[SCCC] Facts re Yamaha (and Honda) tri-fuel or propane or natural gas conversion generators

[H Lawrence Serra]

I spoke to Coffman Electric this morning and thought there are some facts that needed to be disclosed about so-called "Yamaha" (and Honda) tri-fuel or propane conversion generators:

1. Coffman sells thousands of generators a year, and has for a long time. It sells both Honda and Yamaha generators;
2. It sells 10 times as many Honda generators as Yamahas. Customers are consumers, local governments, utilities and the US military. Reliability and ease of maintenance and warranty work are Honda's strong points, because there are so many Honda repair dealers around the country;
3. The Yamaha 2kw unit is basically a knock-off of the Honda EU-2000i. Honda has made their 2kw units 8-10 years longer than Yamaha has;
4. Yamaha does not manufacture or sell tri-fuel or propane or natural gas conversion generator units in the 2kw size range. Nor does Honda. [See Yamaha's real website www.yamahamotors.com. All their 2kw generators are gasoline powered.]. All the allegedly tri-fuel, or propane or natural gas conversion units are after-market OEM conversions (See, for example, US Carburetor's site that advertises "Yamaha tri-fuel generators." While the site says it comes with the Yamaha standard 3-year warranty, Coffman says it does not, because any after-market OEM fuel conversion voids both Honda's and Yamaha's warranties. While the OEM converter may issue a similar warranty, no Yamaha dealer has to honor it);
5. Neither Honda nor Yamaha manufacture tri-fuel or propane or natural gas generators in that size range because of the inefficiency of those fuels compared to gasoline and due to the portability problem of taking a propane tank for remote operations; there is always gasoline easily available, seldom propane or natural gas.
6. Reduced efficiency: Both Honda and Yamaha units converted to tri-fuel or propane or natural gas suffer reduced efficency and power output, because the units were not designed from the ground up to run on fuels other than gasoline. Using natural gas as fuel reduces power output by 20%, using propane reduces output by 10%.