Autoweek Words on IMS

[Trey T]

We can all agree that, for a very long time, Porsche made a huge mistake of using a roller bearing on the IMS. As someone pointed out to me from this forum that the new 9A1 engine does NOT have IMS; they completely deleted it. This drastic design change made me to believe that they made a serious mistake of using the IMS over decades. Porsche saw the problem and was trying to remedy the bearing problem and I believe the best solution is to delete the IMS to avoid using the roller bearing.

The bottom line to the IMS issue is the pride of a company, there's no question in anybody's mind that placing an intermediate shaft b/t the crank and cams was not the best idea; it maybe a very good idea but not the best! Although Porsche had many reason to use IMS as part of their engine design but overall as a product, it's a bad design when you have catastrophic failure. Porsche should at least honor recalls on engine with 100K miles or less. No company out there with sport cars that I've seen in the last two decades have engine fail like this.

Recalls are recall, it should not factor in the level of efforts required to fix/repair/replace it. Look at the top car maker in the world, Toyota, and they have hundreds of TSB and recalls in the last few decades across Lexus, Scion, and Toyota. They address big and small things.

Originally Posted by nieuwhzn

Considering the serious consequences of an IMS failure this should warrant a recall. However, a recall means that Porsche should have a solution for the problem, which they don't. They have responded to the class lawsuit by offering a 'reasonable solution' that severely limits their responsibilities, which makes it possible for them to make it legally through the lawsuit but also limits their damages. Keep in mind that even when they would have a solution that this would cost at least $1,000 per recalled car, that quickly adds up to a couple of hundred million bucks.
If we would assume that they would be so nice to replace any engine that has had an IMS failure then this would still add up to a couple of tens of millions of dollars. So, if you would be the boss of Porsche, what would you do?

Note that I'm not defending Porsche, I think they are handling this in a despicable way, but that's what you get when bean counters run the show.