KOHLER Generators Reviews

There are some issues with the app, though. The time is off, which may be something with the conversion. I’m in Central time but my generator is set to start up at 9:00 am every Sunday and run the test cycle. When it runs, the notifications will tell me it’s 3:00 in the morning. I put a help ticket in on the app, but I have it still. But it’s not a huge deal that affects the way that the generator runs. I work for a dealership, and we sell Kohler gasoline engines and Kohler KDI diesel engines and the support has been good. With both Kohler and me being in Wisconsin, it's easy. I've dealt with engineers from Kohler and a lot of people from the engineering and service department in person. So that was another reason why I chose it. I have easy access and if something happens, I've got people I can contact.

But in the summertime, that's the big thing. I'm not losing half a beef or a full cow that I had bought in the freezer. So after the last little power outage that we had about a year ago, I told my neighbor, who was an electrical contractor. I said, "I need a generator. Find one and quote one to me." He said, "We sell Kohler." I said, "Okay, I understand that. Give me a quote, let me research."

I started researching Generac and Kohler, back and forth. I said, "Fine. Just shoot me a quote." I got a quote from Generac. I didn't like their quote and I didn't like their reviews. I said, "All right, fine. Go ahead. Let's pull the trigger and do it." Generac was a huge difference. They wanted more for the same size. I went with Kohler and I would give their customer service a 10. They've been great. The local company here has been really good. I had some questions about it and they came out; they double-checked everything. Every Friday, it does this little maintenance cycle, and I know that it'll work.

I have a lake home up in northern Minnesota in the middle of a forest. The city of Bemidji had a derecho go through it, which is 30 miles north of us. They were out of power for six and a half days. I thought to myself, if that derecho would have been down 30 miles further south, we would have been over two weeks in the middle of that forest to get power. I bought my second one a year or two after I bought the one for the farm.

I've had the one on the farm going on three years. The one in Minnesota, I put it in last August. Both of them are hooked up to my both houses' 1,000-gallon propane tank. They come on once a week and run for 20 minutes. I got the app on my cellphone, so I know when they come on and shut off. We have had instances up here in Northern Minnesota where power has been off for five hours after a big storm would go through. And they start up. We don't realize nobody else has power.I liked the dependability. When we lose power, whether I'm on the farm or at the lake house or if I'm somewhere else in the country, I'm going to have power. I have complete faith in KOHLER. They make a good product.

I recommended a KOHLER last week to my neighbor up here at the lake. That day, we lost power for four and a half hours. It made him get concerned, and he came down and wanted to know some things about my generator. I gave him the phone number and the name of the salesman, and he's in the process of talking to them.

The experience has been good so far and my only complaint is that during the coldest part of the winter, which was colder than 10 below zero, the generator would not start during the weekly startup, even though we have the cold-weather starting kit on it. It did start when it warmed up. So, the problem was with sub-zero starting. Hopefully, when the power goes out, it's not 20 below zero because I don't think the unit will start. That was the only hitch in the giddy-up. We've only been that cold that one time since we moved here five years ago. We have had two power outages and the generator has started up immediately and performed. So, it's doing what it's supposed to do.

The electricians who installed the generator are coming in August to change the oil and give the unit the yearly checkup and I’m gonna talk to the guy about the problem. The dealer responded when I originally called them about setting up a meeting to come and talk to them about installation. They came when they said they were gonna come to do the startup. So, they were good. We'll see how they are in August when they come for the oil change. But so far, they've done what they said they were gonna do. Kohler’s price is right where it should be. It was comparable to Cummins and Generac. I have a boat that's being stored in a pole barn in our home. If we visit our daughters out of state, I have peace of mind that during the winter, and if we lose power, the home is protected and the pipes aren't gonna freeze.

We've been very happy so far with our KOHLER generator and we have not had any issues. The weekly run seems to go okay. I've got the KOHLER app installed on my phone which gives me updates. We've also got the annual service contract from ACS, and they look at the online stuff. They contacted me one time when the generator was offline, because I had misconfigured the router thing. It's nice knowing that if we have another extended power outage, like we seem to have every few years in Houston, we've got power for whole house. Plus, our immediate neighbors can run an extension cord across the fence and plug in to power their refrigerators. I also said something to my daughter and son-in-law when they were over about getting a KOHLER generator at their place.