“FORD FG4500iSE INVERTER GENERATOR 3800W Electric Start - CODE FG4500iSE”

5/5

The Ford FG4500 generator appears to be a very well made and effective unit, quite a difference to my previous ten year old less powerful and then pricier non-inverter generator. It is fairly quiet and it is good in the knowledge that the low distortion and non-spiky output is not going to damage electronic equipment. The electric start is a dream and the pull-out transport handle is a joy. That’s the good bit! The bad is the operators manual supplied with the generator. No mention is made of the battery being disconnected or even where it’s located. It’s perfectly reasonable that during transit the battery should be unplugged but there should be an instruction to that effect. Before I realised that the battery was unplugged (it could just have been not charged) I tried to start the generator on the pull cord, to no avail. That’s when I trawled the web to find the answers and found Westinghouse’s version of this Pulsar generator, the igen4500, had a much better manual. It revealed all and we were away. (I don’t believe the generator can start from cold with the pull cord with no battery as the choke is electrically controlled). Still on about the battery, not only is a battery charger not supplied but also there’s no hint of the type required to plug into the panel. There is no mention in the Ford booklet of the ‘DATE CENTER’ (sic.) (they mean ‘DATA’) showing the useful information on outputs and fuel levels, Westinghouse has it all. To sum up, the Ford product appears good but the instructions are woeful. Not to forget that Sitebox’s delivery was impeccable!