PART I

I broke down and bought a Honda 7000EU. I was drooling over the fuel injected model and I pulled the trigger. She was sweet and sexy for 140 hours and then ? blip--takes a poop. A BIG POOP. NO start, cranks but no start. Hmm. I pull the spark plug, sopped in gas. I knew it wasn't bad gas because I'm running other stuff off the same gas jug (my chainsaw and another Honda EU2200)

So -I grabs me a new plug, pop it on the plug boot, ground it and crank the engine. Nice blue spark. Whew. Next.

I hand-pull the engine over a couple-few times to clear out the cylinder of any leftover gas. I screw in the new plug and hit the start button. Crankity-crank- crank. She usually fires right up - but nope, nothing. Not even a fart. I pull the plug and once again it's sopped in gas. Only after one crank of about 5 seconds !

Welp, seeing it has ONLY 140 hours on it and she's 2 months old I stop there. Warranty time right? Yup. I'm a little pissed but WTH I'll haul it down to a Honda service shop. I was little disappointed but not to riled up as I have 2 other RELIABLE (and OLD) Honda generators. (ONES WITH CARBS and NO FRIGGIN ELECTRONIC GIZMOS !)

K, so I have a couple beers, talk it over with the dog, settle down and load it in the truck. ALL 280 FREAKING POUNDS OF IT !!!

PART II

After sitting in the Honda shop since last Wednesday, the service gal calls me on the phone and says it's all set and ready for pick up.

I asked her what was wrong with it. She said the mechanic said the O2 sensor was dirty which caused the spark plug to gas foul. She said he cleaned the O2 sensor, installed a new spark plug and it runs fine. My eyebrows dropped and couldn't help but squint my eyes.

OK, ready ? she goes on to say that it's not covered under warranty.

HUH? 2 months old and 120 hours on it? Not covered, WHY?

She said that because I must have been running it on eco-mode the generator wasn't reaching full RPM's which caused the O2 sensor to carbon up thus fouling the plug. HUH? This is MY fault? I told her nowhere in the owner's manual does it state that you shouldn't run it in eco-mode for extended hours. And I've run my other older Honda generators in eco-mode with never a problem. She said sorry that's what the tech said. I'm on the phone with her, mind ya, and the veins in my head are starting to throb.

So I owe parts and labor and none of it is covered under warranty....so she says.

Being off grid with solar power I run this genny mostly as a back-up to refresh my batteries in winter(maybe 2-3 hours every other night or so). I keep it in eco-mode unless I'm running big stuff continuously (which is rare) And I don't really pay attention to the rpm's or whether it's kicking up or down. And I use that eco-mode as it was intended to be used.


I'll be going down to chat with the mechanic. What a bunch of crap ! Unless I'm missing something...then I'll eat Crow.