Is the Kohler Courage really that bad?

[John WD]

This, a little research would reveal a easy normal thing. I would however look into the cause of head gasket or leak. Could the oil be overfilled, crap in heat sink fins causing overheating people these days..

The oil isn't overfilled and I keep the engine clean. I raise the hood and clean everything in the engine area and the deck area after every use.

I think after I get my new mower I will the take the hood off of my tractor and see if I can find where the leak is coming from. If it is just the valve cover gasket or the head gasket leaking I'll fix it before selling the mower. If it's something else I'll sell the mower as is.

 

[Carscw]

I have three mowers with the same courage engine. All have over 500 hours on them.
Never any problems.

I have one that is on a mud mower.
I run it wide open ( no governor) most of the time I am on it.

 

[John WD]

The difference may (or may not) be when it was manufactured? Mine was manufactured in 2008.

I could just put a drip pan under it in the garage. But I decided to get a new one and sell this one.

 

[turboawd]

hello fellas,
my 3 year old cub cadet with a kohler courage 20 blew up. lol
it started making noises and bam, and then spilled all the oil out. the block had cracked. it only had 150 hours.
from some reading i've done, these motors are made in china, right? have these issues been resolved, or are the new kohlers the same?

 

[motoman]

As I read the professionals' experience it would seem they are more disciplined with the equipment because they have to be to stay in business. Perhaps all the right maintenance and operation is like brushing teeth, a regular drill. Never thought I would defend my Intek 24 since it pushed a guide and ate a pushrod, but once fixed and kept cooler it has treated me well ( new 2004). Leaking oil on air cooled engines should be expected , especially with the heat and vibration they put out.

 

[gainestruk]

Courage are like anything, take care of it and it will serve you well, I have a 20 hp single on a Troybilt Bronco that I'm letting friend use, it now has 75 hrs with no problems and I have a 23 hp v twin on my Husqvarna z-turn it now has 91 hrs on it with no problems.
I do keep both serviced well.

My next door neighbor has a 18 hp courage single on a gravely z-turn he bought new in 2004, last time I ask him he had 575 hrs on it, he mows his yard and part of pasture, he will run it 5+ hrs some hot days and has never had a problem, we did check it at around 75 hrs after I started hearing about loose case bolts, his were tight.
He takes good care of it, air filter stays clean and some years 2 oil changes with 10w30 regular oil (I don't know brand)

 

[DaveTN]

The first Kohler Courage I ever worked on was June 2015 and hopefully my last. It was a 19HP
single on a Cub Cadet standard riding mower. To me it was temperamental, difficult to keep
the valves adjusted, but ran strong when it was started. The original complaint
was that the starter couldn't pull it through the high compression. You can read
my lengthy report (Kohler 19HP High Compression Problem) on start to finish, and
yes, it ended up at last starting easier and running as good as any engine.
Honestly I don't like the OHV engines period but prefer the old style engines with
the valves in the block. I've had several run-ins both with B&S and Kohler over-head
valve adjustments and high compression problems. All in all I do not like Kohler Courage with
the "Bucket Lid" design as they tend to crack blocks with thin walls and bolts working loose
on the lid. :thumbdown:

 

[bertsmobile1]

Well I will both agree & disagree with Dave, just to confuse everyone even more.
Yes, the side walls are too thin
Yes the rocker cover is difficult to keep sealed unless you go to the effort of changing the $ 4.00 gasket every time and do it up with a tension wrench.
And yes the old side valve engines were easier to do routine servicing on, till you had to do something like adjust valve lash on.
However comparing the old side bangers to modern OHV engines is totally irrevelant as they were much better built, in fact substaintally over engineered and were 10 times the price / Hp of modern engines ( adjusted for inflation )
The 8Hp on my 1966 Rover Rancher II cost $ 600 Aus when new, in 1966 the average weekly take home male pay including overtime & bonuses was $ 85 so there was good profit in making them.
We all convienentally forget about this about this when making comparisons and keep thinking a 1966 $ is the same as as 2015 $
So a real comparison would be between it and an 8Hp engine in the $ 3000 + range which of course is not the Courage series.

Otoh, the bucket dedign is a pleasure to work on, you can do full internal surgery with the engine in place in the mower so there is 2 hours saved over anything other than the new Hondas with the diagonal closure.
You can get at all cowel bolts easily, without having to hang off the rafters or remove fuel tanks to get at the back 2 horizontal bolts found on just about everything else with a gravity tank, so two minutes for any Courage / Command as compared to 15 + minutes for a lot of Inteks ( mower dependant )
The hang down oil filters are easy to change cleanly without having 50 little different catch pans to slip under the horizontal oil filter and still spend 10 minutes of uncharagable time cleaning up the spilt oil and another 10 extra minutes trying to undo an oil filter that only has 5 degrees of accessable rotation to work with .
Both Courage & Inteks seem to have the same occurance of internal failures so there is not much difference there except the Courage is easier to work on.
Both the Courage & Command have exactly the same design and the Command, with a higher quality & lower weight crank never has a bolt loosening problem so I would assume Kohler designed the Command, then found they needed a lot cheaper engine because owners were too cheap to pay for good quality engines so swapped out a few expensive items to make the Courage.

 

[DaveTN]

Bert...You're right, the bucket engine on the Courage is easier to access and inspect
the interior of the engine. Never thought about the cost in the 1960's or 70's to the
2010+ years, on the old mowers vs the new ones; and your math seems to work.
When I was a kid a riding mower was an expen$ive thing to buy, which is why we
never got one till I was an adult as I recall. All in all I suppose the Kohler Courage is
a mixed bucket of blessings and curses! :thumbsup: :thumbdown:

 

[87nassaublue]

The Kohler Courage in my opinion is a good engine and there's nothing wrong with the courage if you maintain it the way it needs to be maintained. I've run three different courage motors in the last seven years in a lawn-care business (hundreds of hours) and never have had a problem with any of the three.

Some kohler courage engines might be ok. I believe I read that the bigger v-twins were assembled in Mississipi. The parts might come from China though. The single cylinder courage engines are definitely built in China. I picked up a barely used 2012 troy bilt lawn tractor from the dump for free. It has a kohler courage 22 with a hole in the bottom of the block. I've done a good bit of reading of the problems, and have found there is a design issue with the oil pump that causes engine failure. There's also issues with the thin brittle block castings, plastic cam gears, the head gaskets, the valve guides slipping, overheating, excessive counterbalance wear and casting failure of internal parts.

All, I can say is WOW what a POS. Supposedly most issues were resolved after 2006, but the blown one I have is a barely used 2012 engine! The rubber flashing from the tires isn't even worn off yet. It looks like it might have not even made it through a whole cutting season. It's been sitting a good while. Well, I found an opposed twin cylinder flathead briggs to replace this blown kohler. Some kohler courage engines might be bullet proof, but with the long list of issues that continue to surface even on recent built courage engines, I won't be buying a kohler, unless it's almost free or totally free. I'll be happy to sell the undamaged parts on Ebay however. :laughing: Some people haven't given up on Kohlers quite yet.