Porsche zahlt 92.000 EUR Schadensersatz

Good news for drivers of Porsche Cayenne 4.2l Diesel EU5.

The Cologne Regional Court upheld the claim of a Porsche driver. The plaintiff will receive a sum of approx. 92,000 euros.

The court sentenced the Porsche AG to refund the purchase price less compensation for use and to take back the defective vehicle.

The engine of the Porsche Cayenne Diesel 4.2l, which was initially leased in September 2013 and then purchased in September 2017, is called EA 897 and was recalled by the Federal Motor Transport Authority due to the use of an illegal defeat device. Here, too, those affected were asked to take their car to the workshop to have a software update installed.

Unauthorized switch-off device in the Porsche Cayenne: warm-up strategy

The Cologne Regional Court ruled that a reasonable buyer, as well as a lessee, may assume that a car purchased or leased by him is registrable.

This includes ensuring that the type approval required for the vehicle was not obtained through deception.

According to the assessment of the Federal Motor Transport Authority, the engine control software implemented in the engine put into circulation by Porsche AG contains an inadmissible shutdown device, namely a warm-up strategy. This only starts when the NEDC test bench procedure is run. It is not activated in real road traffic.
The decisive factor for the classification as an inadmissible defeat device is the fact that the effectiveness of the emission control system is reduced in normal driving conditions compared to the test bench behaviour, without any of the exceptions listed in EC Regulation No 715/2007 being applicable.

The exhaust emissions values determined on the test bench are not usually achieved in real road traffic. However, vehicle owners can legitimately expect that this deviation will not be increased by the use of manipulation software. The damaging act of implementing an illegal switch-off device in an engine control system lies precisely in the fact that vehicles are brought onto the road in a state in which the illegal switch-off device deprives the test bench procedure of its significance in relation to the real driving of the vehicle. This means that the state control of exhaust emissions limits, which is already limited by the restriction to test bench values, loses its effectiveness.

Even the implementation of a software update developed by Porsche AG does not change the legal assessment

The court judged Porsche AG's conduct to be intentionally immoral. Porsche's deception served the purpose of avoiding legally and technically sound but more expensive solutions for exhaust gas purification in order to reduce costs (and possibly avoid technical problems) and to gain a competitive advantage with the help of the apparently environmentally friendly test bench values. This pursuit of profit at the price of deliberately deceiving and disadvantaging customers gives the action the character of immorality.