Thielert in serious trouble ?

[moggiee]

Originally Posted by k12479

Austria is in the EU. Maybe you're thinking of Switzerland.

Little slip up there! Actually, I was thinking of the Danish import deal for dodging Austrian VAT and that this was possible because Austria was non-EU. Still, that doesn't change the fact that the quickest and easiest way for Diamond to get hold of suitable engines is still most likely to be to buy Thielert.

Wouldn't Diamond only be responsible for the airframe, suppliers being responsible for the bought-in components?

No. When you buy a VW car your warranty is with VW - not Bosch for the ABS, Sachs for the shock absorbers, Hella for the lights, Continental for the tyres etc. Most components (including much of the mechanical gubbins) will be bought in by VW but because VW sell the car, THEY have the liability.

[Sunfish]

1. Theilert bit off a little more than they can chew. Taking an automotive diesel - which runs less than 20% of max power most of the time and making it work in an environment where it has to work at 50% or more max. power all the time was always going to be an ask. That's why they moved from the 1.7 to 2.0 litre engine without increasing the max. rating.

2. I would be dumbfounded if Diamond has any liability whatsoever for the Thielert engines, any more than I would expect Cessna to compensate me for a failed Lycoming. If by some perverse European law this was to be the case, then I'm sure Diamond, being rational, would have required Thielert to pay for and maintain an insurance policy in Diamond's name to cover this liability.

3. The question now is whether Thielert can be recapitalised or sold as a going concern. These measures would leave warranties intact. Selling the company's assets wouldn't. I wonder if United Technologies will bite?

[k12479]

No. When you buy a VW car your warranty is with VW - not Bosch for the ABS, Sachs for the shock absorbers, Hella for the lights, Continental for the tyres etc. Most components (including much of the mechanical gubbins) will be bought in by VW but because VW sell the car, THEY have the liability.

But wouldn't they then reclaim for any of those parts from the supplier?

Just checked the warranty for Robinson Helicopters and according to that it excludes "...batteries, instruments, avionics or other trade accesories since they are usually warranted separately by their respective manufacturers. New aircraft are equipped with new engines which have a separate Lycoming limited warranty"

Similarly if you bought a boat I would assume Caterpillar, or whoever, would be responsible for the engine fitted. If I'm not mistaken even my lawn mower has a separated warranty from Briggs & Stratton for the engine.

[soay]

Originally Posted by k12479

But wouldn't they then reclaim for any of those parts from the supplier?

When you but an aircraft from Diamond, they provide a warranty for the airframe, Thielert provide one for the engine, and Garmin have their own for the avionics. All claims are made directly to the warranty provider, not through Diamond.

[BartV]

Soay, unfortunately that gives a direct answer to the warranty issue on Thielert, the value of the complete Thielert fleet has dropped to a very low level because of this.

About spernkey his shares speculation: if i would be you, i would take the profit now, soon the stock will be suspended and your stocks will be 0 valued. About the high volume, it's a typical system when you bought shares at a high price to buy even more when they are almost dead so many people will buy your shares so you can get rid of them before they are 0 valued.

[IO540]

Common rail is more complex than a couple of magnetoes. But Thielert certified their engine and it is no more unreliable that any Lycon. Indeed without any cranshaft or cylinder recalls from factory built components, it has to be more reliable.
Solid state electronics are nearly always going to be better than badly made mechanical components.

The above confuses the causes. The Lyco crankshaft recall / 12 year life limit (SB569 - I've just paid out on this so I am rather familiar with it and the background) was caused by crap QA together with some material/process modifications which could easily have been avoided had the company (Lyco's crankshaft subcontractor, initially) given a flying **** about doing the job right. There is nothing actually wrong with the crankshaft design. Well, the 380HP TSIO-540 versions get a bit close stress-wise...

Lyco have dropped the ball on other items but these have been largely QA related. The basic engine has very few design defects, unless one regards the need for correct engine (thermal) management as a design defect (which could be argued both ways).

Solid state electronics (my profession and business for the last 30 years, so I know a bit about this too) can be made very very reliable but will never be as reliable as simple mechanical bits like cams and gears.

Which is not to say that a magneto (a fairly intricate bit of mechanics, in its Bendix implementation) is more or less reliable than really well built conventional electronic ignition triggered by a magnetic sensor. It's probably of similar order of magnitude. Nevertheless, engine failures due to magneto ignition failure seem to be incredibly unusual. And, vitally, any monkey can overhaul a magneto (and many do, as I well know) while virtually nobody in aviation understands electronics. Even avionics dealers are largely just wiremen, following wiring diagrams in the back of installation manuals.

