Do Predator engines ever go on sale?

I've got an old walk behind mower with a 12.5hp Kohler that could use some refreshing. The thing has been abused most of it's life and owes me nothing. It's just used for a few small places around the property where my big mower won't fit or isn't safe. It needs less than $100 and a couple of hours of my time to get back up and running but this machine has unknown hours (the hour meter was broken when the last owner took possession and at some point it was used by a landscaper so it's no spring chicken) and even when healthy, it's underpowered by modern standards so Im torn about continuing to dump money into it.

Enter the harbor freight 20% coupon and a Predator that nearly doubles the original hp. The only problem is that the fine print on the coupon says that it doesn't apply to Predator stuff. Has anybody gotten any kind of discount on Predator stuff, or are these things always the same price?

The 6.5HP horizontal shaft has a coupon pretty regularly, including now. 

I've seen coupons for the bigger ones come across the app, but only once or twice a year. Might be more of a project than you want to take on, but I've seen a couple of them in my local stores clearance section for 20% off sticker price, then you're dealing with someones return, whether it didn't fit and works fine, or was broken/missing pieces is a pretty risky gamble in my opinion. Don't know if you can buy a warranty for clearance stuff. 

Edit: Damn, that coupon below isn't in either of my apps or any emails I've gotten lately.

Yeah, I guess I should've been more clear in my original post. I need a vertical shaft model, so my choices are something like 5.5hp or 22hp to replace a mower that came with a 12hp engine originally. Going down in power isn't really in my wheelhouse and would frankly be miserable or impossible to use in this case. So we're left with the 22HP v Twin. That's conveniently very similar to what a similar modern walk behind would have from the factory.

On one hand I don't want to spend $750 if I don't have to and the 20% off would be a significant savings, but on the other hand if I'm going to spend a few hundred I'd like to have a decent chance of it working and maybe even a warranty to fall back on. I can spend money on a risky engine with the one I've already got you know?

Mostly I see the 6.5 horizontal shaft one.  I'm sorta looking at the 22 HP vertical shaft to replace the single cylinder thumper that's getting ready to come apart on my little J-D, but dang that's a lot of money to throw at a 16 year old tractor.

The 708 rarely goes on sale, you'd have to wait for a no exclusions coupon which are generally 15% off.  You want to be on their email list to ensure you get that stuff. There is an off chance they could add it to the inside track club one month but I'd guess if they did it'd probably only be 20 off, and you'd have to have the paid membership to get that discount.

I just got 2 212s for $70 each in the clearance seciton. Look like returns. 

Is rebuilding the existing one an option??

In reply to jfryjfry :

I don't think a rebuild makes sense for this one. The modern equivalent to this mower gets 18-22hp engines. While I've been making due with the current 12hp engine, it's pretty under powered by modern standards. Also I've got a stand-on sulky that I don't use now because the engine gets bogged down with the extra weight. Having a more powerful engine would make using the sulky a more realistic option and should improve mower performance all around.

minivan_racer said:

The 708 rarely goes on sale, you'd have to wait for a no exclusions coupon which are generally 15% off.  You want to be on their email list to ensure you get that stuff. There is an off chance they could add it to the inside track club one month but I'd guess if they did it'd probably only be 20 off, and you'd have to have the paid membership to get that discount.

Great info, thanks! After some deeper digging, I've seen coupons that have them as low as $600 as recently as last year. I guess I might continue to limp my current engine along until I can get a healthy deal on a new upgrade.

Don't know if you are set on the Predator, but Briggs Intek 540cc, 19hp, vertical shaft engines are $569 on Amazon with free shipping.  Intek

They don't have any great deals on what you're looking for at the moment, but Surplus Center's inventory gets updated with some regularity.  It might be worth keeping an eye on.  I repowered our old push mower with a cheap 190cc electric start B&S from them a few years ago.

Everytime I get my hopes up for space ships or death drones I am let down 

In reply to STM317 :

I just got a coupon a few weeks ago that was good for 15% off any one item for anything in the store. Sign up for their emails and hope you get one of those offers before the old engine quits.

Thanks for the advice everyone. 

CJ, Ill look into the Intek stuff a bit more. There's a rattling in my brain that stays the Intek engines don't have a good reputation for reliability but I don't remember specifics and could certainly be mistaken. I'll do some reading on them.

bigdaddylee, thanks for the link. I'll check in periodically to see if anything shows up.

imgon, it sounds like it's worth signing up. Thanks for chiming in

On the B&S 540CC, I have a 6 or 7 year old 21 hp Briggs on a Craftsman mower that is out of the mower for the 2nd time. 1st time the de-compression dohicky on the cam broke, so I needed a new cam, then this spring it fried the ignition and now it's spewing smoke from toasted rings, valve seals or maybe the head gasket, but that looked ok. I'm not terribly impressed.