Diamond Parts??

[eHotAir]

My DA40 is going thru annual right now at my local airport. My IA needs to order some Diamond parts. Does anyone know who carries a good inventory of stock parts in the USA so he can order them?

[Twcostanzo]

Don't know where you are but Premire Air in Florida stocks a lot

[Tim H]

+1 on Premier in Florida. They have a large inventory of parts and are very helpful. I get all my Diamond parts from them.

[Steve]

I have ordered from Premiere a few times in the past and have been satisfied. More recently (a couple of months ago) I sent them an e-mail regarding a quote for parts and didn't receive a reply, so I sourced the parts elsewhere. Not sure what's going on with that...

Steve

[CFIDave]

You as an owner (or your mechanic/IA) should be able to go through any Diamond Service Center for parts, since they each have accounts with Diamond Canada to order whatever they need -- occasionally they might actually have parts in stock already. Premiere in Ft. Lauderdale, FL is one example.

[LTek1]

Does Diamond control prices pretty well? Are parts about the same price from any service center?

[CFIDave]

Does Diamond control prices pretty well? Are parts about the same price from any service center?

Yes, and yes. Unlike some older airframes, there usually aren't competitive 3rd-party suppliers for parts that will fit a Diamond aircraft. And it's often difficult in the US to find metric nuts, bolts, and screws that are aircraft-grade, since Diamond is one of the few metric airframes in North America. (One of the nice things that Diamond Austria provided when we picked up our new DA42 last year was a bag of extra nuts, bolts, and screws -- a nice touch.)

That, however, doesn't apply to most of the "firewall forward" parts -- particularly parts for the DA40's Lycoming IO-360 engine. You can easily purchase competitively-priced oil filters, spark plugs, air filters, etc. from Aircraft Spruce or other aircraft parts suppliers. The same is also true for tires, brake pads, etc. Basically those parts that tend to wear out and/or be replaced routinely are available from competitive 3rd parties, while Diamond-specific airframe parts (that you shouldn't need very often) are only available from Diamond thru their Service Centers.

Unfortunately this isn't true for parts/supplies for DA42 diesel engines (Thielert or Austro) -- since these engines aren't (yet?) very popular. Despite some parts that are automotive in origin (e.g., genuine Mercedes auto oil filters that are used for Austro engines), it's difficult to obtain legal aviation-certified parts and fluids (e.g., gearbox oil, fuel filters, etc.) sourced from anyone other than Diamond for routine 100-hour oil/filter changes. So shops that work on DA42s are forced to order "100 hour kits" from Diamond.