Under Rated

Any DA40 related topics

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krellis
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Re: Under Rated

Post by krellis »

These are terrific aircraft overall. What is lacking is support from Diamond. I loved our DA40 and I still love our DA20. I sold my share in the 40 and will be selling the 20 soon. The 20 is an orphan and in some manner, so is the avgas 40. It was disappointing to me to hear attitude of the owner towards the North American avgas market in our face-to-face meeting in Austria. I suspect some of the DA40D owners may feel like they have been orphaned as well.
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Colin
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Re: Under Rated

Post by Colin »

Having just had my plane at the factory in Canada for a couple months getting a bunch of upgrades I have to say that I don't think they are orphaned. I saw a bunch of DA20's being worked on, and certainly some DA40's. And I wonder what that even means in the current aviation environment.

A Mooney? A Cessna 172? A Bonanza? Even an SR-22 are all supposedly current planes from a company that exists. In the case of Mooney and Cirrus the company is owned by a Chinese entity that has clear motivations that do not include caring about a pilot-owner in North America. Cessna and Beechcraft have moved on from the piston market and they work their jet market. The prices I hear for Beechcraft parts for a Bonanza are hair-curling.

I guess for me I look at each plane with their community and the people who ultimately will be supporting it. I feel pretty good about the Diamond planes. (I wish the software were updated more often and across the fleet. I am thinking about ways that the community could help with that.)
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rwtucker
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Re: Under Rated

Post by rwtucker »

Colin wrote:In the case of Mooney and Cirrus the company is owned by a Chinese entity that has clear motivations that do not include caring about a pilot-owner in North America.

I am thinking about ways that the community could help with (software).)
I disagree a little on the Chinese "caring." At the interpersonal level, no question, but that it largely true of US based companies. At the level of business acumen -- what might be called strategic caring -- it seems to me that Cirrus beats Diamond hands down. They built a network that engages Cirrus owners such that they have become vocal supporters of their aircraft where they were not under the Klapmeiers' ownership. And look at how skillful they are at widely publicizing all 10 of every two legitimate BLS saves. At the end of the day, I don't care whether anyone at Diamond actually cares about me. That would be weird. :shock: I care about how well Diamond has operationalized the idea of caring into effective business strategy. I give them low marks on this.

On the software, it would be great if we could find a way to be less dependent on Diamond for software upgrades. Any thoughts as to how to go about it?
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Under Rated

Post by BlackMammoth »

There is no question that Cirrus (regardless of who owns the company) is out marketing Diamond at an absolutely phenomenal rate.

The DA40 could be a much different product with the type of marketing behind it that Cirrus has used for their aircraft.
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krellis
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Re: Under Rated

Post by krellis »

Colin wrote:Having just had my plane at the factory in Canada for a couple months getting a bunch of upgrades I have to say that I don't think they are orphaned. I saw a bunch of DA20's being worked on, and certainly some DA40's. And I wonder what that even means in the current aviation environment.
Colin,

I guess we will have to agree to disagree on this. If you owned a DA20-A1 like I do, you might feel differently. As an example, I have to have an A&P for an oil change - because Rotax changed the oil filter and Diamond Canada won't certify a modified exhaust header (Diamond did in Europe) - so we have to remove an exhaust header for a simple oil change. On our airplane, this led to a worn out exhaust seat in the head, which led to a removal of the head and an expensive repair. So at least in my case, I feel like the DA20-A1 is an orphan. Some parts are no longer available from Diamond.

I'm glad your airplane is being supported in a manner that satisfies you.
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Re: Under Rated

Post by Antoine »

da40pilot2016 wrote:This forum seems to have been set up to address complaints. I wrote an email to Diamond Aircraft and said that this forum almost caused me not to buy a Diamond. They should have a section in this forum that talks about the positive things of the DA40.
Huh? What a strange comment

I think this forum is a terrific place for people to get competent HELP on:
- selecting the right Diamond
- knowing why they would buy it versus competitive aircraft (that includes pros and cons)
- get community support from people who know the airplane best

If you'd like only marketing BS and have no interest in problems and fixes, nobody is forcing you to read this.
After using words like "love", "favorite", etc... way too many times when writing here about my two DA40s, I am really surprised to read that you perceive this forum as "set up to address complaints".

Buying a DA40 with honest, unbiased and real-world based information about its many qualities and a few drawbacks is what you can achieve by reading this forum.

Once you fly your new bird and hit a problem, you'll find out that people here know "one or two" things that can help you fix it and are willing to invest their time to help you for free.

You will also see here the consequences of Diamond's flawed marketing strategy.
Sidetracking or even scrapping a product line as "dead end" (DA40-180, DA42-TDI)
Poor ability to "keep customers in the family". The gap in the Diamond range between DA40 and 42/62 is obvious. Look at how many DA40 pilots jumped to Cirrus, Columbia. It doesn't take an MBA to figure out that not every DA40 pilot is willing to step up to a twin with a huge wingspan.

