My 10 year comment was meant to combat the dumping issue and 3 years for a $4000 purchase so in your mind 1300 a year is a fair amount. I think you know engines and wish you lived closer but the rest of your comments make you sound like an employee so no more needs saying.
Talking with several mechanic and doing the compression testing, the engine needs rebuilding and in my mind was a dump job by kawasaki. If you did into the history of repairs on this engine it should have come with a minimum 10 year warranty.
A 4 year old ariens Ikon 52 with a 23 hp kawasaki engine. Why do they keep putting the crap kawasaki FR691 engines on them. Less than 600 hours and it's garbage and over $4000 in investment. A joke warranty and no response from the clowns dumping these crap engines on America.