KOHLER Generators Reviews

As a dealer who expects a baseline of professional partnership, I am deeply disappointed by the completely unacceptable customer service from Rehlko (formerly Kohler). We paid $1,000.00 for employee training and needed to reschedule the session. Instead of accommodating a working partner, Rehlko is outright refusing to honor our original payment and is demanding an additional $1,000.00 to rebook. To make matters worse, their communication is non-existent.

Updated on 09/19/2026: My rating is STILL -1 star! I’ve now had 4 Kohler certified service repairmen who’ve all been nice guys, however the last one installed the ordered part, started the generator up only to have oil begin spewing out. He was recommended to disassemble it to locate the oil leak, but could not continue because he lacked the part to get the flywheel off. Now a tool would have to be ordered. It has been disassembled EIGHT DAYS. We’ve passed the 3-5 business day time frame given to investigate the issues and find a resolution by three business days.

I’ve had my generator 12 years. In that time I am on my third controller at $1300 each, my fourth transfer switch control board at $450 each. I have had two Kohler techs out to work on this for a total of $500. Service is a joke. The first guy was suppose to try a firmware reload on my controller. He didn’t bring a computer and installed a new controller. Then when he couldn’t fix it he said he had to go back to the shop and think about it.

I received a brand new unit that had no seals installed from the manufacturer. I was sold on the fact that was a 10-year warranty. Three weeks later I was told it was only a 5-year warranty even though I signed up doing a 10-year warranty. But they installed it after the date to try to receive the 10-year warranty. Also sold me a unit that had no seals to hold oil and they had the whole thing taken apart for over 8 hours at my house. Brand new unit. It's like buying a brand new car and have it spill oil everywhere and then tell you, "Oh it's okay. We fixed the problem." What a bunch of garbage this company is. They cannot stand behind their product or the people who install it and he refused to help me get my warranty back to 10 years like I signed up for. I regret buying this from Kohler and the company who sold it to me. If I was you I would go a different route and do not choose Kohler.

We live in a rural area where storms can sometimes cause power outages for long periods of time and when we decided to get a generator, my husband chose Kohler. It does its weekly checks just like it's supposed to, on time, every time. You can set it up for weekly or monthly checks, and it does a startup to make sure the battery is running and everything is working so that it will work in an emergency. It’s about a two-minute startup, then it runs through its cool-down period. It goes off on schedule like it’s supposed to.

I have 14 kw unit installed 12/22, this unit has about 30 hours on it due to the regular systems check it runs every other week for 20 minute cycles. By chance I happen to do an oil check where I found the two bolts that hold the intake on had backed out. Kohler says the tech would determine if it’s covered under warranty, and the tech said he doesn’t know, Meanwhile I’m on the hook for a bill of $280. To say the least I am not satisfied. Thanks Kohler.

Wonderful generator, so pleased with this unit. It has never left us down. I’m disappointed in the cover case, it really shows age from sun and weather, feel like for the money, the outer case should be better quality.

We lose power too much where I live, especially during storms and I bought a home generator. I liked the way Kohler was made better, and they were a little quieter. I'm very satisfied with my experience in using the generator.

I had a good experience with KOHLER. I contacted a company that I trust and they were promoting KOHLER generators. It was competitive with other generators we looked at. It was on a week ago when we had a power outage. It was seamless. The app monitors what the generator is doing and it's easy to use. I have peace of mind.

I need a generator as backup power for my house, which is at the end of a power line that fails frequently. I picked Kohler and I like knowing that I'll always have power. The biggest benefit being the sense of mind that I have that we're protected all the time. The only time the generator ever ran in an emergency, it ran for about an hour or so. No one was home. But it's the peace of mind knowing that it's secure, and it would work when I need it. I've got the transfer panel so it automatically starts the generator up and switches over.

