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There haven't been "tens of thousands" of failures. Only Porsche knows the true number of failures, and they won't disclose that information for a multitude of reasons, but most estimates by people in the aftermarket with reasonably good information put the number at 1-3% of all M96 powered Carrera and Boxster cars. That is certainly a high percentage, as a modern engine design should be well under 1%, but the problem in creating a class action suit over this is the fact that a good percentage of those who had failures had theirs covered under warranty, during the warranty period. Obviously that group of owners are not in a position to sue anyone. The other group of owners, who had cars fail outside of warranty, are well, outside of warranty. In the past there seemed to be some evidence to support the notion that the only cars that failed were those that weren't driven, however now that we're seeing more cars reach higher mileages and that are failing, there is less to support that position. We all agree that Porsche's choice of a sealed ball bearing to support the rear of the intermediate shaft was not the best idea. However, from a basic legal standpoint, Porsche is not required to provide you anything once the warranty has expired.
To go after Porsche with a successful class action suit, one would need to find some really damning evidence that would show that Porsche was aware of this design defect, that the defect could be fixed, and that Porsche neglected to do so. Working on the assumption that this is the case, the only place that information could be obtained is likely from inside Porsche. So, unless someone working for our cause is either a professional spy, or has a very good friend who works in Stuttgart and is willing to put his job on the line (and likely be both criminally prosecuted and civilly sued himself if caught), we're never going to see that documentation.
In one of the largest settlements in the auto industry, Ford paid out significantly when sued over the Pinto. The damning evidence in the case was that Ford was aware of the safety problems with the car, and had actually asked the legal and accounting departments to run numbers to determine if it was cheaper to do a recall or to risk possible future litigation. They determined that even if sued, the expected settlement (s) would still be cheaper than fixing the actual problem on tens of thousands of cars. That information sealed Ford's fate in that case, but obtaining similar information against Porsche, in modern times, is likely impossible.
In Porsche's legal defense, they may claim that there was nothing that could be done short of completely redesigning the engine, and that that effort had been in the works for the last 10 years with the result being the Series 2 engines. It would also be very difficult to get a jury to have any sympathy for a Porsche owner who had to spend some money on vehicle maintenance (which is exactly how their defense would spin it).
Class action suits are long, expensive propositions, with the typical outcome being that that law firm who started it makes several million, and everyone else gets a check ranging from $4.32 to $431.39.
To everyone who has suffered an engine failure in these cars, it is a terrible thing that in most cases, should have never happened. To those who have not, we recommend the LN Engineering IMS update.
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