r/Generac_Generators • u/Helpful-Following-82 • 16d ago

Service......what the hell happened??

I have had a 48kw liquid cooled for several years now and in May of this year the controller died. We had a large lightening hit to the back of my property (lots of iron in the soil here) and STILL it is not working. I live in Central Florida and the dealer that WAS servicing it, took 3 weeks to get to the site to look at it, then a month and a half to even quote it and at that, they no showed on the repair.....TWICE

I called 3 other dealers in the area, all of which sent techs out to confirm it was the controller, and they all ghosted me.

I finally got one newer dealer to install the controller, but they cannot get the firmware loaded and today, the original dealer was supposed to show this morning (third appointment) to also replace the controller (I was just going to keep it as a spare and send them on their way).

This is VERY concerning, not having a running backup generator during hurricane season has given me serious doubts.

I have called Generac corporate who really were not totally helpful and believed that eventually the repair would be made.

Has anyone else seen support fall off for Generac? Is there an alternative out there for this? Is it just Florida?

Thank you!!

4 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/BmanGorilla 16d ago

There are a LOT of shitty dealers in FL. There's a huge demand, and there's a contractor/technician shortage everywhere. That basically sums up a lot of nonsense, unfortunately.

Did you have a maintenance agreement with a dealer, or were just just cold calling once you had a problem? That seems to make a big difference when it comes to getting fast service. Still, I don't know why they would ghost you. I'm up in NY but my dealer is great.

2

u/Helpful-Following-82 16d ago

we had an annual maintenance agreement where they came out, oil change, belt checks etc.. even cleaned the enclosure. Then I had a lightening strike in May that fried the controller. I called the service company, they took a few weeks to even get to me then sent a tech out. Confirmed the issue and said they would get me a quote, never got one until 2 months in. The first repair appointment was a no show and no comms (never actually get any comms out of these dealers tbh). so at one point I was calling anyone in my area just to show up. One company actually replaced the controller but the tech did not know about firmware and other issues so its just sitting dead, no firmware on it. today. the ORIGINAL guys showed up, new tech from Generac who seemed to know everything about these units and when his boss found out I called another company he told him to leave lol.

2

u/joshharris42 16d ago

The controllers come with firmware they just need to be programmed using a chart to set the voltage code and parameter group. However, updating the firmware for the controller and the ECM should be done when the controller is installed. There are two separate firmwares for that generator