We’ve had Kohler for nine months now. I wanted to ensure that we have either AC or heat for the warm or cold weather, to keep the refrigerator and freezer running. So far, it's been good. We can hear it when we're on the other side of the wall from where it's located. We’ve had outages since I’ve had it in place, and it didn't kick on right away. But within 30 seconds, it was on. Once power was restarted, it did a cooldown cycle and then shut off. Quality-wise, it seems okay. It doesn't have all the features I would like, but it's efficient. The price was a lot more than what I was expecting, but that's all right.

I've lived in this house for six years now. And four and a half out of that, we would lose power in the middle of summer and every winter. There's bad underground power in the neighborhood. Right now, they are going from the green box strung through the air, a temporary cable for my neighbor and me, because we were out of power for three days. So the generator ran for three days. We would lose power in the winter sometimes.

When I lived in New Hampshire, when I first started being an electrician, the company I worked for installed Kohler Generators. I'm very familiar with the Kohler Generators. And when I was there, we took out a lot of Generacs and put in Kohlers. And that swayed me. And since I worked on them, I was familiar with how they hooked up and their reliability. So I went with Kohler. I live in Vermont, and I have co-op power, and they lose power all the time. I have lived in my house since 2018, and probably four or five of the Christmases we've been in the house, we've not had power. I’ve used the generator quite a bit, and I’m very satisfied. Their price is great as well. I even talked to my boss. Because I'm an electrician in Vermont now. We used to install whatever, and we made the switch. He's not part of Kohler, but all we install now is Kohler Generators. I convinced him to switch to Kohler and not do Generac at all.

I spoke with the company, GymPro, and their salesman was the person I spoke with about the KOHLER generator. I liked the pricing and the size. It does its test runs and on scheduled time and there haven't been repairs needed. We know when it's running. We can hear it. I've got on it once and didn't have an issue.

We wanted a generator, and the electrician that I hired to wire the house was most familiar with Kohler. They made good products, so we went with that. We have a cabin up in Northwoods, and power loss is not infrequent up there, so we just wanted to have something to keep the lights on. We lost power three times over the winter, and the generator ran. Once we get internet there full time, then I'll be able to use the app. It's the only thing I wish I did have for it was the ability to use the app when we're not there, but don't have internet yet.

Get a KOHLER generator. It covers my house and the next-door neighbors. The power went out twice here. One was a minute. The other one for five minutes. There's an extender that it's hooked up to. It's not hooked directly to my modem, and it kicked off. I don't know how to kick it back on. It has been a few months, and I keep forgetting to call my guy to put it back on. I just got to remember to call CJ and say, "Come fix it." That's my only dissatisfied thing, because it kicks on every Sunday at noon and says, "I'm on. It's doing this. You're okay. Holler at you next week.” That's it. But I haven't been getting it for months, and I keep forgetting. It's getting upon that time of year. I also need to get the service contract for it.

Horrible customer service. Called for troubleshooting questions and employee told me to figure it out myself. Would highly not recommend.

I've got two of these KOHLER Generators. I have one in Iowa on my farm, and we had a severe storm tornado touch down three miles from our farm, but it also knocked the power lines that came down to our farm in that area, and they were off for four days. But after four days, we got tired of running around plugging everybody's refrigerator in, so I bought my first KOHLER in Iowa.

I live in a rural area and we have power outages here. I needed to make sure that we were covered during the winter and felt it was necessary to have a backup generator. I live in Wisconsin, and I wanted to support a local product. I didn't like the reviews for Generac, so it came down to Kohler. And I heard good things about them, so I went with them.

Our old KOHLER generator was struck by lightning. So, we replaced it with another one and all of the infrastructure was set up for KOHLER. We have it for a little less than a year and it test-cycles every two weeks. It has come on for power outage three times for significant periods of time, and another 15 times where it was fired up then sort of turned off because the power just flickered. Compared to the one we had before, this generator is newer, so it's a lot quieter. It performs well and as expected. It has no issues with backing up the power when it goes out. It's reliable and it was a fairly easy transition to the new model.

