"That Bobcat is the pride and joy of my father's life."
-– Don C.

I would like to thank you for taking the time to respond to my inquiry. It is impossible for me to contact you without telling you how much better your products are than the competition, not to take anything away from them (they make good products too), but nothing compares to yours. I don't make these statements just because I happened to have good luck with one of your engines. I have owned several KOHLER engines and all have performed "above and beyond the call of duty." I have been an industrial maintenance mechanic/machinist for 20+ years and have worked on or rebuilt hundreds of small engines of all types. I am happy to report that it is indeed rare to run across a KOHLER that needs to be rebuilt. Usually a good carburetor cleaning an they're good to go!

I am writing because I wanted to relate an experience with an even more durable KOHLER engine. Several years ago my father decided that he could use a steer skid loader, so he went to auctions until he found one. It was a '58 Melroe Bobcat, it must have been one of the first ones ever produced. It so happened that I was familiar with the Bobcat, because I had went to school with an employee of the construction company who owned it for many years. When I next ran across my old schoolmate, his first words were: "I wish I would have known you were going to bid on the Bobcat, it's been beat to heck!" It had seen better days, but most amazing to me was the KOHLER engine that powered it. The governor had been bypassed back in 1968! And it had been used almost everyday since then by countless number of people, mostly high school kids during the summer. It rarely had the oil changed, and was constantly abused under the worst conditions you could subject an engine to. By all accounts the construction company never had any trouble with the engine, and it still started and ran well when my father got it. He used it for several years and it got to the point where it was getting hard to start on bitterly cold days. One day I was there when he was trying to get it started, so I offered to take the engine out and rebuild it, or get another one if it was too far gone to repair. I figured due to the history of this engine, it would be completely "toast", but I took it apart anyway – mostly out of curiosity to see what havoc the years of abuse had caused to the engine. It had never been taken apart since assembly – and all it needed was rings! The only reason it was getting hard to start was that it still had the original contact points in the magneto.

That Bobcat is the pride and joy of my father's life. My dad was never wealthy so he was always careful what he spent his money on. He considered the Bobcat a luxury item, after all he had gotten by all those years without it, so to him it was a symbol of finally making it in life. He bragged about it, he showed it off at every opportunity and had he lived in town I'm sure he would have entered it in parades. He knows as well as I do, it's that KOHLER engine that makes the Bobcat what it is.