On 11/8/2012 7:08 AM, wrote:
On Nov 7, 11:22 am, The Daring Dufas the-daring-du...@stinky-
finger.net wrote:
On 11/7/2012 8:57 AM, wrote:

Anyone here have experience with Generac generators in terms of
reliability, problems, etc? Most interested in the Guardian whole
house
standby type that run on nat gas.

A friend has a 12KW one that is about 5 years old. It apparently has
a bad rotor, possibly more wrong with it. Trying to figure out if
it's worth
fixing or if they are inherently cheap crap.

TIA

Do you know which engine it has? I think Generac has been using their
own V twin air cooled in that size in that time period but the older
gensets in that size had liquid cooled 4cyl engines. O_o

TDD

It's air cooled. Here is what concerns me. I did a bit of googling
on reviews of Generac Guardian whole house units and there
sure are one hell of a lot of people with major complaints about
the high failure rates and the way that Guardian has responded
to them. This includes some from places like Amazon as well
as some I've seen from pros that say they are junk and they
won't have anything to do with them. Some of the stories appear
similar to what's gone wrong with this one, ie, it's relatively new,
well maintained, worked fine for weekly scheduled test runs,
then died in the middle of a power outage after a few hours.
Others are reporting new unit with major problems upon
installation and Generac refusing to do a replacement of a
new unit, only fix it, etc.

Here are the Amazon revies.. Of 20, 8 are big negatives. I
know you can't necessarily rely on these, but if you read them,
there is a lot of detail and specifics, not just "They suck..."

http://www.amazon.com/Generac-5873-A...owViewpoints=1


The other aspect of this is that these 12KW go for about $3K.
You could spend more than that on a top of the line portable,
eg Honda?, that's only 4KW. It leaves you wondering....

Position we're in is it looks like at least the rotor is shot.
Would do the work ourselves, but the parts are still min
$350. And I can't fully test the stator either. If that is shot,
it's another $450. Voltage regulator module is $100, etc.

Another data point is that the company that sold it, installed
and maintained it diagnosed it as a bad generator section
and with that told them that it was not worth fixing, just buy
a new one, despite the fact that it's not that old. Neighbor
then gave it to my friend, and here
we are. So, deciding whether to fix it and use it or part
it out. Leaning toward the latter....


I installed a lot of Generac units back in the 90,s when the 8kw units
used the Brigs & Stratton Vanguard engine and the larger units used a
Turkish manufactured Fiat 4cyl liquid cooled engine and I believe a 4cyl
liquid cooled from Nissan. I've seen other liquid cooled engines in
Generac gensets but I don't recall the OEM manufacturer. I've only
installed one Generac genset with the Generac manufactured air cooled
V twin engine but only serviced it a few times before the owner passed
away and his brother removed it and I lost track of it so I have no long
term experience with the Generac manufactured engine. I'm suspicious of
the air cooled Generac units in the sizes larger than around 8kw because
it seems to me they have to push the limits on that engine for that kind
of power output. My experience with properly maintained Generac 4cyl
liquid cooled 1800rpm gensets was that they were very reliable. The only
air cooled 15kw gensets I found tank like in reliability were the Onan
flat four natural gas gensets. They reminded me of a light aircraft
engine. I don't know what to tell you about the 12kw Generac air cooled
V twin since I prefer a liquid cooled 4cyl genset in that size. I'd love
to have one of the old Onan flat 4 air cooled NG gensets for my home. ^_^

TDD