Generator Hours

As usual, great information. I appreciate everyone who takes the time to help us with our understanding and search of a Class A. Thank you all very much!

deltamaster wrote:
I was in NY during Irene.

during hurricane IKE we were w/out electric for 13.5 days....which we'd owns the coach then....i would have put it in the driveway and used the generator to power the house.

instead (after a few days on a small honda EP2500) i picked up a 10kw from northern tool, had to drive almost 300 miles (each way) to get it....i pulled the main/utility supply breaker and back-fed the house w/ the 10kw (gas) gen...we were happy a pigs in mud

Ive since converted the 10kw (gasoline) to run on natural gas - next storm i won't even have to chase gasoline !

We have a 2003 and have around 700 hours on ours. We dry camp but have a robust solar array so it doesn't see lots of hours. Starts and runs fine. I have had problems with the temp sensor though. Had to make a little work around for that. Maintenance is fairly easy to do and doesn't take long.

We attended a Cummins/Onan gathering this fall in Columbus Indiana.
The National Onan rep said most service calls are from non use. They recommend a minimum of 2 hours a month under load and a minimum of 100 (yes one hundred) hours per year.

Ours has 1500 hrs. Coach has 89K miles. Runs great if I keep the fuel filter maintained. I also run mine at least every 1-2 months during the year!

150,000 miles...4000 hrs on the Onan

use it or loose it

more generator develop problems from not being used, than from being used too much

I was in NY during Irene.

I was caretaker for my grandfather's house while he spent his last year in the VA in-residence facility. He was a tinkerer and somehow managed to acquire a VERY old Onan generator along the way. I found it wrapped up in the corner of his carport. I checked and the oil was clean and I left it alone until Irene was looming.

My cousin and I decided to fire it up just in case. We needed to replace the breaker and futzed with the points. It reluctantly fired up and ran poorly for a while until it finally worked itself in after sitting idle for so long. Poured a can of seafoam in the gas and let it run for a while. Lucky thing because the trees fell over the power lines next door and we had no power for six days. Since the road was blocked I ran extension cable s across the street and powered my cousin's refrigerator, freezer, TV and satellite as well as various lamps at their house and the refrigerator and lights at mine. After a couple days I realized the water pump was 110 instead of 220 so I pulled the wires and installed a plug on them and ran that as well. Ran garden hoses across the street and back fed the cousin's house through the hose bib on the street side. We both had water and electricity thanks to that VERY old Onan until the road crews finally came and removed the trees and restored commercial power.

After that we mounted it on a cart and scrounged up a fuel tank (had been using a propped up gas can with a hose on the vent for gravity feed as the fuel pump did not work) and they are still using it around the farm!

My other cousin up the street had water in the basement so I parked my RV up there so she would have electricity to keep the basement pump working. Shuttled the RV up and down the street to keep the neighbor's freezers cold. As long as they kept them closed they would last for several hours while I ran it at the next house. Worked in a pinch!

Should have seen the look of pure joy on the old man's face when I told him all about it!

'04 coach w/ an Onan QD10KW here w/ 3400+ hours - lots of dry camping - track side, college tailgating and LONG LONG road trips (back and forth to virginia, florida) in the summer sleeping in rest areas.

we have an old english sheep dog (120 lbs)...and if she's in the coach we're running the air conditioners.

engine doesnt burn a DROP one of oil, I had one (freak) problem with it where the stator shorted (bolt came outta the motor electric motor mount & i think it vibrated and wore the winding) we replaced it the stator (ouch) and we've put at least another 500 hours on it since then.

gsf35099 wrote:


Almost forgot, my manual actually says to start the gene up once a week. Everything I've learned is these things like to run and have issues when left sitting no running.

Yes... these things are like garden implements If they sit too long without use they get gummed up inside the fuel system and run poorly or not at all.

I would rather buy a rig with a generator that had 700 hours at 25000 miles and is over five years old than one that had a hundred hours in the same time-frame.

Mine is ten years old this month and has 1100 hours on it. Runs quite well and powers everything like the day we bought it new.

I did have to remove it and replace the starter motor this past summer, but aside from oil and air filter changes I have had to do nothing to it. Oh... I also had to replace a section of the wiring that runs from the remote switch to the controller but that had nothing to do with the genny.

The reason I had to replace the starter motor was that the bearings inside went bad and caused too much friction and made a lot of noise. The bendix also wore out. The gears were worn and the spring no longer returned it after the engine started.

While I had it out of the rig I also installed an in-line fuel filter as the OEM filter is in a difficult to reach location.

Our son-in-law's truck shop has Onan gas generators in some of the mobile service trucks with around 15,000 hours on them with no major service or repairs. 700 hours on a diesel genny? As said, not even broken in yet...