A Washington judge has cleared the way for buyers of trucks with Environmental Protection Agency 2021 model year MX-13 engines to proceed to trial with a class-action suit against Paccar.
As reported by Overdrive sister publication TPS' Beth Colvin, 31 customers who say they purchased Kenworth or Peterbilt trucks with the EPA 2021 MX-13 diesel engine filed an amended claim earlier this year alleging the trucks they purchased had defective fuel systems that led to repeated breakdowns and months of downtime. The lawsuit originated in December 2023.
The plaintiffs seek a judgement that:
- Orders Paccar to notify members of the class of the defect
- Awards class members any permissible damages
- Orders Paccar to pay for any future repairs to the fuel injectors of the class members trucks until the injector design is proven to be a permanent fix
The suit alleges that Paccar knew or should have known about defects in the fuel system and did not reveal the information to its customers. Additionally, once the issues became apparent, the lawsuit alleges that Paccar continued to install defective engines without a permanent fix to the problem.
"Even more unconscionable was Paccar's effort to limit its customers' remedy to repeated and ineffective repairs while simultaneously ignoring the crippling effects these failures have on its customers' operations," the amended complaint says. "Multiple class members have been driven to financial ruin by this issue and the resale value of affected trucks has diminished dramatically. Truck dealers don't want them on their lots because no one wants to buy them except at a drastically reduced price due to their diminished usefulness."
[Related: Buy now? Truck prices on the way up with EPA 2027 emissions]
The complaint goes on to allege that some customers reported a 60% devaluation in the trucks based on buyback offers from the dealers they bought the trucks from new.
While technicians and others in the field pointed the finger at failing fuel injectors, the suit added, Paccar instead investigated a link between the failures and certain fuel additives and environmental factors. That notion was refuted in the complaint with an excerpt of a statement from Paccar Chief Technology Officer John Rich, who dispelled the notion that “bad fuel” was to blame for the problems.
According to RigDig (owned by Fusable, parent company of Overdrive), there are about 14,000 active trucks with an MX-13 engine from model years 2021-2023, when Paccar was using the EPA 2021 hardware.
In its rebuttal to the complaint, Paccar claimed the Clean Air Act, which covers the fuel system as part of emissions control, preempts the plaintiffs' claims the company breached its warranty and that by replacing the fuel injectors at no cost to the plaintiffs, it in fact honored its warranty. The judge shot down this argument, clearing the way for trial.
"Plaintiffs plausibly plead an engine warranty theory based on defects affecting the operation of the engine without regard to whether those same defects also affected emissions compliance," said Judge Robert S. Lasnik.
Trial date in the case was set for October 2027.
Read more from TPS reporting here about numerous breakdowns cited in the lawsuit, with details of Paccar’s attempts to fix the issues and more.