When you but an aircraft from Diamond, they provide a warranty for the airframe, Thielert provide one for the engine, and Garmin have their own for the avionics. All claims are made directly to the warranty provider, not through Diamond.

That confuses the default legal situation with certain industry practices

If you buy a Sony LCD monitor from say Dixons, your legal warranty is 100% (100%) through Dixons. However, if that monitor packs up, Dixons don't want you to take it back to their shop, because they have no facility for packing it up and returning it to Sony. They will give you a phone # at some call centre which you call and they will sort out a collection, or for smaller items they will get you to send it back to Sony, and Sony UK will have an agreement for warranty processing with Dixons, which absolves Dixons from having to handle large numbers of items being carted back to their High Street branches.

But if you want to exercise your legal rights you can just take the item back to Dixons and tell them to sort it out.

Same with planes. Aviation industry practice has tended to separate warranties, so if your Cessna engine (Lyco) needs work, you go to a Lyco dealer and not to Cessna. This makes practical sense, especially on items which are too big to be packed up and sent off somewhere. But if you want to, you can sue the Cessna dealer (yes I mean the dealer) who sold it to you.

The fact that the claim will then work its way back (the dealer will submit a claim to Cessna who will submit a claim to Lyco) is of no relevance to you the consumer.

The industry just doesn't want customers to know they have this option, because it enables them to fob people off by giving them loads of bull about the manufacturer no longer making or supporting the item, etc etc, etc...

There is a difference for business customers. A private customer has the legal right as I describe and he cannot sign any document which removes that right. However, a business customer can sign away his rights. So, potentially, the dealer could get a business customer to sign away some warranty rights. And lots of people do buy planes in the name of a Ltd Co... Got to watch that one!

Rest assured that consumers do sue and frequently, using the above rights. But 99% of people still don't know they can.

And in GA one needs to think twice about suing, because it's a very small world. If you sue some firm at your airport, you can lose your hangarage or be kicked off the airport altogether. If you sue an avionics shop, or even mess up the relationship at all, that is one less shop you can use, and there are so few avionics shops in the UK which know one end of a soldering iron from another (in fact many can't solder; they crimp everything) that you really won't want to narrow down your options.

Nobody is going to sue a single source like Diamond unless they have absolutely no option left and couldn't care less about burning all their bridges. This is what has kept the show on the road.

[moggiee]

Unfortunately, until Diamond start to talk to the industry about what they plan to do, we are all a little in the dark. There's been no official word from Austria yet.

[Fuji Abound]

But if you want to exercise your legal rights you can just take the item back to Dixons and tell them to sort it out.

There are some contradictory opinions on here regarding warranty but IO is correct in this far.

In the retail world all too often the retailer shirks his responsibility and attempts to palm off the consumer on a return to manufacturer. However your contract is with the supplier and he is responsibility for replacing the item or refunding the purchase price. In fact also too often he will attempt to claim your "warranty" with him is limited to a relatively short period of time. This is not so, and it can be argued with certain goods that his "warranty" is for rather longer than even a year.

In the case of Diamond the situation might interestingly be more complex. The aircraft might have been purchased via a dealer or direct from Diamond (the manufacturer). In the case of a dealer/agent I guess the situation is no different than above. (Always assuming as ever the dealer/agent doesnt go bust). In the case of someone buying directly from the manufactuer I wonder whether the owner can be bound to the terms of the manufacturers warranty in terms of the underlying warranty of the integral parts?

[Justiciar]

IO540 has correctly stated the position in (English) law. In the case of a business customer it is true that the dealer could try and pass on some of the liability for defects to the manufacturer. However, such conditions in a contract would have to satisfy a test of "reasonableness", which a court would scrutinise quite carefully.

I don't know is whan buying a Diamond you are contracting direct with them or with the dealer, i.e. the dealer may be acting merely as the agent for Diamond. In this case then your claim would be against the manufacturer and probably subject to Austrian Law as the proper law of the contract and to the jurisdiction of the Austrian courts, though again if you are a private individual buying not in the course of a business then the courts where you live have jurisdiction to determin such a claim.

[IO540]

I guess, Fuji, it would depend on where (geographically) the contract was consummated, so to speak.

There is a lot of case law on this (which I know nothing about) not least because it affects (among other things) whether VAT is due and at what rate.

But my guess is that if you buy a DA40/42 from a UK dealer then you have the full protection in UK consumer law.

Lots of UK companies would dearly love to pretend to be legally based outside the EU (based for the purpose of carrying on business with UK consumers) for example because it would sidestep EU consumer protection.

