I had posted my initial impressions of this generator a couple days ago after running it for it's five hour break-in period.
http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/28120995/gotomsg/28121682.cfm#28121682
although it only got about 6 hours of use, I remain impressed so far.
New years eve we left Roseau Mn Wednesday around 3:30 and headed to Red Lake MN to spend two nights on the lake in our fish house. We arrived at 7:30 pm. temps were about -10 with 20-30 mph winds. I decided to start out with the honda eu 2000 ( which I own with the other 3 guys I own the house with) due having an extended run tank and the honda using less gas. When I woke up the next morning the honda didn't seem to be running right. During the night the wind shifted. When I started the honda, I had the house between the honda and the 20-30mph winds. during the night the wind shifted and was now hitting the honda. The honda was running a bit rough. It sounded like it had the choke on. Around 9:00 am we decided to head the toaster oven to cook some breakfast sandwiches. I turned the oven on and we lost the lights and the tv. I went outside and the genny was still running, although rough but no power to the house. I killed the power and took the champion out. The temp was somewhere betwenn -5 and -15 (don't tell champion as the manual states 5 degrees to be it't lowest operating temp) below with the same wine conditions. I pulled 4 times and nothing happened. I thought "great, it wont start in this cold weather. Then I noticed I didn't have the choke on. I pulled the choke and it started on the second pull. I plugged the cord in and walked into the house. The lights were on and the satalite tv was re-aquiring it's position. I figured I better let it run about a half hour before turning on the 1500 watt toaster oven. The noise level appeared to be the same as the honda inside the house. After about a half hour I turned on the oven. the oven started heating immediately with no lose of power to the lights or tv. The generator got slightly louder, but we all felt it was quieter than the honda was the previous night when we cooked pizzas in the oven. During this time I brought the honda in to warm up next to the stove. I figured something must be freezing up. I ran the champion for 5 hours, using the oven again in the afternoon to cook some pizza rolls. It had no problems ( which it should not have had since it only had about a 1,900 watt load on it). After 5 hours, I brought the honda back outside and started it up and hooked up the extended run tank and put the champion back in the truck.
Although it was a fairly short test under a modest load, I was still quite happy with the genny. It sound level is quieter than I had expected. I had also read where users of the champion 2000's had issues starting them in cold weather. This one had no problems (once it used the choke) starting in sub zero weather, and ran flawlessly in 20+ mph winds for 5+ hours.
