Ouch, IMS failure on Ebay

[Perfectlap]

You can easily make a nice trip out of a few days in Hot Lanta. the best would be to schedule it around the NASACR race or the Petit Le Mans race at Road Atlanta.
Then you have all those restaraunts. I had to spend three months there one year and put on....30 pounds! Altanta doesn't have much of a night life but I think it has arguably the best eateries in the country for the money. From Fat Mack's Rib Shack to Asian fusion place like Fuse Box to steak places like Chops to first rate Italian (yes Italian) like Pricci. Drop the car off on a Wednesday, see the races on the weekend, drive the Boxster home on a Monday.

hmmm....new suspension or engine insurance...

Originally Posted by Jake Raby

1500 miles is one day via a shipper of vehicles.. And if the car is shipped no GA sales tax applies :-)

I've been at my current location for the last 34 years, and will not be moving :-)

Unless you're paying for Fedex Custom Critical I can't even begin to imagine how you'd move a car 1500 miles in one day??? 1500 miles for us has always been close to a week!

[Jaxonalden]

Try Laser Ship, https://www.lasership.com/LaserShip/serviceOvernight.php. I use them all the time to move jet engines halfway across the county in less than 24 hours, they're the best.

Seems like they're on the same level as Fedex Custom Critical. Don't think too many guys are shipping cars like that

[pteam]

Has there seriously not been a class action lawsuit against porsche for this? I mean tens of thousands of engine failures ovbiously means a major flaw in the design...

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.

[Jake Raby]

A gavel won't solve this problem... I am contacted often by those who want to take this issue to court, and I refuse to work with them.

Energy is much better exerted creating solutions to the issues rather than ********************ing and moaning about them....


Now that the IMSR is available, people have a course of preventive measure to guard against the issues.. It took us years to work out, but we have perfected it in a short time while working with LN Engineering.

[Perfectlap]

If a high profile enough attorney went after Porsche for this they could force some manner of "master settlement agreement" like the kind that occurred in the Tobacco industry. Everyone said that could never happen in a million years and sure enough Tobacco coughed up $50 billion. Granted bigger numbers were at stake so they thought the case was well worth the fight but still an extraordinary uphill battle since Tobacco had never in its history settled for even a dime. This IMS issue would be a heck of a lot easier.
In the end you don't really need to win the case just create enough bad press that the higher ups decide at a time of low auto sales fighting it would cost them more than addressing the problem on a very small number of cars when you compare Porsche to other auto makers. Also, settlements aren't just limited to cash payouts, they can take any number of forms. Porsche could be forced to provide service and parts instead of paying out cash damages (or sub this work out to indy shops to cut costs). Right now lawyers are starving for work, this being the first time maybe ever that big firms have had to layoff attorneys. Partners are having to take cases they never in a million years thought they would need to take.

If I were a deep-pocketed lawyer fresh off the heels of a big recovery I would definitely think about running an ad in Excellence to go fishing for a class. I'm sure there's a few lawyers out there who own a Porsche or two and would find this case intriguing.

[blinkwatt]

From Dave! on Rennlist;

Here's a youtube clip of an IMS dying--you can hear it come in a little after 1:00 while the engine still has power, but who knows if the engine was already toast at that point. Pretty low quality audio so the sound was probably noticeable sooner.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BQ5XAIzNVA

It's kind of painful to watch because you hear the sound come in and he keeps on going and you just know and oh god oh god why isn't he turning the engine off CLACK clunk clunk clunk clunk... ****************.

[Frodo]

Originally Posted by Perfectlap

If a high profile enough attorney went after Porsche for this they could force some manner of "master settlement agreement" like the kind that occurred in the Tobacco industry. Everyone said that could never happen in a million years and sure enough Tobacco coughed up $50 billion. Granted bigger numbers were at stake so they thought the case was well worth the fight but still an extraordinary uphill battle since Tobacco had never in its history settled for even a dime. This IMS issue would be a heck of a lot easier.
In the end you don't really need to win the case just create enough bad press that the higher ups decide at a time of low auto sales fighting it would cost them more than addressing the problem on a very small number of cars when you compare Porsche to other auto makers. Also, settlements aren't just limited to cash payouts, they can take any number of forms. Porsche could be forced to provide service and parts instead of paying out cash damages (or sub this work out to indy shops to cut costs). Right now lawyers are starving for work, this being the first time maybe ever that big firms have had to layoff attorneys. Partners are having to take cases they never in a million years thought they would need to take.