I looked at this in connection with SB569 which costs an aircraft owner somewhere around £10,000 and found out that every affected aircraft owner (purchasing as a private individual) could simply sue the dealer he got the plane from... I don't think many dealers would like this to be known. In practice it's a little more complicated because Lyco are offering a free crank swap if you use them (rather than a 3rd party engine shop) to overhaul the engine at its official 12 year life limit (which, Sir, you should do because we say so) so your recoverable loss is "just" the reduction in the aircraft value (which happens to be around £10,000 too, but only if you sell before the 12 year deadline) and not many people will bother to argue this because the sale is generally a free choice. However, it has become known that Lyco are doing "deals" on SB569, but they make you sign an NDA. These "deals" are based on them doing the job - they apparently won't do a "deal" on you using a 3rd party engine shop.

The whole business stinks.

[spernkey]

Lost my bottle at 93 cents today, never mind still made a bit of money which may proove to sugar coat a very bitter pill as the situation un-ravels.

All this clever manouvring and sharp business practice must be very distracting for people who could be concentrating on engineering and finding a viable way forward for little planes! Never mind twas always thus!

May i just add that after a few silly niggles these engines fitted as a retrofit in the 172 have been awesome. They just purr away at whatever power (the engine as fitted in a/c has little resemblance to the merc car unit with beefed up everything), smooth and cheap to run. Service every 100 hours. Downloads of engine data giving trends and alerts. Engine not asthmatic when hot n high - try Peyresourde on a hot day in a 150hp 172 if you dare. 2 of my engines which went to tbr showed no hideous wear indicating they were overstressed. The one engine failure we had was caused by a bit of the turbo getting a free tour round the engine when it came adrift, this got fixed with an a/d and cant happen on the 2.0. Anyway after losing all the oil in 30 seconds it flew for an hour back to base with a red light illuminated. Now that would not happen with a Lyco and also without an annunciator light and the famously vague engine guages i reckon the outcome would have been more drastic.

I would like to know what the poster who asserted that common rail's are not suitable for aviation meant? That pussles me as i found Carbs to be less than perfect to say nowt about carb icing!!!

Last summer i sat behind a Thielert for 1000 hours for a fuel cost of £7500. My Lyco would have cost nearer £45000 plus the dreaded top end overhaul for daring to operate at low power for protracted periods. I would not have been able to do 1000 hours in the Lyco however cos i would have had to keep having to break off working to go for fuel. Having a 12 hour duration gives you options!

With the PRO-RATA arr. the replacement engine cost me 9K fitted!!!!!!! No-one seems to understand the pro-rata against 2400 Lyco life.

TAE's warranties have been over generous to be honest, they have paid for allsorts of consequencial losses which Lyco would laugh at.

In short my foray into this brave new world has had a pay-back time of less than one year and six months per ship. I could not be more delighted with TAE any more than i could go back to burning petrol. They go, i go.

Fingers crossed.

[vee-tail-1]

"I would like to know what the poster who asserted that common rail's are not suitable for aviation meant? That pussles me as i found Carbs to be less than perfect to say nowt about carb icing!!!"

Sorry for going on about common rail, but it's about the tendency for things to be made unneccessarily complicated. The bog standard Lyco/Conti will keep on running regardless of failure in electrics, hydraulics, or any other system. So long as it has fuel it will run. Not so the common rail diesel, lose your electrics and you need somewhere to land soonest!
The diesel equivalent of the Lyco as far as reliability is concerned has a mechanical injection system which enables it to keep going so long as it has fuel. Aircraft diesels should be as simple and reliable as a Peugeot 205 car. Instead Thielert made them too complicated with FADEC and back up electrics etc. Like I said it's sad sad

[IO540]

Last summer i sat behind a Thielert for 1000 hours for a fuel cost of £7500. My Lyco would have cost nearer £45000 plus the dreaded top end overhaul for daring to operate at low power for protracted periods. I would not have been able to do 1000 hours in the Lyco however cos i would have had to keep having to break off working to go for fuel. Having a 12 hour duration gives you options!

I won't quite let you get away with that, spernkey

A Lyco will almost certainly make TBO if you fly it at 60-65% power. I've just had mine opened at 700hrs and it was mostly spotless inside.

You are right about the fuel price, which is why everybody would have an avtur burner if they had a reasonable option. Until the tax incentive goes, which will kill the retrofit market.

The 12hr duration is at what power setting and what IAS?

[soay]

Originally Posted by vee-tail-1

Sorry for going on about common rail, but it's about the tendency for things to be made unneccessarily complicated.

