Consumers Reports - November 2003

Here is email from a Generac representative regarding the rather poor showing of their 4000EXL generator in the Consumers Reports review.

All units are fully tested under full load immediately after going down the assembly line. If something was out of adjustment after consumer reports purchased this unit, it could have caused something like this to happen. We have not had any reports from the field as this being an issue, so I can only assume that the unit they had needed to have an adjustment done. The biggest thing that comes to mind is that the engine rpm's were a little too low on the unit they had. Not only engine horse power, but rpm's play a pretty big part in being able to carry a load. The voltage output also is adjustable on this unit. We run into one every once in a while that had gone a little out of adjustment while it is being shipped. Also, all generators have approximately a 10% variance until the engine is broken in (8 hours of run time). Once the engine is broken in, the engine tends to run much better. These are all factors on how that could have happened. There are typically not a lot of problems with this unit, but I think there was something minor up with that one.