Onan, the dark side
Quality control and customer service
This problem began on May 1998. I purchased a brand new Onan Quiet Diesel generator ( 10kw ) from Cummins Northwest in Portland, Oregon. I was in the process of building a medium duty truck to haul our 40 foot RV trailer with. My plans called for the generator to be installed in the truck. From the very first month I had nothing but trouble with this generator. The local Cummins Northwest in Bend where I live tried to fix the problems with no luck. It was hard to start and smoked so bad when it did start that it would raise a cloud that engulfed the truck and trailer. The voltage that it produced was between 109 volts to as high as 122 volts. The A/C lights in the trailer had a nasty blinking tendency when powered by the generator. I tried running my trailer on other Onan quiet diesel generators, and had no problems with the A/C lights.
Within the first 200 hours, the generator burned up the first controller. I took the unit down to Cummins in Bend where it sat for almost a month. It seems that Onan takes a long time to get parts from. The first replacement controller was installed in the generator and it was test run. That controller burned up on the test run. I then had to wait again for another controller. This whole process took about a month. The generator was then on it's third controller. I reinstalled the unit back into the truck which takes about 2 1/2 hours. The generator was working again, but still had the same problems as before. Hard to start, smoke, poor voltage control and the blinking light problem.
After a few months of having the same troubles with the unit, I decided to take it back to Cummins Northwest in Portland, Oregon to see if they could fix the problems. The unit stayed there for almost two months. They told me that everything was fine with the generator.
I installed the generator back into the truck again and headed off for Alaska for two months. Nothing had changed. Still the same problems.
This summer one week into a six week vacation the generator eats another controller while we were boondocking at City of Rocks National reserve in Idaho. I had a freezer full of meat and no electric. We had only been there one day and we had to find a place to get the unit repaired ASAP. We drove back to town and I called Onan's repair hot line to see who we could get to repair the generator. It turned out that the closest place was in Pocatello, ID. I called them and explained my situation to them. I was told in all honesty by the repairman that he had very little experience working on the quiet diesel generators and that I might be better off with a larger company that sees more of the units like mine.
I decided to call Cummins Northwest in Portland to see if they could recommend someone locally. They told me that I would be better off if I took the unit to Salt Lake City. This was over 300 miles from where I was. I spent the next five days getting the generator repaired. It then had 600 hours on it. With the generator fixed, we set off for Gillette, Wyoming to attend the Great North American RV rally. It was there that I had a chance to talk with Mike Fair from Onan. I explained to him all the problems I was having with the generator. He told me that I should not be having this much trouble with the generator and that it sounded like I had a problem with the stator or rotor in the generator. He gave me his card and told me to have my local Cummins dealer replace both and that Onan would pay for the parts and labor to install the stator and rotor.
When I returned for our vacation I went down and explained the situation to the local dealer and had them order the parts. (08-06-00 ) It took until 10-6-00 to get the parts to the dealer in Bend, and only after I made four or five trips to the local dealer and a few phone calls to Onan in Minnesota.
When the parts finally arrived in Bend, I took the generator out again and gave it to Cummins to make the repairs only to find that the new stator was built incorrectly. It would not even bolt up to the motor. We tried another stator that was waiting to be installed on another quiet diesel that happened to be there and guess what? Bad also. The shop called Onan and they said they would send another one out ASAP and we would have it in two days. It took a week for that one to show up and guess what? It too, had problems. The mount was not welded on in the same place as the other one. I called Onan back again and after another week they sent out a retro fit kit to fix the problems that the mounting bracket caused (cooling fan would not seal to the case). This took almost a month in all. I finally got the generator back and installed it in the truck again. I did a test run on the generator and the problems with the light blinking seemed to be fixed. The voltage was good, everything looked like it was finally going to work out in the end. WRONG!!! Now the engine would not come up to operating temperature. I let the unit run for two hours and you could put your hand on the block and the radiator hoses.
Off to the poor local dealer I go again. He could not believe it. They told me that the thermostat must be stuck. I asked to buy a new one and I was told that it would cost $29.40 for the part, but none were in stock in the computer. Great--they want an arm and a leg and can't get the part anyway. I went to the local Napa auto parts store and bought one for $6.88 I took the generator box apart again and replaced the thermostat. Put everything back together and guess what? That was not the problem. At this point I was so frustrated and mad that I told my local dealer to get me a new unit or else. After a few days with Onan he managed to get me a brand new unit. I was overjoyed to get rid of the problem generator. You would think that would be the end of the story
!!!!!!!! WRONG !!!!!!!!!
The new generator arrived in a crate all nice and clean. The very first thing I noticed while it was still in the crate, was that one of the motor mount bolts had fallen out. It went down hill from there.
After all the trouble I had with the other generator, and the problems I had getting the mechanics to put the unit back together correctly, I decided to take this one apart myself and make sure everything was tight. What I found was a total mess. It took me eight hours work to get the unit ready for service. I have taken a lot of pictures of both generators and the problems I had with them. I showed the problems with the new generator to the service manager at Bend Cummins before I started to make the repairs myself. He was dumbfounded when I showed him.
My point to all of this is, with all the problems I have had with my old generator and the problems I had with the new generator, who at Onan is watching the quality control on the manufacturing of the units and the parts being sent out to repair them?
The price that Onan charges, in my opinion is way out of line. In fact it seems that they charge 300 % more for the very same parts I can buy locally elsewhere.
During the course of this whole mess I made numerous phone calls to Onan in Minnesota and and to Cummins Northwest in Portland. Maybe, and I mean "maybe", 5% of my phone calls got returned. All I got was voice mail. I even managed to get a few E-mail addresses. The messages I sent via E-mail went unanswered. In my opinion, this is not good customer service.
I have since made a few posts to some of the RV bulletin boards to see if other people are having problems with Onan. I have received quite a few letters with some of the same quality control and customer service problems that I experienced. This tells me that my problem was not an isolated incident. Onan has problems that we as consumers need to be aware of before we decide to lay down hard earned money for one of their generators that may or may not work.