strohw]

The ride quality on the X3M isn't that great. I doubt most people would like it if they aren't into that kind of vehicle. I didn't mind mine but the 4BW is a MUCH better ride on our roads. The M40i though is a really good option that doesn't cost nearly as much as either and is a very well rounded product.

 

[SIX 40]

Leased this for the wife back in 2020. The lease is about to mature but we’ll probably just purchase it for $40k rather than deal with the current market. It’s the 380hp S model. Definitely not a canyon carver but it’s fun in Dynamic mode. Believe it or not it has been trouble free while we’ve had it.

 

[wschomburg]

FWIW - Nick is a straight shooter - I took his advise on buying my 911T and don't regret it. He has/had a few 911 and Macan's

 

[quikag]

After a little research and talking to Sewell BMW I'm starting to look at the X3M Comp, thanks!

Make sure you test drive it as I've read it's a harsh ride. The S58 engine is a monster though and I'm sure it's a blast. May not be comfy enough for your wife though.

 

[CaddyTrack]

I am all for it, but seriously how do you go from XT4 to X3M Comp.
There are numbers and letters and an X in both, so I see how they are comparable.

Also, have you driven the POS Cadillac XT4 - 2.0L Turbo 4-cylinder engine. I didn't like it at all as the loaner, so I parked it and drove my Accord around.
Speaking of, just get her a Pilot - you will both love it - 2023 Honda Pilot First Drive: Boxy, Rugged, and … Actually Kinda Cool?

 

[565565]

I am all for it, but seriously how do you go from XT4 to X3M Comp.
There are numbers and letters and an X in both, so I see how they are comparable.

Sensible family CUV to fire breathing performance CUV is the natural progression of things when wives trust their husband's to make sensible car choices because they don't know much about cars and think their husband does.

I previously wrote on another forum about how we originally planned to get an Acura RDX for the wife to replace her aging CRV and somehow ended up with an X3M comp. That's pretty much how these AMG, M, SVR, GTS, Quadrifolio SUV things survive, by the grace of deceived spouses.


Anyway if anyone wants a long winded explanation of how this happened for us, the post is below. This was from 1 year ago. The mystery car I alluded to was my Blackwing that came about 2 months after.
_____________________________________


Super long read/rant. Skip to end for results. Warning car buying for a woman hilarity.

My wife and I are expecting our first kid and one of the things on the list was to upgrade the cars. She was driving a 2007 (I think?) CRV that I think the first user must have abused the shit out of.

The plan was to get her the face-lifted RDX, however in todays market I guess buying a car isn’t straight forward.

She absolutely wanted a compact SUV of similar size to her CRV. That was her absolute requirement. I was planning to spend about 40 to 50k.

I first called around to dealers to see if they were willing to sell their PMC RDXs. I figured that the RDX would never be really special but at least the PMC editions would be interesting and rare for barely more money than the equivalent regular RDX. Well called around and everyone wanted 7K over sticker or so for their PMC RDXs. So that was a no go.

We planned a day to drive the RDX and the competition. The Hyundai dealer had an apt prior to the Acura dealer and likely this is where the whole plan went wrong.

The GV70 has gotten rave reviews with many people saying it’s best in segment and I guess I was curious. We drove the GV70 2.5 advance first and my wife fell in love with it. She loved everything about it. One hang up? She wanted heated rear seats. I have no idea why that was the feature that she absolutely wanted but it was. The only trim of the GV70 that had heated rear seats was the top of the line 64k model with the 3.5T and the sport diff. Another problem, the Hyundai dealer wanted 2.5k over sticker for the cars available and 1.5k over sticker for any new orders. Another problem the Hyundai dealer looked like they were just run by thugs, everyone acted like talking to us was a huge waste of their time. One upside of the pandemic is that all test drives are without the sales person and we really got to test out the tech and the car. The GV70 itself was great, drove great everything was high quality, the tech was great. However if you want certain feature like the HUD and the digital cluster or heated rear seats you had to step up to the highest model. Later I would realize this is how Genesis was dealing with the chip shortage, that only the most expensive trim would get all the tech you want.

Okay then we were off to the Acura dealership. It was a mistake to drive the GV70 first because the RDX just didn’t measure up in comparison. It felt an entire generation older. The dealership was excellent. However the RDX did have a HUD, which suddenly became a feature that my wife wanted.

Finally we swung by the Tesla show room to look at the Model Y. This is the car I was hoping to have her choose. My buddy loves his model 3. Tesla had none to drive but we sat in a couple on the show room. I didn’t mind the interior but she hated it.

One on the list I wanted to check out was the new NX but no dealer had them yet. I figured we were going to get the GV70. And that’s when we found out that pretty much the entire production for 22 was sold out and new orders would be for the 2023. In addition the top trim with the heated seats and HUD came with the sport diff that was basically exploding left and right on owners. The GV70 forum was basically filled with owners with undrivable cars waiting months for parts. So unfortunately that was off the list.

The following cars got eliminated for the following ridiculous reasons.

GLC: Her friend got one and didn’t like it as much so she didn’t want to “copy him”

Q5: Her other friend got a hybrid model and didn’t like it a lot so same reason as above

CX5: same as above

So we checked out an X3. I’ve never considered a German car because they break down all the time and are expensive to fix, but figured why not. Well surprisingly she liked the X3 alot, almost as much as the GV70. It was a 2.0t. Everything went great until we backed into the space again and realized there was no 360 camera. The issue was the chip shortage. Just like for Genesis, BMW reserved the tech features for the expensive models.

At this point we are months into the process and the new NXs have become available at dealers. We checked them out but due to high demand they weren’t doing test drives. They also wanted 5k over sticker. None of them had 360 parking cameras either. They were also not doing any new orders.

So it came down to the GV70 and the X3. Since only the loaded models have the features she wanted, the budget has ballooned to 65k or so. The BMW dealers were willing to do sticker and incentives, the Genesis dealers would finally do sticker, but the car would come in the summer. After much back and worth we decided on the X3 M40i so we would get the features we want.

Well that’s when we learned a new word. Allocations. This would become even more of an issue when it came to my new car( another thread). At the time of dealing with the BMW dealership they had an allocation, however while we were flip flopping, another customer took the allocation. No other dealers in the area had an allocation. Allocations come up maybe every month or so. However while I was calling another dealer I asked of they happened to have an allocation for an X3M. Parallel to her car buying journey I was looking for a car of my own to replace the g37x and the M3 comp X drive was on the short list, to the point I was calling around for allocations. I ultimate decided against that car but the area of getting the same drivetrain in the wife’s car for about 18k more was really tempting. I really wanted the M3 for the S58 power train because the steering and handling supposedly wasn’t anything special anyway.

So that’s how I ended up putting an order in for an X3M. I sold it to my wife as “it’s like the car you wanted with the engine of the car I wanted.” I always thought these high performance SUVs were the dumbest things ever and why would anyone not just get the sedan. Now I understand, it’s basically to trick your wife.

The car arrived in 6 weeks. I got 2 grand off in incentives. I’m sure it will depreciate like a stone and will probably break down a ton. But I figure life is short and why not tool around in a 500hp compact SUV.

We are still in break in miles but so far we love it. The tech is amazing, everything is solid, and the power train is great. I was worried about the ride being super super stiff but the face lifted LCI models have improved that. We also won the tire lottery and the car was delivered with PS4s tires instead of the more common conti tires. I’ll update once we get more miles on it.