I like the way Kohlers are built and designed. I like that the Wi-Fi is an option versus with the Generacs. You can't operate those unless they are connected to the Wi-Fi. The price was a little more than the Generacs, but everything's going up. I had to use the generator since I've gotten it and the experience was good. It did what it was supposed to do. I've had power when nobody else did.

KOHLER is a good brand. I've seen it on another house. I heard it's a little quieter. When the power goes out, it comes on when it's supposed to. It works fine and lasts a while.

The only problem I had with KOHLER was when they installed, they cut the sidewalk, and they tear up the pavers to run the line, and left us with a mess. The young lady who answered my call was very sympathetic. But the gentleman I talked to was the one who said, “We're not landscapers.” I took pictures. I still have those. This summer, my husband and I talked to someone to come out, take it all up, and we will have to pay for somebody to put them back down. Let the customers know, “We don’t put it back the way we found it.” Because that was very poor on their part. Other than that, the generator itself is great. It just went off to test every Monday, and everything worked fine. We have had a couple of small outages, and it jumped right in, and does what it's supposed to do. Also, the price is competitive.

Our company sells Kohler products, which was why I chose it. I had some issues initially trying to get it to talk to my app, but we got that worked out. I was a little disappointed because when I buy something like a thermostat, whatever is needed for the app to communicate with the product is typically already integrated. But I had to pay a couple of hundred dollars to get whatever you need to have those two talk, and then, I had to pay one of my electricians to install it. So, that was disappointing, but it's not a deal-breaker.

We live in Houston and the contractor that we used recommended KOHLER because they got high marks on a Facebook neighborhood user group. Their comment was that KOHLER was more reliable than other brands. We also heard from people in the neighborhood that their Generacs had a nasty habit of not working when there's an actual extended power outage. So, we decided to buy a KOHLER generator. I looked on the web to help me decide what size to buy, then I worked with ACS and they handled everything.

We have a water garden system that has about 1,000 gallons of water in the stream at all times. So, if we lose electricity, that water goes out. This happens maybe once a year. We decided to purchase a home generator. Everything I’ve read said KOHLER is the best. The representatives have been my local electricians, not necessarily a Kohler person, but they have been great to work with. We were out of electricity for several days one time, and we were the only ones in the neighborhood who had lights. The refrigerator was working just fine, and we were okay. The Kohler immediately kicked on, and it ran for several days without any problems. I’ve already recommended friends to KOHLER.

So far, we've been happy with Kohler. We only had one power outage since we had it installed, and it worked perfectly. It tests every Wednesday on pretty fairly regular schedule, anywhere between 11:00 a.m. to 12 o'clock.

We researched and KOHLER appeared to be the best generator, even though Generac, produces more. It’s of a higher quality. We've used it once since we had it installed in July. We lost power for 20 minutes. It has been seamless. You can't even tell. And every week we do a test, the generator kicks on for 20 minutes. The time there was an issue, they came out, because we have a warranty. They figured out what the issue was, and they fixed it. We haven't had any problems since. We feel that we are protected. Our pets are safe. We are safe. It has been a wonderful experience.

I have a new gas Kohler generator. The remote circuit board went bad in ten hours. The generator will start but it won't run. Customer service is terrible. The warranty is useless. They don't make these generators any more. I cannot get the generator to stay running despite three different service calls. Do not buy any generators from Kohler. It will be your worst nightmare. Ten thousand dollars later. I have no working generator.

Our house is on the ocean and we've been through one hurricane and lost food through spoilage, and we decided we need to get a generator so that we didn't have to go through that again. Up in North Carolina, I have two Generacs that are older models. When I contacted my Generac guy, he informed me that he no longer does Generac because KOHLERs are better now as opposed to the older Generacs. He said they don't measure up as much. I went on his recommendation because he's been doing this for 30 years.

