Generator Break-In — Do This or Wreck It

Buy a new generator, the manual buries this in fine print, and ninety percent of owners skip it. The break-in procedure. Skip it — your generator dies five years early.

Manual says — first ten hours, run at twenty-five percent load. Hours ten to twenty-five — fifty percent. After twenty-five — full load. Most people fire it up at full load the first night and never look back.

Twenty-five percent load — that's just running your fridge. Fifty percent — fridge plus one rooftop AC. Full load — both ACs plus the converter charging.

Why does this matter? The internal seals and rings need a controlled break-in to seat properly. Run it hard cold, you score the cylinder. Once scored, the generator burns oil forever.

Also — change the oil at twenty hours. Then at fifty. Then every hundred. Most manuals say two-fifty for the first change. That's marketing, not engineering.