High dollar ONAN Quiet Diesel not worth it!

[Dale Tomlinson]

My Onan 75. Quiet-Diesel Generator recently self-destructed. After spending over three times as much money...compared to a gas genset, my Quiet-Diesel, after a little over five years, but with only 600 hours on it, needed over $3000.00 worth of repairs. I think the Kobota engine is probably good, but the gentset, made by ONAN, came apart! Some of the generator magnets on the rotor, came loose and destroyed the stator and other parts of the genset. They are simply "glued on" to the rotor!

In talking with ONAN people, they acknowledged that this has happened before (due to manufacturing defect), but they refused to help on mine, since I was out of warranty! I guess ONAN has too much business and needs no more "good will"!

I have been motorhoming for over 30 years with 6 different motorhomes. With my current unit, I decided to spend the extra money for a diesel pusher with Cummins Diesel engine along with the ONAN Quiet-Diesel generator, in hopes that they would be much longer lasting than the much less expensive gas m/h's. Not so! I guess "diesels" just cost you more to begin with ... and more to fix! My Cummins diesel engine had a cracked block at 16,000 miles. Thankfully, this was still under warranty! But, these events have lowered my faith in diesels!

[Dale Tomlinson]

My Onan 75. Quiet-Diesel Generator recently self-destructed. After spending over three times as much money...compared to a gas genset, my Quiet-Diesel, after a little over five years, but with only 600 hours on it, needed over $3000.00 worth of repairs. I think the Kobota engine is probably good, but the gentset, made by ONAN, came apart! Some of the generator magnets on the rotor, came loose and destroyed the stator and other parts of the genset. They are simply "glued on" to the rotor!

In talking with ONAN people, they acknowledged that this has happened before (due to manufacturing defect), but they refused to help on mine, since I was out of warranty! I guess ONAN has too much business and needs no more "good will"!

I have been motorhoming for over 30 years with 6 different motorhomes. With my current unit, I decided to spend the extra money for a diesel pusher with Cummins Diesel engine along with the ONAN Quiet-Diesel generator, in hopes that they would be much longer lasting than the much less expensive gas m/h's. Not so! I guess "diesels" just cost you more to begin with ... and more to fix! My Cummins diesel engine had a cracked block at 16,000 miles. Thankfully, this was still under warranty! But, these events have lowered my faith in diesels!

[DriVer]

Dale,

That's too bad. I wouldn't have expected to hear obout those kinds of problems.

We're sitting here in the KOA by the way and we'll be here until early Friday morning. Come on over if you have a chance. Tommorrow we're going to Rushmore and then on over to Crazy Horse.

We have the Adventurer and we're sitting on an paved end site so you can't miss us if you come by. Look for the iRV2 sticker on the back of the motorhome.