During the installation, we were tied up for a month or two just getting the approval from the HOA here. Once we had that, the installation took six weeks tops. There were a couple of different groups that came in. Someone put the gas thing and then someone did the electric. It was about what I expected.

Kohler is a better generator than Generac, and I use Kohler Generators on most of the new houses that I build. I was previously just using fan-by generators off my truck, and this was a new unit for my home. Since we put it on about a year ago, we have not lost power. I like the security of knowing it's there and we aren't going to have to evacuate in the hurricane. I was happy with Kohler overall. It’s worth the difference in price between them and Generac.

We had a storm here locally, and our power was out for several days. My wife was saying that she doesn't want to be without power for any amount of time. I decided to purchase a generator, and my research online highly recommended KOHLER. We've had to use the generator for short periods. If the power would go out, it would take a few seconds to kick in. Since we got it, the power hasn't been out for an extended period of time. So far, I highly recommend KOHLER. My installation guy was great. Everything went well. It has a nice quality. I have no issues at this time.

I had a very bad experience with KOHLER. I had one installed in late 2019. I replaced the generator that went bad, and KOHLER would not offer me any incentive. Even though it was just out of warranty, they would not extend the warranty. I was very unhappy with that because I had maintained it. I'd had it checked every year, and they couldn't explain why the engine died. It was just out of warranty. I did get another KOHLER generator and I’ve used a different company to install it. As far as I know, the new one is working okay. It comes on once a week to run. Overall, my experience with KOHLER has been mixed. I’m not happy at all with the first company that was supposed to be maintaining it. I wasn't happy with KOHLER’s response, too.

I don't like the idea of being in the cold weather and thinking my electric might go out and my heat would go out, so I decided to get a generator to have peace of mind. Generac advertises more and sells more, but I think KOHLER is a better generator. I paid them a lot of money, but they did a good job. So, they were worth every penny. I had to use my generator for just a few minutes. It kicked on, and then it kicked back off. The power must have just went out for a little bit. I listen to it kick on every Monday, which is a test run, and it comes on exactly when they said it'll come on and exactly when they said it would shut off.

KOHLER was highly recommended. We have a small business that we run out of our home. Having the generator makes us worry-free when it comes to running our business. It's been a good experience and I would recommend KOHLER.

I had a Kohler generator in my previous home and got another one in my current home. Everything went fine during the installation. They did a good job. The generator runs its exercise. Though it's a lot more expensive than Generac, I'd recommend it.

The Kohler Generator has better quality than other companies. I purchased one online and it was horrible. When I log on to it and go to the home page, I can't tell if I'm registering for a faucet or a generator. They should put a tab or section or drop-down, however the website's designed, to clearly identify the generators versus the faucets. But regarding the installation, I read the manual, read the instructions, and clearly found out what I needed. I planned accordingly, electrically and mechanically and the mechanical installation, everything went smoothly. Plugged it in, connected it up, fired it up, and I had no problems.

I got a Kohler generator on the side of my house. I also looked at Generac but I liked the lifetime warranty that Kohler has. It was also a reasonable price. When I had estimates, I had three or four of them, but I didn't pick the bottom one or the top one. I also considered what they could do for me with extra work and stuff that I needed. The generator kicks on once a week for 15 to 30 minutes and having it, I'm guaranteed that I'm not gonna lose power unless I run out of propane.

We were looking into home generators and originally looked at Generac, but we were not impressed with the units or the representatives who came out. Two or three people gave us estimates, and one didn’t show up. So I decided to look for alternatives and saw that Kohler makes generators. I asked to have someone contact me, and everything went smoothly, so we decided to go with them. Once the generator was delivered, everything went smoothly. The initial startup after the installation had some problems because it was wired incorrectly. It took a little while for the guy to figure out the problem. He was on the phone with someone from Kohler, but they resolved the issue, and it has been working good since. The generator is a little on the expensive side, but it was worth doing.