And yet, you'll see DA42-VI pilots telling about their amazing round the world trips, DA40 pilots explain how the plane saved their lives or simply put a huge smile on their face. I think I recently reported about this C182T owner who recently joined my in my DA40 and was stunned by the climb rate and speed with 4 on board...

So here we go again: I love my (second) DA40. If Diamond made a de-iced version with useful load to carry 4 adults on a longer trip I would have bought it. As it stands now I am on my way out...

After re-reading the thread I think I know what my be giving newcomers the impression that this is only a complaints site: the homepage shows active threads and these are mostly the most recent calls for help. Since the redesign it is less easy to find the menu where ALL thread for a given aircraft types are grouped.
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Re: Under Rated

Post by carym »

Let me add another word here. I loved my DA42. It took me all over the US, Canada, and Alaska (I know, that is in the US). I had a great relationship with my mechanic who kept my plane in great shape for me and always worked with me. However, I have serious issues with Diamond as a company. I have had to give my plane back to Diamond for them to upgrade and sell (I don't want to go into the legal details). I would have been more than happy to have purchased a DA40 for a "replacement". However, my wife will not allow me to own another Diamond because of the way Diamond has dealt with me as a plane owner. Their planes are wonderful, the support from Diamond is horrible.

Here is another example of the poor support. At the last annual I had to change the emergency batteries. It took a month for Diamond to get us the batteries. They could have told us they were standard Panasonic batteries that are readily available and can be purchased locally. Instead, after every phone call to Diamond had them keep putting us off over the delivery date. In my humble opinion, this is just poor factory support.
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Re: Under Rated

Post by Rich »

The site isn't "set up to lodge complaints". But folks do it anyway. It's the nature of people's temperament. I see it on other sites. For example, I'm on a site for owners of the type of motorcycle I drive. It a Yamaha FJR 1300 - arguably one of the most popular sport-touring bikes in the US. It's a terrific bike, capable of getting you straight-to-jail performance awards and many guys on the site have well over 100,000 miles on them. It's been in production now for about the same time period as the DA40. And like the DA40, it has undergone various changes over the years. Here are some of the more interesting complaints:

1. Can't set the Cruise Control over 82 MPH. True for one model year only, and one guy was screaming he was going to sue Yamaha over this.
2. Speedometer reads 2 MPH too high at highway speeds. All sorts of angst over this and discussions of gizmos one can get to fix this.
3. Ambient air temperature reads 2 degF too high. I kid you not. Also looking for solutions.
4. Parts too expensive - Much discussion on how to save $5.00 on an oil filter.
5. Shops too expensive.
6. Bike won't wheelie. (It will if you push the little button to disengage the TCS). Editorial: Do you really want to wheelie a 700-lb. motorcycle?
7. Bike is too heavy.
8. Bike is too tall.
9. Stock seat is uncomfortable.
10. Windshield does/does not automatically lower on bike shutdown. Complaints over both behaviors.

And various other complaints that amount to stuff wears out or needs periodic maintenance.

Some of us like to occasionally interject sarcastic statements like "You should dump that POS" :)
2002 DA40-180: MT, PowerFlow, 530W/430W, KAP140, ext. baggage, 1090 ES out, 2646 MTOW, 40gal., Surefly, Flightstream 210, Orion 600 LED, XeVision, Aspen E5
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Re: Under Rated

Post by BlackMammoth »

Rich,

Your forgot the valve ticking...

;)
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Rich
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Re: Under Rated

Post by Rich »

Another level of under-rated is the steam-gauge DA40s. Like mine :D

These birds are considerably lighter (though slower) than the post-2004 models. If you can live with the horror of having to fly with the old six-pack :scream:

For these birds support is easier and less expensive. We're not tied down with the G1000 - related problems. Typically if something fails or otherwise needs replacement, the first thing I go to is the POH and/or the AMM and find out if the part is 3rd-party. Mostly, that's the case, and one just peruses the internet for a source, if that's even necessary. One interesting example is the replacement of the aforementioned emergency battery. These are, 1) effectively free and 2) available at pretty much any grocery or hardware store in the US and Canada. :thumbsup:

The nature of these older models is that I really don't rely on Diamond for much in the way of support. But I have to say that when I do contact them for information or need to get parts, I've had no problems. One guy I contacted even went out to the production line to double check some information to confirm/refute my suspicion that the results of the aircraft reweighing earlier this year (and even historically) were likely incorrect. (Confirmed, by the way.)
2002 DA40-180: MT, PowerFlow, 530W/430W, KAP140, ext. baggage, 1090 ES out, 2646 MTOW, 40gal., Surefly, Flightstream 210, Orion 600 LED, XeVision, Aspen E5
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