If I were a deep-pocketed lawyer fresh off the heels of a big recovery I would definitely think about running an ad in Excellence to go fishing for a class. I'm sure there's a few lawyers out there who own a Porsche or two and would find this case intriguing.

Agreed.

There are such things as Rules of Discovery associated with civil suits. Assuming a court was presented with sufficient evidence that a significant enough number of Porsche owners are having the exact same kind of catastrophic engine failure, I could definitely see a judge requiring the company to come forth with pertinent documentation on the matter. It could take a long time, granted. Porsche no doubt has some highly talented lawyers working for them.

There are warranties beyond what’s in writing. Bottom line would be whether a relatively expensive automobile that only runs for a few tens of thousands of miles before dying an ugly death, mechanically speaking, meets the standard of an implied warranty of merchantability that a car company should be held to. With Japanese cars running hundreds of thousands of miles without enormously expensive failures occurring, I suspect a good lawyer could make the case that it does not.

[mptoledo]

Albeit the majority of all cases are settled before a jury trial, I'd hate to think what the average juror would think about us "snobbish" porsche owners crying about something that may or may not be wrong with our cars(especially in this economy). Remember, the average juror is the one isn't clever enough to get out of jury duty. Unless you would be able to present your case in front of a panel or have a single judge hear it. Hell, maybe he has a porsche.

I think the correct angle would be to make porsche real uncomfortable about releasing all the compiled data they have on the IMS and maybe other failures. Its a slim chance, but they may be forced to do a recall/repair in lieu of tarnishing their sacred name. Unfortunately it isn't a life threatening problem, per se, like the Pinto was. Its a numbers game to them, how much would it cost to repair against how much it would cost litigate against!! Boy it's great to feel loved!

[Perfectlap]

^minor point: most civil cases are not settled. Most are either dismissed or dropped by the plaintiff without a settlement offer--they simply cut their losses and move on. From what I've been told by corporate lawyers I know and deal with, probably less than a quarter (roughly speaking) of all cases filed result in the plaintiff getting any money and the number of plaintiffs who win at trial are probably in the single digits. and even then the plaintiff often has to settle with the defendant to avoid a long drawn out appeals process. You have to have a very strong case to stay alive. Probably why the average plaintiffs lawyer earns about what the average electrician makes.

Didn't realize that this thread was about the same car a customer of ours just purchased. It arrived via transport at our facility today. It will be getting a 3.8 liter LN Engineering updated engine and rebuilt gearbox with Guard LSD and should be an absolute rocket.

[jmatta]

The car will live on in grand glory!

I'm starting to think more and more about the IMS update, just to protect my engine long term. Even though the car has only 17k miles, it is not driven that frequently; but when driven, driven fairly hard and to a good operating temperature.

[gschotland]

My '02 S w/68k miles has a "date" with Jake Raby next monday, 10/12, for a clutch and IMS retrofit. I'll let everyone know how it goes.

[Jake Raby]

Originally Posted by gschotland

My '02 S w/68k miles has a "date" with Jake Raby next monday, 10/12, for a clutch and IMS retrofit. I'll let everyone know how it goes.

Yep!! We have the shop ready for you and your Boxster... Just finished up another IMS retrofit and shipped the car back to Texas today...

See you soon!

[Frodo]

Originally Posted by gschotland

My '02 S w/68k miles has a "date" with Jake Raby next monday, 10/12, for a clutch and IMS retrofit. I'll let everyone know how it goes.

Did you drive your Box down there, or ship it? If the latter (if you don't mind me asking), what did they charge, and who shipped it?

[Jake Raby]

Originally Posted by Frodo

Did you drive your Box down there, or ship it? If the latter (if you don't mind me asking), what did they charge, and who shipped it?

Gary is driving down, dropping off the car on Monday then going home Wednesday after we complete the work and test the engine..

Lots of people are choosing this alternative instead of shipping, especially with our area being so beautiful this time of year!

Shipping cars isn't really a big deal, especially in this economy. Given the fact that most car haulers are hungry for work, it's extremely affordable right now. We have plenty of cars that show up and leave on transports.

We're going to have several cars coming and going this winter for IMS updates.

[Jake Raby]

Shipping isn't that big of a deal... BUT some people would rather make a trip of it and see the facility/ meet us and etc.