Article – Can a Harbor Freight Generator Really Beat a Honda?

Mmmmm…mags…mmmm
=====

Harbor Freight, a giant retailer of low-priced tools and power equipment, has been around since the 1970s. If you live near a Harbor Freight store, chances are you’ve received a circular comparing the Predator 62523 recreational inverter generator to the Honda EU2000iT1A1.

Given the big price difference—the Predator sells for $500 and the Honda for $1,000—are they comparable? Yes, according to Consumer Reports’ testing.

Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. But for mission-critical gear I’ll spend a few extra bucks and have confidence (and perhaps better customer support) in my purchase.

Any generator is probably better than no generator, but I would choose the Honda. However, if all you can afford is a HiPoint Harbor Freight………

15 thoughts on “Article – Can a Harbor Freight Generator Really Beat a Honda?

  1. Eh… I don’t know… Two for the price of one gives you the satisfaction of redundancy. Or, I could buy one from HF and have enough left over to buy 5 packs of mags! That’s a win!
    I’ve always thought that Honda has been waaay too proud of their generators.

    • “I’ve always thought that Honda has been waaay too proud of their generators.” …The pride is warranted. They’re THAT good. I own two Yamahas. They’re great too, though not quite as quiet as the Hondas…

  2. Agreed. And when you buy the Honda, also get the conversion kit for propane, so you can run it direct from your 500 gallon propane tank, and no longer need to store & rotate gas.

  3. HiPoint indeed. I’ve never used a Predator generator but I own a Honda EU2000i AND I’m familiar enough with Harbor Freight’s products not to take anybody’s word that their cut-price lookalike will keep me going in a pinch. The Honda is awesome reliable – I suspect the Predator will work till it quits, which it will do at the worst possible time.

  4. Coatco now has very inexpensive dual fuel or propane only generators, I’d go that way for inexpensive portable gensets.

    Breaks? Take it back & get a new one.

  5. I agree; ANY generator is better than NO generator. That being said though, when your life may depend on something, get the best you can afford. A well-maintained used Honda beats out a new Predator genny, hands down. A while back, I picked up one of those Harbor Freight 1Kw 2-cycle generators at a yard sale for $5.00. As is usual with this type of thing, the carb was gummed up from lack of use/maintenance. I figured I could get it running and flip it at my own yard sale. After cleaning out the fuel bowl and jets, I screwed the fuel bowl nut down, only to feel that sickening “click” of the carburetor casting cracking as the nut’s gasket started snugging up (it wasn’t even screwdriver-tight yet!). I called the 1.800 number on the genny, where I was told that this model of genny wasn’t made anymore, but that they’d sell me a new carburetor… for $75.00! The generator only cost $85.00 NEW! I ended up gluing the casting back together with J-B Weld. The repair actually held! I gave it to my son, letting him know that the repair could let go at any time. Ten years later, the damned thing actually still works! But I digress. I’ve taken MANY a small engine apart for cleaning. I know how tight “tight” is, when screwing the fuel bowl back on. This had never happened before to me. The thing was cheap; PERIOD.

    Buy a “Harbor Freight special,” and you get what you pay for. For SHTF reliability, spend the money; buy the Honda or Yamaha! In a TEOTWAWKI world, “learning from experience” may cost you your life!

    • Don’t get a Yamaha for that. The inverters tend to fail…. At least on the 2kw models.

      Mine has less than 10 hours run time over several years and the inverter crapped. When I went digging online it seems to be an ongoing issue.

      Steelheart

      • Inverters are the weak point on all inverter generators. Honda EU3000s are susceptible to inverter failure when battery chargers are connected to charge the battery; a charger with lousy sine wave control and/or voltage fluctuation will back feed the inverter through the circuitry included to keep the battery charged (there should be a diode in that circuit, and I assume there is, but I haven’t taken one apart to verify), so always disconnect both battery leads when charging from an external source. Haven’t seen any yet, but I suspect the new, bigger inverter units may probably suffer from the same potential problem. FYI, an inverter is about $1100, retail.

        So far, the 1000s and 2000s seem pretty reliable in the inverter dept. – we haven’t replaced any – but with my pair of 2000s I depend on I have a replacement inverter on the shelf in ESD-protective wrapping. Pro Tip: if you get a spare inverter, install it and test it for at least 5 hours before putting it in “safe storage” and I’d suggest using standard ESD-protective measures while handling it (e.g., conductive wrist strap with a 1 megohm resistor and both the parts installer and the generator connected to a good ground to minimize possible damage from static charges producing different potentials).

      • Neither of my gennies are inverters types, due to my concern that, in an EMP or long-term-use scenario, more electronics means more chance of failure. I use the kluge approach to powering sensitive electronics. I replaced the tiny starter battery on my big Yamaha with the biggest deep cycle battery I could fit on the chassis. The gennie charges the battery as it runs. I have several clamp-on inverters of different sizes. I find these for literally pennies on the dollar at yard sales, often still sealed in their packaging! When I need to run something sensitive, I clip one of the inverters onto the battery and run the device from it. If the inverter craps out, I reach for another one and keep going. This also lets me size the inverter to the load; no need in running 1Kw inverter for a 50W load! The rest of the loads get plugged directly into the gennie.

  6. I’ve had a few harbor freight generators. Fir the last 3 years my parents have been using one every day for a few hours to top the battery bank off. I use a predator 6hp engine to run a self rectifying alternator to charge my 12volt battery bank. I have use harbor freight engines for years. I have two water pumps that are predators. I’ve had excellent success with all their engine lines. I do have a 20hp Honda on my sawmill but have to do more maintenance to that than any of my harbor freight engines. Maybe because it has 2 cylinders……

  7. I had a Honda 250cc Scrambler that I bought when I was stationed at Laredo AFB in 1968
    Sure wish I had kept it

    • The scrambler came in both 250cc & 305cc. I owned a couple of both, back in the day. Wish I still had one. Reliable and easy to work on. And about $50 each used. Those days are gone, for sure.

  8. I have bought the “sale” 1K harbor Freight generator. It sits on the shelf in the garage, unused.

    We like “off grid” camping, i.e. no facilities; we go for 4-8 days. My main generator is a Honda EU3000, backup is a Honda 1000. I’ve also owned 2 Champion generators. If you are good at small engine mechanics, go with a Champion. But keep a box of spare parts with you.

    I service my Honda’s in April each year. The 3000 has a battery start (pull-start backup) and the 1000 is a pull-start. I once had to pull the 1000 7 times before it started, usually it is 3 (it’s the backup so it doesn’t get used often). The Champion’s wore me out getting them started, both the gas and the propane ones.

    As for “take it back and get another one”, well where I got that would take 2 days to get done, and what if you need one because the grid is down and nothing is open?

    Like the Hi Point, you get what you pay for. If you don’t use it much, cheap may work (most times).

Comments are closed.