Consumer Reports Generator Test HF vs Honda

Champion is now offering a 3 year warranty, and is priced just slightly higher than HF.
Also part availability is better with Champion.

Cant knock the HF units, I heard one of the 3500 watt inverters running on a food truck, and it was comparable noise wise to a Hond or Champion of the same size.

RedRocket204 wrote:
I've got two of the Champion 2000W gens with the parallel kit. They have been flawless so far .

I'm on year 5 with my 2 Champion 2000s. Zero issues. Used for job site power tools to running water pumps from our ponds to dry camping.

Bottom line from the CR test: the Honda has slightly better reserve power capacity, and the Predator's 90 day warranty doesn't compare with the Honda's three year coverage. And the jury is still out on the long term performance and parts availability of the Predator, while the Honda is well known for reliability.

My 2k Hondas lose power starting at about 7k feet.

GWolfe wrote:
I've camped at 10,000' with my Champion 3100, it ran like a um champ without the high altitude jets.

Mine do run at 9500-10000 feet but they are definitely down on power. Unless yours has the high altitude jet installed, you will be down on power as well, no way to get around that when a naturally aspirated engine is run in less dense air. The good news is it is uncommon for me to have to depend on a high amp draw at 9500 feet.

H20ENG wrote:
RedRocket,
Have you looked at the jets to see if a Honda or Yamaha jet would fit? Id be surprised if they did not fit your carb. If not, if you knew the jet orifice size of those I'm sure you could find one that fits.

Thanks for the suggestion. I have not but I've done a fair amount of searching online to see if any information comes up like that and have yet to locate anything. There is information on how to "confront" the high altitude situation from Champion which I have recently done. Drilled some holes in the air box lid and reduced the plug gap to 0.18-0.22.

I have a trip coming up in a few weeks where I'll be dry camping at 9500 feet, for the week, so we'll see how it goes. I know when I fired them up, I live at almost 8000 feet, they ran good but I didn't load them up. I'm also running some solar so hopefully my reliance on the gens will continue to be greatly reduced.

I'll keep on the lookout in regards to your suggestion though.

Spoon059 nailed it squarely on the head. For us with our solar and Hybrid Inverter, a Genny would be needed for running the AC or recharging batteries in a cloudy or shaded dry camping situation.

RedRocket,
Have you looked at the jets to see if a Honda or Yamaha jet would fit? Id be surprised if they did not fit your carb. If not, if you knew the jet orifice size of those I'm sure you could find one that fits.

I've camped at 10,000' with my Champion 3100, it ran like a um champ without the high altitude jets.

I've got two of the Champion 2000W gens with the parallel kit. They have been flawless so far but there is one major issue I wasn't aware of before purchasing and suspect the same for the Predator line. The availability of high altitude jets. Champion does not have them for their 2000W version gens and suspect the Predator doesn't either. Honda and Yamaha do have high altitude jets available for the smaller gens, 2000W. Champion does have high altitude jets available for the 3100W + inverter gens too but that is not what I own.