I have been looking for a long time to replace my 1995 Champion 5250 Watt Generator, although it served me well for a lot of years, and did a pretty good job of powering most of my house, I was looking to get a whole house generator that would cover everything, but they are really expensive. Then I ran across this thing. I probably over the course of weeks and months put this generator in my cart 20 times, but could never bring myself to buy it, it's not cheap. When Amazon dropped the price a bit and offered 12 monthly payments it was a no brainer and I bought it (without letting my wife know of course), I use the "ask forgiveness not permission" ideology.
With that it showed up exactly when they said it would and the box looked perfect, but I asked the delivery person if I could open the box and inspect for damage before I accept it. The delivery person was very accommodating, and there was not a scratch on it, so I started on the assembly process. Super easy, but you do need to flip it upside down to remove the shipping brace and install the wheels, so if you you are not able to flip over a 250 or so pound generator yourself, plan on drafting a helper and make sure you use the cardboard from the box or a blanket to you don't scratch this thing up.
This generator does not come with oil, so plan on having some on hand. After flipping it back over installed the handles, connected the battery (you will need an 8mm socket to remove the bolts for the battery cover) it does not come in the toolkit. Also what does not come in the toolkit is a 12mm socket or wrench for the oil drain plug so plan accordingly. After filling with 10w30 oil (non synthetic for break in), I put in some gas, turned on the battery switch, pushed the start button, and it started right up! No issues whatsoever.
I ran it through a break in period for about 2 1/2 hours only pulling a light load on and off, and then changed the oil. The oil had metallic particles in it as was expected for break in, I then put in new oil and ran it for another 3 1/2 hours and repeated the process of changing the oil. This time it was pretty clean. At that point I refilled with 10w30 Synthetic oil.
Now that I did the initial break in, I switched over to propane, opened the valve, pushed the button and once again it started right up! No issues whatsoever. I plan on doing 1 more oil change after another 5 hours of runtime.
Now for the bad. When I tested the idle controller switch it did nothing. That really bugged me, so the next day I started troubleshooting, and discovered the actuator that is activated by the idle control solenoid was bent, most likely happened during assembly. I bent it back, and although it now moved, it did not drop the idle because the adjustment screw was not adjusted correctly on the actuator. After getting it adjusted correctly, when I activated the switch again, it dropped the idle down so far that the engine shut down. I then needed to adjust the idle screw in order to fix that issue. This was no issue for me to fix, but not everyone can, which would result in endless phone calls, or even returning this thing. Will I ever use the idle control switch? No way, at least not when hooked up to my house. Pretty much everything in your house has a circuit board, and when the generator senses a load it comes back up to speed, quickly, and could cause a power surge that could damage one of your appliances.
Overall, I am extremely happy with this purchase, and at this point I would buy it again and recommend it to others. It is extremely well built. Duramax put a lot of effort into this machine and it shows. The only reason I am giving it 4 stars is because the issue with the idle control should have been discovered on final inspection. This issue was caused during assembly not during shipping or anything else. Had I not been able to fix this myself, it would have turned into a major hassle.
One final thought. Not sure why they didn't use a magnetic oil drain plug. I plan on getting one for my next oil change to catch any metal floating around in there. just one more thing you can do to keep this thing running for a long time!
Bryan