I have the honda 1KVA, for 4 years great genny, light and good for things upto say .9 kw. Probally got over 300hrs on it.
Use it for camping trips and easily ran my LX200,dew heaters, 2 X laptops on eco mode.
I also have a honda 2kva, good for things upto 1.8kw but can easily run my microwave or AC unit in our caravan. It gets the most use as it is used on construction sites at work to run drills etc if no power is around. Probally got over 1000 hrs on it now.
I change the oil every 50 hrs as they only need very little oil and clean oil goes along way in keeping any engine good.
My mate has lived on his sailing boat for about 9 years, he had solar but used a 1 kva honda for fast charging batteries during the day for night time use as the solar was only good enough to do so much.
This genny was run for say 5 hrs every day approx 1 tank of fuel (2ltrs approx) or maybe 6 out of 7 days that he was on the boat. It was estimated to do 1800hrs year and it was on his boat till late last year. So it did over 14000 hrs
in the 8 years.
He changed the oil every 50 -75 hrs or every 2 weeks and ran it on regular unleaded not premium.
It finally failed last year, well the motor still ran OK but the output dropped down till less than 300 watts at full throttle as it would struggle to run one of his 400 watt chargers.
The local genny shop said it was the longest one they had seen, the rep even rang him up and said regular oil changes and running standard unleaded is the best thing for these. He has since thrown it out and has bought a new 2kva honda and has already put over 1000 hrs on it no issues. When he runs it he alway makes sure he has the 2 X chargers and 1X engle fridge pluged into it to keep at least 30% load on it if he's not using the TV etc.
They are not tuned for high Octane fuel so its best to run them on regular unleaded with no ethanol, 95 would be OK as well but 98 will burn too slow in the compression stroke so will leed to premature wear and less power as the fuel burns slower than 91 octane this will cause the motor to slave for power when peak demand occurs. This will not happen when the lower faster burning octane is used.
All generators should be run on 91 and not higher octane as what most people believe is better. If you don't beleive me fill up you genny with 98 then plug a drill into it and stop start the drill, watch the genny rev up and down, then fill it up wih 91 do the same thing it will respond much faster and perform better.
So as you can tell we like our hondas but another tradie mate loves his Yamaha 2.8KVA and reports no issues either after many years and high hrs. Stay away from the cheapies unless you are only using them occasionaly.