It's simply impossible to get a suitable power to weight ratio using a diesel engine without common rail and fadec. The technology isn't the problem, it's the compromises in the way it has been implemented to keep it affordable, given the small production runs available for GA engines.

[Andy_RR]

Common rail is [b]not[/b] necessary!

Originally Posted by soay

It's simply impossible to get a suitable power to weight ratio using a diesel engine without common rail and fadec.

Absolute codswallop! Common rail diesel technology was developed to improve noise quality and reduce emissions, neither of which are key players in an aero diesel engine. Mechanical systems can deliver equivalent power/weight ratio, except you don't see them these days as most of the visible diesel development is in road vehicles, which require the NVH and emissions capability of electronic control.

A

[soay]

Originally Posted by Andy_RR

Mechanical systems can deliver equivalent power/weight ratio

Do you have a reference for that statement?

This article on Wikipedia compares the two technologies:

"In older diesel engines, a distributor-type injection pump, regulated by the engine, supplies bursts of fuel to injectors which are simply nozzles through which the diesel is sprayed into the engine's combustion chamber. As the fuel is at low pressure and there cannot be precise control of fuel delivery, the spray is relatively coarse and the combustion process is relatively crude and inefficient.

"In common rail systems, the distributor injection pump is eliminated. Instead an extremely high pressure pump stores a reservoir of fuel at high pressure — up to 2,000 bars (29,000 psi) — in a "common rail"; basically a tube which in turn branches off to computer-controlled injector valves, each of which contains a precision-machined nozzle and a plunger driven by a solenoid. Driven by a computer (which also controls the amount of fuel to the pump), the valves, rather than pump timing, control the precise moment when the fuel injection into the cylinder occurs and also allow the pressure at which the fuel is injected into the cylinders to be increased. As a result, the fuel that is injected atomises easily and burns cleanly, reducing exhaust emissions and increasing efficiency."

As you can see, common rail wins hands down.

[IFollowRailways]

"In older diesel engines, a distributor-type injection pump, regulated by the engine, supplies bursts of fuel to injectors which are simply nozzles through which the diesel is sprayed into the engine's combustion chamber. As the fuel is at low pressure and there cannot be precise control of fuel delivery, the spray is relatively coarse and the combustion process is relatively crude and inefficient.

Usual Wiki rubbish............

A modern radial injection pump such as a Bosch, runs at 1850 bar (27,000ish psi). The "simple" nozzles are also extremely accurately machined and are balanced as a set.

I do however agree about the degree of timing accuracy available from the computer controlled common rail versus the mechanical pump, although as previously said, this mostly effects NVT and emissions rather than power, which with any diesel is smoke limited.

[vee-tail-1]

Mechanical injection diesel as found on French home-builts:
(1) Propeller.
(2) Toothed belt reduction gear (absorbs torque fluctuations),
(3) Engine with injection pump and injectors.

Common rail Diesel as fitted to certified aircraft:
(1) Propeller.
(2) Torque compensator & reduction drive (gears & slip clutch..has TBO)
(3) Engine with common rail.
(4) Electric HP pump for common rail.
(5) Computer operated electronic injector nozzles.
(6) ECU and FADEC.
(7) Dedicated engine management electric circuitry, supplied by:
(8) Two alternators,
(9) Main & back-up batteries.

Assuming you started off with the same basic alloy engine, which version might be lightest and more reliable?

[k12479]

A modern radial injection pump such as a Bosch, runs at 1850 bar (27,000ish psi).

These are electronically controlled too though.

I do however agree about the degree of timing accuracy available from the computer controlled common rail versus the mechanical pump, although as previously said, this mostly effects NVT and emissions rather than power, which with any diesel is smoke limited.

Common rail systems decouple injection pressure from engine speed, as in the case of distributor and in-line piston pumps, meaning improved sprays at lower engine speeds, although as you say this has mostly been used to improve emissions & NVH rather than power.

Common rail Diesel as fitted to certified aircraft:
(1) Propeller.
(2) Torque compensator & reduction drive (gears & slip clutch..has TBO)
(3) Engine with common rail.
(4a) Electric LP pump for common rail.
(4b) Engine driven HP pump.
(5) Computer operated electronic injector nozzles.
(6) ECU and FADEC.
(7) Dedicated engine management electric circuitry, supplied by:
(8) Two alternators,
(9) Main & back-up batteries.

[Asrian]

update: Today the parent company, Thielert Holding, filed for insolvency too. Stock was suspended from trade at the stock exchange.
Thielert aircraft engines is a 100% subsidiary of Thielert Holding.

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