Generator AMC & annual maintenance contracts
An annual maintenance contract does two things: it fixes in advance when your generator gets looked at, and it fixes where you stand in the queue when it fails anyway. We hold AMCs on diesel gensets across the UAE — independent, with no brand dealership steering the recommendations.
There is no package table on this page, and that is deliberate
Every agreement we write is scoped against the sets it covers. A standby set in a tower that runs twenty minutes a year and a prime-rated set on a crusher running daily are not the same maintenance problem, and pricing them from the same menu means one is being overserved and the other neglected. Send the asset list and we scope it properly.
What you are buying
Three things, each of them worth money
It is not an insurance policy, and no honest supplier sells it as one.
The failures that never happen
Most standby failures are not dramatic — a flat battery, a dead charger, a blocked radiator core, water in the fuel, a slack belt. All visible months in advance to somebody who turns up and looks. A set on a schedule fails in front of an engineer on a Tuesday morning, not at 02:00 in front of a facilities manager.
Planned spend, not emergency spend
A scheduled visit is budgeted. A breakdown is not: a callout, out-of-hours labour, parts in a hurry, and whatever the failure did to the machine on its way down. The same repair costs less as a plan — and far less than the version where it runs on and takes a crankshaft or a stator with it.
An engineer who knows your set
By the third visit the site file holds the engine and alternator models, the controller, the breaker rating, the permit arrangements and the readings history. That is the difference between arriving with the right part and coming back tomorrow.
Readings with a history behind them
It is also the difference between a reading that looks fine and a reading that is fine. Oil pressure of 3.5 bar means nothing on its own, and means a great deal if it was 4.2 bar at the same temperature last year.
Why the terms are not published
What governs the scope of yours
Publishing a tier table would be publishing somebody else's contract. Six things decide what your sets actually need.
- Duty and rating. Standby, limited-time, prime or continuous — the four ISO 8528-1 duty ratings demand different regimes.
- Running hours and how they accumulate. A calendar schedule suits a set that barely runs; an hour-meter schedule suits one that works. Applying the wrong one is the commonest fault we find in contracts written elsewhere.
- The engine manufacturer's own schedule for your model, in this ambient — the governing document, not our preference.
- The environment. A rooftop set drawing dust off a construction site and one in a clean ventilated basement do not load their filters and cores at the same rate.
- What the failure would cost you. A life-safety load, a data hall or a cold store justifies attention a warehouse office set does not.
- The size and spread of the portfolio, and how many sets can be attended per mobilisation.
None of that survives contact with a bronze, silver and gold table. We would rather write down what your sets need and be held to it than sell you a package name.
Comparing suppliers
Five questions to ask any AMC supplier — including us
Contracts are hard to compare because the cheap one and the thorough one look identical on a covering page. These five separate them, and they cost nothing to ask.
- Which schedule are you servicing to — mine, or yours?The right answer names your engine model and its manual. A generic annual service applied across a mixed fleet is a schedule built for the supplier's convenience.
- What do I get after each visit?Readings, work done, parts fitted, dated, anything found listed against a priority — and usable in front of your client or your insurer.
- Are readings tracked between visits?A drift in oil pressure, coolant temperature or insulation resistance is only visible against history. If each visit starts from nothing, nothing is being watched.
- What happens when the set needs more than a service?Ask specifically where the alternator goes for a rewind and where the crankshaft goes for grinding, and how long each adds.
- What is inside the price, and what will be quoted separately?In writing, before you sign. Almost every dispute over a maintenance contract in this market is a disagreement about this one question that nobody wrote down in advance — and it is where cheap contracts are built.
The difference on the bad day
The workshop behind the contract
A maintenance contract is a promise about the good days. What matters is the bad one — when the visit finds a burnt stator, a spun bearing or a cracked head. At that point most providers become a middleman: the component goes out to a third-party machine shop or winding shop, into somebody else's queue, at somebody else's tolerance.
Ours goes across the yard. The winding bay, the engine bay and the machine shop are on the same site as the service vans, so the escalation from routine visit to major repair happens inside one company, with one schedule and one set of measurements. The people who took the readings do the machining.
It also changes what we recommend. A firm that subcontracts machining has a quiet incentive to call a component scrap and sell you a replacement. We have the opposite incentive, and the machines to act on it.
- Standby sets fail from time, not use
Batteries degrade in the heat whether the set runs or not. Coolant inhibitor depletes on a calendar. Warm diesel in a part-empty tank condenses water, and water grows the contamination that blocks filters. Rubber hardens. Bores glaze from light-load running.
- None of it shows on an hour meter
All of it shows on the one day the mains drop, which is precisely the day the set exists for. It is the strongest case for a calendar-driven contract there is.
- Mixed fleets are normal
We hold no dealership, so every set on the list is serviced to its own maker's schedule rather than to whichever brand we happen to represent.
Portfolios
Multi-site and mixed fleets
Most AMC enquiries here are not for one set. They are for a portfolio — sets across several buildings, or gensets of four different makes bought over fifteen years.
A written report — readings taken, tasks completed, parts fitted, and anything found listed with a priority. Photographs of whatever we are recommending you act on. A dated record suitable for an FM client, an insurer or an auditor. A running readings log, so a slow drift is visible long before it is a shutdown. And a recommendation list, so major work arrives as a plan rather than a surprise.
Common questions
Maintenance contracts, answered
What does generator AMC stand for?
Annual maintenance contract — a fixed-term agreement covering scheduled servicing plus an agreed response to breakdowns. In the UAE it is how facilities companies and building owners usually buy generator servicing, a year at a time.
How much does a generator AMC cost?
Per set rather than per package — against the rating and engine model, the duty, the hours, the environment, the response you need and how many sets are on the contract. Anyone quoting a portfolio from a price list has not looked at the portfolio.
What is included in the contract?
It is agreed with you and written into your agreement, because it depends on the sets. Rather than publish a package that would fit nobody, we scope from your asset list and set out in writing what is inside the price and what would be quoted separately — before you sign.
Is a contract worth it for a standby set that never runs?
Usually yes, because a standby set fails from time rather than from use. Batteries, coolant inhibitor, fuel and rubber degrade whether the set runs or not — and the failure shows up on the one day you need it.
Will you take on generators you did not supply?
Yes — we supplied almost none of the sets we look after. Independent, no brand dealership, and we work on the common genset engine and alternator combinations. See generator repair and service.
Can you take on sets outside Sharjah?
Yes. Contracts run across Sharjah, Dubai and the northern emirates — see generator repair in Sharjah and generator repair in Dubai. Abu Dhabi is served on planned work and by arrangement.
What happens if a set on contract needs major work?
How do I start?
Send an asset list. If you do not have one, send photographs of the data plates and the panels and we will build it.
Get an AMC scoped for your sets
Send an asset list — or a photograph of each data plate and panel, which usually tells us the same thing. You get back a proposed visit schedule per set, a written scope and a price, plus which sets are better dealt with as a repair before any contract starts.