Piston MSB affecting newer engines - MSB-E4-043

[MyFlight]

Hey Everyone,

We are back from Canada as of late last night after a series of after-sales related meetings with the Diamond team. The team up there has been truly receptive of the feedback provided and they have been great to help bounce a lot of these questions off of.

The great news is they are slowly beginning to open up completing the new piston changes for all impacted engines as of this week. They are still prioritizing AOG aircraft (those timed out at 900+ or those with cracks), but they are beginning to open up the order books slowly and have asked us to start putting together a list of engines so we can begin allocating stock appropriately.

As of right now, we have completed over a dozen piston replacements of both the old style and new style. Like we stated before, the repair itself is fairly straightforward and should be able to be turned around and flying in about a one week period.

If you would like to get on the list to have the replacements done, please email mxsupport@flymyflight.com with the following:
- Name
- Tail Number
- Engine SN
- Engine Total Time
- Aircraft location

We will begin prioritizing our replacements based on AOG first and then work through this list based on the order in which requests have been received. Our team will work closely with you and Diamond to get accurate lead times, an accurate date into the shop, and keep you posted as we work through it. Our priority from an efficiency standpoint is to have the aircraft flown to us/we pick it up for you to do the repair, but if you would prefer to have your closest service center remove the engine and ship it to us, that is fine too.

We understand the full situation with this MSB has been frustrating, but these meetings have left us feeling confident with the remedy coming out of Diamond and Austro. If anybody has any questions, feel free to reach out to the above email or my direct email chris@flymyflight.com. Or, you can call us at 407-436-7395.

- Chris Hilton
Head of Maintenance Operations
MyFlight

[Boatguy]

We are back from Canada as of late last night after a series of after-sales related meetings with the Diamond team. The team up there has been truly receptive of the feedback provided and they have been great to help bounce a lot of these questions off of.

Did they present any information on:

1) Why the pistons in MSB-E4-043 are failing?

2) Why a piston in 314KY failed just 30hrs after passing a borescope inspection?

3) Why the newest batch of pistons, the ones that are replacing the pistons identified as bad in MSB-E4-043, are expected to perform better? Did they detail the testing that was done on the "new" pistons versus the pistons currently in these engines?

[ingramleedy]

Ok folks, great news. I just picked up my DA40NG with new the new pistons! They told me I was #2 in the entire fleet that was AOG that got the new pistons, but now there are many being replaced and in queue. The availability of the pistons has loosened up and service centers are cranking thru them.

Also, new aircraft are coming in with new pistons in the engines too.

[Boatguy]

Did they give you any reason to believe these pistons are better than the ones they replaced?

[FlyingPenguin]

Part of my fear is that the cylinder wall might be compromised by the oversized piston too.

[ingramleedy]

Did they give you any reason to believe these pistons are better than the ones they replaced?

Not much other than what was in MSB-E4-039, the Diamond Newsletter and details from here.

[jast]

I heard rumors that the manufacturer of the new pistons is again the original manufacturer of the Mercedes pistons and that they ditched the other one which was used fore a few years now during all the engine MSBs. Also a couple of engines were run through 1800h without issues on the test stand. So apparently the confidence is high that the issue is solved for good.