Dear Guy, i have flown the diamonds for the past 2yrs including the Diamond-20-C1, Diamond Star-40-180, Twinstar TAE-125, i can assure to you that The DA40-180 is one of the best airplane Diamond Aircraft Indurtries have come up with, it hardly has any technical issues compared to the Da-20, Da-42s, along with G1000, a good Benedix/King KAP 140 dual axis auto pilot it is just a peace of mind here are some technical detail about that airplane-
Constant speed, variable pitch prop(mt prop)
4 stroke, 4 cylinder engine by Lycoming of 180 hP( this engine is so good they are installing them on the twinstars (da-42) as new counter-rotaing props to replace the stupid thielert eninges.
Total fuel capacity- 41.2 Gal, 40 gal use able in two tanks 20.6 in each wing.Max imbalance allowed is 8USG.
Span : appr. 11.94 m appr. 39 ft 2 in
Length : appr. 8.01 m appr. 26 ft 3 in
Height : appr. 1.97 m appr. 6 ft 6 in
Vne-179,
Vno-129 but it can do about 150 in normal conditions
a) Engine manufacturer : Textron Lycoming
b) Engine designation : IO-360 M1-A
c) RPM limitations
Max. take-off RPM : 2700 RPM
Max. continuous RPM : 2400 RPM
The maximum demonstrated operating altitude is 16,400 ft (5,000 meters).
Maximum number of occupants:
Normal Category : 4 (four persons)
Utility Category : 2 (two persons), both of whom must sit in front
Intentional spinning, dynamic stalling not allowed
G1000 also has Txp based traffic avoidance system
If it was me i would buy a Diamond anyday due to cheap cost and harldy any maintainence issues, and their landing gear is tough enough to handel student pilots and commercial pilots.
cheers!
happy Ldgs