I got a 5,000 watt Coleman that way, one time. Same symptoms. Starts up,
then shuts down. Problem: Low oil.

Christopher A. Young
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I'm going to get a chance to see if I can fix one. A
neighbor had a 12KW Generac that was about 5 years old.
It died during the hurricane last year. The main symptom
was that it would start, run for about 30 secs, then shut
off. The company that installed it told him the generator itself
was shot and it was not worth fixing. He bought a new one.

It made it's way to another neighbor who is a friend of his
and also a friend of mine.
Believing the company diagnosis, that neighbor took it apart
and seperated the generator from the motor. That's as far
as he got and now he's going to give it to me because he
decided he doesn't want to screw around with it anymore.

I looked at the inside of the generator and it looks brand new.
No evidence of burning, no smell, etc. There is a smell
however coming from the control area with the electronics.
And reading the service manual, the way it works it starts
up and uses battery for ignition for the first 30 secs or so.
Then it switches over to using a generator winding that is
there for that purpose. I'm betting that it's the electronics
that does the switch-over or the rectifier, etc that is bad,
not the generator itself. When I get my hands on it, we'll
see. If so, I may have found a real treasure