Sorry about your delimma. don't know anything about hustler but I do know that Kawasaki is about as good as you're going to get in powerplants., I actually don't know of a better engine than Kawi, that being said they do need to stand behind their product and I would stay on them about whatever your issues are, then again I've never had to deal with Kawi because all the engines I've had from them have been without issues!