Onan Gen hours?

[Larry Geese]

How many hours will an average Onan 8000 run before rebuild or major tune up?
The one in my newest motor home has about 900 hours with normal oil and filter changes.

[GraySeal65]

If you think of it as an engine it would have around 54,000 miles on it. Tune and filters and I wouldn't worry about it.

[Adam Hunter]

Hi,

I'm sure you have the manual for your 8000 series. If you don't have a look at the document that I included below.

I say follow Cummins service directives; I would expect that if you used/exercised and loaded the generator as per the manufacturers directions maybe 15 - 20,000 hour lifespan. At 900 hours give a FULL service and relax in knowing that you should have a unit with a full service life ahead of it.

http://www.westerncanada.cummins.com...aspx?ID=100192

[zmotorsports]

I was told by my local Cummins/Onan dealer several years ago that the diesel Onans will easily go upwards of 20k hour before major overhaul is needed provided they are properly maintained. Proper maintenance being the key to anything for that matter though.

My aunt/uncle had just over 13k hours on their Onan 7500 in their Beaver Marquis before it was sold due to their passing. They used their coach a lot in the wintertime for snowmobiling and it would run quit a lot over the course of a weekend of sledding, as did ours in our previous coach, although ours was nowhere near theirs on hours. They also boondocked a lot more that us in the summer months seeing as how they were retired.

Our Onan Quiet Diesel 10k in our 2003 Dynasty has 2900 and some change on it and runs perfectly. The service manual suggests doing a "major maintenance" on it @ 3000 hours. This includes adjusting the valves, replacing belts and coolant as well as all filters. I opted to perform this maintenance a little premature as our genset had 2500ish hours on it when we purchased the coach used in early 2007. I thought it a bit high until talking to one of the techs at Rocky Mountain Cummins/Onan.

When I purchased the parts to perform the maintenance my dealer told me to not mess with the valves until at least 5k hours as they never see them out of adjustment until well after that. I am kind of anal about maintenance so I decided to perform a valve adjustment anyway because that is what my service manual specified. The valves were spot on.

I was however, glad I decided to pull the sheetmetal off and get to the belt/blower fan because the belt was shot. I don't think it would have made it another 500 hours to the 3k hour mark.

Mike.