DA40NG Coolant Leak and ECU A Failure

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AndrewM
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Re: DA40NG Coolant Leak and ECU A Failure

Post by AndrewM »

Boatguy wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 7:38 pm I had four flights with partial power loss this year (three after the problem was "fixed") and those will never show up in the database.
I really enjoyed my test flight of the NG, however 4 partial power losses in one year... yikes. After 500+ hours in the Lycoming nothing but reliability.
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Re: DA40NG Coolant Leak and ECU A Failure

Post by Boatguy »

AndrewM wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 5:12 pm
Boatguy wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 7:38 pm I had four flights with partial power loss this year (three after the problem was "fixed") and those will never show up in the database.
I really enjoyed my test flight of the NG, however 4 partial power losses in one year... yikes. After 500+ hours in the Lycoming nothing but reliability.
To be fair, it was the same unresolved problem. The four flights were essentially unplanned test flights. We thought the problem was fixed, but it wasn't. And after the first time I was fairly confident of what the underlying problem was (leak in turbocharging system) and it resolved by descending to a lower altitude. None the less, nobody likes to see the ECU FAIL light on the PFD.
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Re: DA40NG Coolant Leak and ECU A Failure

Post by Colin »

Correct. Both were accessory or electrical system issues. As Deakin said, when he rode around above CMA fiddling with the mixture and accelerating my heart rate, "These things just go forever."

Ten hours later the left magneto died on approach to a small airport in Albuquerque. Since there was no shop there, we hopped the 11nm to the Sunport and had it replaced there. But, also not really a failure of the Lycoming's innards. Some of those magnetos seemed to have a shorter life than others.
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Re: DA40NG Coolant Leak and ECU A Failure

Post by Rich »

A rough scorecard. NTSB accidents where probable cause includes the words "power" and "loss":
DA40 Lycoming: 2
DA40 NG: 3
DA20 Continental: 15
DA20 Rotax: 4
SR20 Continental: 9
SR22 Continental: 46

Note that Continental failures (70) are a clear winner (9 for all others combined). So if you want to beat on legacy designs this is fertile ground. Naturally some percentage of these is likely things unrelated to the engine itself, such as fuel mismanagement. But if one assumes the percentage of such sub-causes to be equivalent across the data, the numbers are pretty compelling.
Notes:
- A lot of chute-pulls among the Cirri.
- This tally does not include cases that are recent enough that probable cause is not yet assessed.
- Both the DA40 Lycoming failures have no definitive cause noted. A theory is noted that unporting of the fuel tank outlet is mentioned for one. The other plane sank into the Pacific and was not recovered.
- No other Diamonds showed up in this inquiry.
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Re: DA40NG Coolant Leak and ECU A Failure

Post by Colin »

A mechanic I talked to said the Continentals are run too hot in the Cirrus planes, which burns out the cylinders sooner than the engine needs to be overhauled. He figures it means they get more performance from a legacy engine.
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Re: DA40NG Coolant Leak and ECU A Failure

Post by Rich »

In my inquiries I didn't intend to single out Cirrus. But the aircraft make/models in this particular set of searches were chosen because the engine manufacturer is easily determined. This is not so readily done with others.
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Re: DA40NG Coolant Leak and ECU A Failure

Post by mfdutra »

There are 8000+ Cirrus out there and they're almost all flying, since it's a new-ish fleet. That will skew the numbers. It's a huge fleet.

A good chunk, if not the majority, of engine loss events were maintenance induced. Hopefully with the Austros, less maintenance events may result in less opportunity to induce failures.
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Re: DA40NG Coolant Leak and ECU A Failure

Post by krellis »

ultraturtle wrote: Sun Dec 26, 2021 9:39 pm
krellis wrote: Mon Nov 22, 2021 11:45 am
I feel for you guys with the Austros - replacing gearboxes, pumps, injectors, ECU faults, coolant leaks. Yeah they run smooth and sip Jet-A, but I really don't see the advantages when you spend so much on repairs and suffer the downtime.

Give me a Lycoming IO-360-M1B anytime (neighbor has 3500+ hours on his)...
I feel for you guys with the Lycomings probably more than you do for us Austro operators. Lycoming IO360s fail inflight at a predictable rate of once every 1,100 hours or so (seehttps://www.avweb.com/flight-safety/acc ... avoidable/ .

While Austro engine operators cannot quite leap up to the PT-6 operator level of reliability smugness, they're not far off. If you consider the PT-6 to be several orders of magnitude better (1 failure per 300,000 hours), you should probably consider the Austro to be somewhere around a half order of magnitude better considering its awesome maintenance protocol. It's almost impossible to determine the failure rate of Austros simply because they don't generally quit on their own often enough to be statistically significant. Most inflight shutdowns have been pilot initiated - an issue of operator error due to poor switch design and placement.

Super, super happy to engage in the maintenance of a thoroughly modern engine that has undergone 66 years of evolution since the essentially frozen design of the lycoming O-360 airboat engine (okay, I'll give credit for the single upgrade in that 66 year period - fuel injection to create the IO-360). I've never been down for more than an hour or two outside of annual maintenance for my Austros operating in twins (DA42-VI and DA62) for the past 5 years. The really incredible fact is that my cost to overhaul my Austro engine is pretty much exactly the same as it will cost to overhaul your IO-360 - about %6 of what it might cost to overhaul the next most reliable engine.
I see two Austro engine failures (DA40NG and DA42) discussed here this week. Remind me again how unreliable the Lycoming engines are and how the Austros are PT-6 like?
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Re: DA40NG Coolant Leak and ECU A Failure

Post by gcampbe2 »

In fairness, the DA40NG failure was maintenance related (bolts not tightened), and not indicative of any issue with the engine itself.
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Re: DA40NG Coolant Leak and ECU A Failure

Post by Diamond_Dan »

krellis wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 10:24 am
ultraturtle wrote: Sun Dec 26, 2021 9:39 pm
I feel for you guys with the Lycomings probably more than you do for us Austro operators. Lycoming IO360s fail inflight at a predictable rate of once every 1,100 hours or so (seehttps://www.avweb.com/flight-safety/acc ... avoidable/ .
out %6 of what it might cost to overhaul the next most reliable engine.
I see two Austro engine failures (DA40NG and DA42) discussed here this week. Remind me again how unreliable the Lycoming engines are and how the Austros are PT-6 like?
It's 0.91 failures per 1000 engines.
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