THIELERT: NO WARRANTY SUPPORT FOR DIAMOND DIESELS
Owners of Diamond aircraft with Thielert diesels are getting bad news this week. Thielert says it won't support warranty claims and any owners who need parts and services to keep their airplanes flying will have to pay upfront. As we've reported on AVweb, Thielert declared bankruptcy two weeks ago and is now undergoing financial restructuring. In the meantime, the company pledged to continue building and shipping engines and parts, but buyers will have to pre-pay and await delivery. One DA42 owner has already contacted us expressing unhappiness about this policy. Diamond told us Wednesday that it doesn't yet know if it will step into the breech and support owners who have warranty claims. "We're relatively early into this, we're still making a lot of decisions on how to handle this. I can't give you an answer on that right now," said Heike Larson, Diamond's VP of sales. Meanwhile, Diamond predicts it will have its own line of Austro four-cylinder diesels certified in Europe by this summer and plans to unveil the powerplant at the Berlin Airshow in two weeks.