Car magazines love to talk up models that aren’t out. If you’re in no hurry wait for the Porsche (or buy a cheaper Audi), but it may well be another Panamera. The Cayenne is closely related to the VW Touareg and less closely to the Audi Q7, neither very good.
Consumer Reports flat out anointed the Lexus RX family as the most reliable luxury SUVs by far. Of course that’s probably because it is comparatively simple and shares a lot of mechanical bits with the big family of Toyota products that include the Camry, Avalon, Venza, Highlander, and Lexus ES (and others, no doubt). There isn’t a poorly made car in that bunch, and most are at the top of their classes. Alas, the RX doesn’t feel all that luxurious inside, and the glitzy exterior styling doesn’t appeal to me, but it’s OK. The Toyota Venza has always seemed about equally luxurious and I like it’s mid-height true crossover configuration. It is more like a raised wagon than a truck. As with all of its relatives, reliability is good.
The other Japanese luxury SUVs generally do well, too, with the Acura RDX another good one that is only sort of luxurious, but very practical and comparatively inexpensive. The Infiniti EX37 has also had a fine reliability record and feels more luxurious to me. It’s a tweener, higher than a car but lower than most SUVs, a great height for sliding right into Also a lot less roomy in back, but a fine size for two and their stuff, with the back seat also fine for adults on shorter trips or for kids. Infiniti is in the process of renaming all their vehicles, so who knows what they’ll end up calling it. It’s due for a redesign so they may keep the EX37 name for now.
Of the Europeans, the BMW X1 and X3 also do OK, as does the Mercedes GLK. The sportier variants tend to have more problems than the base models, most of which have ample performance even with their small engines. The Audi Q5 looks to be improving, but I’d still be concerned about durability. Audi doesn’t have a great history of that, though CR praises the current model lineup.
CR rates a model’s reliability over the last three years or so. If you look at most European makes they start out well, but the older models often have problems. That doesn’t mean the newer models will, too, but the basic pattern has been true for a long time. If you don’t drive much or don’t plan on keeping the car for long they can be very reliable. Just don’t expect great durability. They have too many parts compared to a Japanese model, many of them electrical that fail on awkward ways.