I did my rebuild at 1200 hours, and found by accident in the course of it, that it needed new heads. Very common, according to the Deere service manager that works on them everyday, because of the way the valve guides tend to slip when the motors run hot due to grass fouling the cooling routes between the plastic shround, stamped sheetmetal head covers, and the cast cooling fins on the heads. Most engines have replaceable valve guides, but not Kawi, you just replace the whole head.
I have over 1450 hours on mine ...
I'm around the same on mine. I've always been told lifespan on the Kawi's is 2000 hours, maybe 2500 if you take real care and are lucky. But that's also probably based on guys who pay for service, that being the threshold where servicing becomes more expensive than replacement.
If your own time is free and available, and you have the skills and tools to service your own, then obviously the math can change.
I went through it, the oil cooler was only about 25% clear, I cleaned it out ...
Is your oil cooler bolted to the crank case, sandwiched between the filter and crank case? If so, they do tend to get sticky and hold dirt, so engine degreaser is your friend, there. The o-ring between that oil cooler and crank case needs replacement every few years, the factory-installed one on my motor failed before 700 hours, and the one I put in it's place several years ago is just starting to weep now.
The fatal flaw with these engines is the way they suck grass in behind the shroud and heat shields. If there's
any oil on those cooling fins, all that dust and dirt just sticks to them, and wrecks the cooling. Then the heads overheat, valve guides slip, and all other sorts of issues. I blow mine clean with the leaf blower after every single mowing, but even then, when I pull the shrouds off for a yearly cleaning or other repair, I always find some grass and filth trapped in there.
edit: Just remembered that most of these Kawi V-twins, maybe all except those they specially configure for Deere, have a crankcase breather that's real susceptible to failure. YouTube and other sources are chock-full of videos on how to replace this breather, which involves total engine tear-down and splitting the crank case, on most configurations of this engine. They use a different breather on the models they build for Deere, which seems to be much more robust and less prone to failure, than the type I see on most of these engines. In any case, that's one item that might cause a dealer to just re-power a machine, as the repair process is going to come with excessive costs for a 2000 hour engine.
