SWK6Cup

Cefalu:
thankx for your take, I am still, however, going to dig out my paperwork and when permitted, submit my claim....all they can say is "no" and I lose nothing. If on the other hand PCNA "steps up", well the cost of postage might be well worth it....the fu*&%#g saga continues.

SWK6Cup

Slightly OT:
I don't get it. PCNA is about to (hopefully) settle a class action suit of a long know problem with the IMS bearings. Seems that, if you didn't suffer a catastrophic failure, you might not be entitled to recovery. So while not admitting liabiilty, they are choosing to settle as the costs of litigation are becoming a zero sum gain for them.

So, here is my OT point, the GT3 guys know damn well about coolant hose failures and documented "anecdotal" stories about CL failures. So, the best "strategery" is let the vehicle drop coolant all over the road (not track as PCNA will generally not warranty track related failures, remember the track-focus BS is only marketing) and/or suffer a cl problem (again on the road) or replace hubs every 4200 miles.......AND the new 991GT3 comes with CL's, (so there is no admitting (yet) that the CL are garbage). Let me see, risk serious problems/injury and sue PCNA, .....then they will eventually settle because the cost of ongoing litigation would most certainly outweigh the cost of continuing to fight/deny the "issue(s)". In other words, being proactive is good for piece of mind only??? WTF?????? How in the world does this make any sense. I know that the US is a litigious society that many manufacturers don't like lawyers, etc., (because their feet are held to the fire????) yet they make plenty of money selling to the largest (or one of the largest) markets. So, Porsche, GmbH or whatever their new name is, oh wait VW, keep on designing new cars and selling them over here, the more money you make will mean more money available to settle. How does this make any sense? Wouldn't a slice of humble pie, (i.e., recall) do more for the brand and marketing than hoping a few class members actually put in a claim while a large majority(????) will miss out, or by design of the settlement "class" won't be covered.

Next, and equally insane (for me) is the group of guys who would still entertain the idea of buying a GT3 (myself included)....but this really does shed a dismal light on PCNA...maybe it will be time to jump P-car ship and look at other options.......I do think this madness might be coming to an end (for me). I love my car love the heritage but I am beginning to feel between shoddy design, inability to step up to correct a known "issue" and outrageous parts prices and dealer gouging, my P-car career may be waning......I might have to wait until the new GT3/RS arrive to to make my final decision......but damn this sucks.........

944Leigh

I think the main benefit of this for owners of older models is if they have previously incurred expenses due to a failure they can submit a claim for reimbursement. If the failure occurs more than 10 years out then you're not covered.

golftime

I too am a bit confused by this settlement. First of all, it doesn't appear that my VIN is included (WP0CA29974S650302) although I would appreciate any assistance in confirming this. That said, I am also not sure what it actually means if your VIN is not included, yet your car is pre-2005. Are they saying the problem is limited to a certain production run of bearings, because if so, from everything I have read, Porsche seemed to stick in whatever bearing they had on supply at the time of production. Additionally, for those of us who haven't had the IMS upgrade done yet, if our cars have known defective bearings, it seems silly to wait for an engine failure if Porsche has acknowledged the bearing is likely to fail. By only paying after the bearing has failed, it almost seems that Porsche is waiting us out with a problem they know exists, hoping we get to 10 years or 100k miles first.

Mike J

They are not going to do a blanket payment to everyone who MAY have an issue, this is the cheapest way of putting the issue to bed - so if you have not had the issue, you are out of luck. even if you are at risk. If you have did not purchase insurance or buy it new, you only get a 25% rebate.

They are also not identifying all the cars that may have issues, the are identifying all the cars that have been identified in the lawsuit.

How do the lawyers filing the class action make their money? My guess there is a hidden premium in the payment from Porsche, so for them, it also makes sense not to trial it since that costs them more money - this way they post a threat to Porsche, and almost get to trial, and then settle and rake in the money. Good technique from their point of view.

Why does the original notice as posted have websites, dates and other info "xxx"ed?

Cheers,

Mike

Cefalu

If your VIN is not included in this class action suit, you are free to litigate with Porsche at any time, barring statutes of limitations, or whatever other legal limitation may apply.

The class action lawyers indicated in the notice posted here they are seeking a $950,000.00 fee for litigating this. They are the real winners. Really, how much time did they spend writing that complaint and developing the settlement agreement?

If your VIN is included in this suit, you will forever be barred from bringing suit over your IMSB, unless you choose to opt out.

Bottom line here, lawyers win a $950,000.00 fee, Porsche gets legal protection from any further lawsuits or claims, and Porsche owners win?

......I don't recall seeing any posts here saying "wow, thank you lawyers, I am going to be reimbursed for that engine I paid to repair.

944Leigh

The benefit of a class action is that the many people who would otherwise have no recourse may end up with something rather than nothing. Go ahead and opt out and then? You could try small claims court for up to $5,000 if you have the time and energy to figure that out and then you may or may not win. Or you could hire an attorney for thousands of dollars, again with no guarantees and probably no right to attorneys fees if you eventually won. The Class action attorneys spent a lot of time and gambled that they could get a settlement or win at trial so they deserve some premium for their efforts. The Court will review their request for reasonableness, so I, for one, say thank you to them as I might get something back for my cost of repair that I otherwise would not.

porrsha

and how do you know that? Per my earlier post, they have been able to track when and which vehicles the bad parts went into.

Cefalu

What is the basis of knowledge for your opinion?

Mike J

Because they have not included the 1999-2000 cars, nor any cars more than 10 years in service. Most of the 2001-2002 cars will be excluded, and some in 2003 depending when the deliver was made. You telling me that the 1999 and 2000 996's do not have this issue?

Tbred911

in any case this is a good precedent for anybody who may have the issue later!

spender

I'm an attorney and I've downloaded all the original documents from PACER, and will be happy to post them here. What's the best way to do this?

All key documents are about 5 MB, and all in PDF.

spender

Okay, here's a link to a ZIP of all of the files:

http://www.filedropper.com/porschesettlement

I've never used this service before, so download at your own risk, etc. etc.

Cefalu

The following paragraph was pulled from the documents posted in the link above which explains the core issue of the lawsuit. Basically, the single row design experienced failures of 4 to 10%, where the dual row design has "far less than 1%"

"Discovery and investigation establishes that Porsche adopted a single row design for the IMS in 2001. The payment of warranty and goodwill claims of owners of Porsche vehicles with this design of the IMS (all Class Vehicles) spiked up to between 4% to 8% of all such Vehicles in the United States, and 4% to 10% of all Class Vehicles in California. Warranty claims for Porsche Boxster and 911 vehicles relating to IMS issues, which had different versions of the IMS, have uniformly involved claims of far less than 1 % of such vehicles. Indeed, to date, Porsche has spent over $20,000,000 reimbursing customers for the parts and labor necessary to repair vehicles experiencing engine damage or failure as a result of the defective IMS shaft. (This entails approximately 3,100 claims granted under warranty or good will.)"

The suit requires that if you suffered a IMSB failure prior to the date of settlement agreement you will have 90 days to file your claim once the settlement agreement is finalized.

The law firm for this matter seem to be pretty experienced in class actions. Interestingly, they have represented many strippers in class action suits against strip clubs in So Cal.

Mike J

The math looks right, if we take $20,000,000/ 3100 cases == $6451 per case. Not cheap.

I think the worse part is that if you bought the car not using the dealer, you get %25. I suspect a lot of the owners have done it this way. What is the reasoning behind that segmentation, given the manufacturing defect is the same no matter what?