I just suffered a 2004 Boxster (58K) engine failure which has all the earmarks of the IMS (still awaiting a postmortem to confirm). The IMS bearing failure is a defect which should have resulted in a recall, and people at Porsche dealers have admitted as much to me. Recalls are triggered by complaints to the NHTSA. NHTSA complaints and investigations can be researched at their website:
Vehicle Owners | Safercar -- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) . Complaints can easily be filed there. Between MY 2000 and 2010 there were only 6 IMS failures reported with std or S Boxsters: 1 in 02, 4 in 03, 1 in 04 - not enough to trigger an investigation, much less a recall. I assume this is the tip of the iceberg. If everyone with IMS failures went to that website and filed a complaint, perhaps an investigation might be triggered. The person I talked to at NHTSA, when I described the IMS failure, said "tell your friends".