are there any lawyers on this forum?

[jgatsby57]

Non-practicing lawyer here (got out while the gettin' was good);

The best answer I learned after $100k of law school was: "it depends."

From what I recall, a class would have to find some common defect in the engine that all members of the class share.

I also strongly agree with my man 23109VC's comments about a jury.

Reading this thread got me thinking about crap I haven't thought about for a while. Any other attorneys here remember that case from torts class about the guy that sued BMW over a paint job or something?

[LoveBunny]

After taking an arbitration yesterday, I am wondering if I, as a court reporter, can sue all of the members of the bar that I have ever worked with on the grounds that they are collectively driving me insane. Maybe I could start a class of all court reporters who are nuts.

[Frodo]

Quote:

"Actually, I didn't take down the video depo. It was already a deposition with a transcript that had been made, so I just sat there and played solitaire on my computer for two hours. I couldn't get away with a nap."

Posted by LoveBunny.

LB, for just such occasions you need to get yourself some of those eyeglasses that have the open eyes painted on the outside of the lenses.

Quote:

"After taking an arbitration yesterday, I am wondering if I, as a court reporter, can sue all of the members of the bar that I have ever worked with on the grounds that they are collectively driving me insane. Maybe I could start a class of all court reporters who are nuts. "

Posted by LoveBunny.

I think you lose on that one LB, under the old 'assumption of risk' theory. Working with lawyers day in and day out, what else can you reasonably expect?

[schnellman]

I worked as a free lance court reporter in Texas for ten years. There the reporter owns the transcript. It always pissed me off when lawyers made copies for their clients, for the appeals courts, for anybody they damn well pleased. Since the courts are run by and for attorney's I never felt I'd get very far with a law suit.

[thstone]

With about 225,000 Boxsters/Cayman's sold, my guess is that the IMS failure rate is somewhere around ~2%.

This is based on about 2,000 L&N IMS replacements sold to date (all assumed to be out of warranty repairs) and probably an equal number of warranty engine replacements for IMS failure.

Of course, not all L&N IMS replacements were failures, some were preventative replacements while replacing the clutch, but I am making an assumption that for every preventiative IMS replacement there is someone who simply replaced their IMS failed engine with a stock donor engine without any IMS upgrade.

Also, I haven't read any thing that would indicate that higher milage cars suffer a higher rate of IMS failures - if anything, the anectdotal postings indicate the opposite. This implies that failures are essentially random and that mileage is not a key factor (they will be evenly distributed in mileage). Thus, I am able to assume an equal number of failures occurs both under and out of warranty.

Any failure rate larger than 2-3% (for instance a 5% failure rate would be over 11,000 engine failures) just seems too big to ignore. In that case, we'd have owners crawling all over the internet looking for replacement engines and literally thousands and thousands of Boxsters flooding Craigslist and eBay with blown engines for sale. And I just don't see that, e.g., my search of eBay two days ago only found one Boxster with a IMS blown engine for sale.

Just my own back of the envelope estimates and assumtions. Would welcome to hear from anyone with some other ideas or numbers.

[mikefocke]

Originally Posted by thstone

With about 225,000 Boxsters/Cayman's sold, my guess is that the IMS failure rate is somewhere around ~2%.

This is based on about 2,000 L&N IMS replacements sold to date (all assumed to be out of warranty repairs) and probably an equal number of warranty engine replacements for IMS failure.

Of course, not all L&N IMS replacements were failures, some were preventative replacements while replacing the clutch, but I am making an assumption that for every preventiative IMS replacement there is someone who simply replaced their IMS failed engine with a stock donor engine without any IMS upgrade.

...

Just my own back of the envelope estimates and assumtions. Would welcome to hear from anyone with some other ideas or numbers.

Can really be supported because the assumptions are just that. No one but Porsche knows how many engine swaps and for what cause there have been. Enough so the IMS was redesigned twice and, if it was working perfectly, they wouldn't have. But to pluck some figure for engine replacements out of the air is to me a SWAG.

My own guess is the number that will fail over the car's lifetime is higher than your 2% but that is just because the car is so nice people try to extend the life of the car beyond what is normal. Another factor to consider is the treatment these cars now get as people buy them for less than $10k and may or may not maintain them as the original owner/aficionados did. That should increase the failure rate for whatever reasons they fail (and there are at least 21 known reasons that have been identified so far). Not to mention that so many are stored for long periods which is hard on lubricated parts.

But all cars fail...I'm going to take mine out for a spin in 15 minutes. I have my choice of 4 cars, it will get chosen.

[thstone]

Originally Posted by mikefocke

I'm not sure that your conclusions can really be supported because the assumptions are just that.

@Mike - You are absolutely correct. I had to make several assumptions to come up with my estimate of ~2% and those assumtions could be incorrect. I wish that we all had more info to confirm the correct failure rate.

And this in no way is meant to downplay or minimize the heartfelt agony or financial impact that having an unplanned IMS failure can be. Its huge and I recognize that.