Long Term Review: Champion 100692 Generator Review: Solid Performer, until...
I bought the Champion 100692 a few years back after reading glowing reviews about its portability and inverter tech. At around 1700 watts running (with a 2000-watt surge), it looked like the perfect “just right” size for my needs—big enough for serious work, small enough to toss in the truck. And honestly? For the first three seasons it delivered exactly what I wanted. Then the problems began.
What I Loved (The Pros)
This thing is genuinely quiet. At idle it’s barely louder than a conversation, which made it a campsite hero. Neighbors never complained, and I could run it 20 feet from the tent without earplugs. Weight is another big win—about 39 lbs dry—so one person can actually carry it. Fuel efficiency is excellent too; a 1.05-gallon tank would sip gas for almost 12 hours at 25% load. That’s camping gold when you’re trying to stretch a 5-gallon jerry can across a long weekend.
I used it in three main ways:
- Camping: Ran a 5,000 BTU window air conditioner in my camper all night. Kept the inside at 68 °F while it was 95 °F outside. Never tripped, never surged.
- Power outages: Kept a few appliances, lghts, and the Wi-Fi router running when the electricity was down.
- Job sites: Powered a few hand tools and battery chargers when I was doing some odd jobs out of reach of power at the house.
On paper (and in real life for a while) this generator checked every box I cared about.
The Deal-Breaker: That Stupid Idle Jet
Around the four-year mark the problems started. It would fire up fine, run great under load, but at idle it began “hunting”—RPMs swinging wildly like it was constantly chasing its own tail. Under any load (even a small fan) it smoothed right out. I figured it needed a carb cleaning, something I'm comfortable doing myself. When I got it apart, I found that Champion used a plastic idle jet inserted right into the carb body. And there is no replacement part. Their official stance? “Buy a whole new carburetor.” At the time that was about $35 plus shipping. Not the end of the world, but annoying.
Being the DIY guy I am, I tried to MacGyver a fix. Pulled the plastic idle jet out and swapped in a seemingly identical one from a Honda EU2000i (same orifice size). No dice. Back to hunting. I tore the whole thing apart and hosed it down with carb cleaner several times, ran compressed air through every orifice, following all the advice I could find on the Internets—nothing cured the idle instability.
Disassembly is also unnecessarily painful. To get the carb off you have to remove the entire generator housing, fighting with at least two dozen tiny screws. More than once, I put the carb back on and managed to start it, seemingly having fixed the problem, then by the time I put every single screw back in place, it was back to hunting. Something in the carburetor was messing with the ring seals on the plastic idle jet, and every time I removed them, they would be chewed up and nonfunctional. Enough to make you tear your hair out.
Final Verdict: Great While It Lasted, But I’m Out
The Champion 100692 is light, quiet, and fuel-sipping when it works. If you’re only going to use it a couple weekends a year and never have an idle issue, you might love it for a while. But once that idle jet starts acting up, you’re looking at a full carb replacement every few years (or possibly sooner if you run ethanol fuel). That’s not the reliability I want from a “backup power” machine. Oh, and to add insult to injury...the Champion warranty was three years from the date of purchase, lol. In other words, this problem started right after the warranty expired. Fun times.
Would I buy it again? Nope. I’m looking for a different brand that has a much more service-friendly design. The Champion gave me three solid years of service —but the looming threat of replacing a carb every four years killed any loyalty I had. Although this model is no longer in production, I'm sure there are other Champion models that still ship with a similar carb design. Something that defective simply has no place on a piece of emergency equipment. I am not including a link to the generator (or any Champion generator) because I do not recommend it.
If you’re shopping in this size range, do yourself a favor and look for a generator that doesn’t treat the idle circuit like a throwaway part. Your future self (and your wallet) will thank you. As always, I'm an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. All products that I have linked are products that I have purchased directly, or that I am familiar with through other means. I will never link to products of poor or unknown quality.
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