I wonder what “the life of the engine” is. I have one mower that.I bought in 1988 and another that I bought in 1992. Both are push mowers. At the beginning of each season I change the oil, put in a new spark plug, sharpen the blade and replace the air filter.
Things kind of got ahead of me this spring. I blew the leaves that had gathered around the shrubbery out into the yard, picked up the sticks and decided to go for it. I added a little oil to one mower, poured in some gasoline left over from last fall and pulled the cord. After 6 pulls it fired up and stayed running. I got the yard done. I will put in fresh gas, change the oil, sharpen the blade and put in a new air filter and spark plug since I already bought the parts before I now again. I kind of wonder if I really need to do all my preseason maintenance, especially since apparently Kohler engines don’t seem to need oil changes.
My guess is that Kohler is doing this so that manufscturers of gasoline powered mowers that use the Kohler engines can compete with battery powered mowers
I didn’t have a good experience with a battery powered mower. I bought it second hand battery powered mower from a friend. After the first season I had to replace the batteries. New batteries cost $65 dollars. These new batteries only lasted two seasons. I bought another set of batteries. I mowed 5 minutes and the mower quit. The controller board went out and new ones are no longer made. I can buy a lot of gasoline for the cost of batteries. These batteries were sealed lead acid batteries. I believe the lithium ion batteries work better.
Well who can argue with the Kohler marketing department? The life of a small engine used to be rated at 100 hours, what I was told anyway. So hey, who can’t get 100 hours out of an engine with no maintenance. Me, I’ll continue to change oil every 25 hours on mine. I’ve got 700 hours on my mower and still good compression and no unusual oil usage. Kinda like the cat with 9 lives so I’ve only used 7 of them. Still a free country though and there is no law yet on not changing oil-yet.
You’re anonymous here Bing. Keep those mowers running till the decks are worn out.
I junked out a mower when it was 14 years old and considered obsolete by B&S and it was a junker that I picked up from the curb years before. For a while I took it as a challenge to get junked mowers running and I still have 2 of them.
As a rule a spark plug, pint of oil and 30 minutes cleaning the carburetor and possibly a new rope got them running like new. Several young wannabe entrepreneurs were in business for the price of a gallon of gas in an oil jug I was discarding and a junk mower.
“Until it breaks because you didn’t change the oil,” of course. 
I like to keep my stuff in good shape and I have a lot of extra time now. So I washed and waxed it. When I replaced the battery I noticed the drive belt was bad so replaced that and some pulley bearings. Well then when I was checking the transmission bearings (I’ve been putting this off for over 5 years), they are to the point where they gotta be replaced. So I gotta pull the dang transmission and replace the bearings in the next few days. I’ve had most of the parts but waiting on shipping of a couple needle bearings. I wish I could just drive someplace to get parts but can’t now and I don’t want to die yet anyway.
I’ve got one of these too, as my prior MTD with Honda engine finally rusted away.
Interestingly enough, in around 12 years of usage, it did not receive a single spark plug (it was starting just fine, why to bother?) or air filter (blow the dirt out with air, it looks clean!) and it was starting from the first pull every time.
The only thing it was always receiving was a fresh synthetic 10W30 every END of the season, so that I do not need to think about it in the spring.
Now, to this “never change your oil” Kohler, I’m planning on replacing oil the same way as before, as it has a plug on the side and instruction mentions it somewhere around “parts list” that the plug is to “drain oil”… well, if one can drain it, it may be changed, right? 
Both of my old mowers have cast aluminum decks. This was the reason I bought each of them. Apparently, the Product Safety Commission no longer allows mowers to be manufactured with this type of deck.
I guess a mower is a throw away item.
Many no longer have oil drain plugs. You tip then over to drain the oil out the fill port. My last mower was like that. Made a bit of a mess, but I still changed it.
Yeah, that’s like my generator and power washer. Try to tip it over and the drain pan moves. Must be an easier way. My mower weighs 500 pounds though so I’d need help tipping it over.
My prior one with Honda engine had plug located so badly, I was actually doing “tip over” on every change.
