Thielert (Diesel Engines)

In rec.aviation.owning Peter wrote:

William Hung wrote

A lot of interesting info from you and WingFlaps there Peter. I also
read somewhere recently that the Diamond Twin diesels that uses
Thielerts have limited life on the engine. I can't remember how many
hours, but at the end of the max hour, Thielert will replace your
engines with a fresh rebuild for $25k each, instead of rebuilding
yours for you. In essence, you are actually renting the engine $25k
for that specified hours flown. I suppose this is good and bad. Good
to know your DOC on the engine, bad that you don't get to keep the
core or run the engine past TBO if it was still running good.

Yes, something like that.

AFAIK this was forced on them by all the failures. Basically nobody
would buy a DA40TDI/DA42 unless they got such an engine warranty

$25k (if that's the figure in the U.S. market) is probably comparable
to fully overhauling say an IO360 anyway. If this works, one could
regard it as just a different business model.

But I bet the "scrap" engines get reworked by Thielert and most parts
re-used. The way the Lyco exchange engine market works (people
overhaul *their own* engine when the engine is young), the average
exchange engine is made from ~ 5000hrs old crankcases etc and the
wisdom of this can probably be debated both ways (esp. when taking
into account undeclared prop strikes etc, and NDT on aluminium fails
to pick up subsurface cracks).

There used to be a blurb on their web site that said the "run out"
aero engines were rebuilt and sold for ground power service, i.e.
water pumping and such.


--
Jim Pennino

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