Porsche M46 V6

Porsche's own V6, and the first thing to establish about it is that it is not a Volkswagen Group engine — the naturally aspirated 3.6 is the M48 V8 with two cylinders removed. That matters because the same cars, in the same years, were also sold with Audi V6s that share nothing with it.

Three engines sit under the designation and no single displacement or aspiration describes them: the naturally aspirated 3.6 in the base Panamera 970, and the twin-turbocharged 3.0 and 3.6 in the Macan S and Macan Turbo and, from the 958 facelift, the Cayenne S and GTS. A fact about "the Macan's V6" is almost always a fact about one of them.

A Macan is this engine or an Audi EA839 depending on which side of the 2019 facelift it sits, and the two are unrelated — different turbocharger arrangement, different cooling layout, different parts. Establishing which one is in front of you is worth more than any other opening step. The 3.0 V6 diesel sold alongside them is a third engine again, Volkswagen's EA897 under the Porsche index MCT.BA, and nothing on this page applies to it.

What the family itself brings is ordinary for a direct-injected V6 in a heavy vehicle, with one emphasis. Intake-valve carbon accumulates at mileage. The cooling system carries a great deal of duty, and coolant pipes and the thermostat housing fail often enough that an intermittent temperature complaint deserves a pressure test rather than a top-up. On the twin-turbocharged versions the turbochargers and their oil feeds sit where the heat is worst, so oil condition matters more than the service interval suggests.