If you have an old quart-size oil container with wide neck, you can simply put it over the filler port tube before you tilt it and collect every drop.
It helps to have some kind of incline so the bottle is below, but putting mower on the plastic bucket with one side also works.
My last mower, sears craftsmen, honda engine was great, had a kid cutting the grass, I went to do some touch up, scary shake, 3 of 4 bolts busted through the deck for the motor mount, now my last lawnmower lasted 20 years, but busted up the engine mowing the lawn for 90 year old lady who had a tree cut down and I hit a stump. 10 years maybe before the craftsman was toast.
Someone gave me a portable winch that I mounted in the rafters in my shop. I installed pulleys at various locations so I can lift heavy loads including riding mowers and generators. There’s a very large wooden spool used for a work table that can support anything I might want to work on. It really is a pleasure to get things up to working height. Bending over to work on something can make an easy job miserably painful.
And while on the subject of mowers has anyone found a good solution to the Chinese sourced recoil starters that B&S is using these days? There old recoil used a ball bearing free wheeler that seemed to last forever but the new model is a tin bucket with 2 plastic pawls that expand into slots on the bucket to spin the engine and it’s a joke. I’ve ‘repaired’ several and none lasted more than a few weeks before disintegrating again. The complete recoil housing assembly for one was $95 and it only lasted a few weeks.
My 8 hp Airens snowblower is 48 year old and a much better machine than the new ones. Doubt if I would still be using it if I did not change the oil. It has never been in the shop.When I put the drift bars on it will walk through 4 foot drifts guided by one finger.
I can easily tio it over but never had need to until I decided it was easier to replace the float bowl gasket that way. Took it off to eliminate the jiggler valbe because I got tired of it leaking no matter how many times I replaced the O ring. Used J B Weld.
How did you seal that valve(jet?) off with JB weld?
never mind. I was guessing you had the B&S 8hp. It has a needle valve installed in the bottom of the float bowl that’s tough to seal. You seem to have a Tecumseh.
Four years ago my neighbor asked me to help him assemble his new mower. He gave me his old mower, one of the front wheel height adjusters had failed. Both mowers are life time oil maintenance. I believe the life of the mower is ten years for the first owner, $230 isn’t a lot to pay for a push mower.
For a lawn tractor or snow blower perhaps 75 to 100 years is expected, different from a push mower but not something that I would obsess on.
Yes, 1972 Tecumseh Snow King . In addition to a jer going through the bottom of the bowl it has a spring loaded pin with an O ring that you can press in to drain the gas from the bowl. I got tired of having to replace that O ring almost yearly and still have it leak. If I need to drain the bowl, I can always loosen the jet.
The old 318cc flathead will still throw a solid chute diameter of snow 39-35 feet.
My grandpa never changed the oil in his lawn mower and that mower still works.
A few drops of 3-in-1 oil occasionally and a few passes with a good file when needed and those mowers did a much better job of shearing the grass as opposed to shredding it like rotary blade mowers do with their normally dull blades.
@B.L.E. That was the type of mower we used when I and two other boys had s “mowing company”. We tied a rope to the front of the mower. Two of us pushed and the third person pulled. We were eight years old at the time–this was the summer of 1950. We got 75¢ for each yard we mowed and split the money three ways. On a good day we could each come home with a dollar. By the next summer, everyone had bought a power mower in our neighborhood and our company went out of business.
Some of you won’t like hearing this but I bought a new Simplicity lawn tractor in 1991 w/12hp briggs engine. It lasted until last year, 28 years. It mowed anywhere from 1-4 acres a week during that time. In the fall, it ground up leaves and sticks for about a month and towed around a big DR machine for a quite a few years.
It went through half a dozen belts, 3-4 blade sets and a couple of batteries. The deck needed to be sand blasted and repainted a couple of times due to rust and the deck wheels wore out and I made some bushings for them. But I never once changed the oil. In the last few years, it required a small amount of oil I would add at the start of the season. The deck was the primary issue and the fact it was only 36" and took too long to cut my current yard. I was kind of relieved when it finally died and I now have a tractor with 25hp and 60" deck.