Ballvalves's toilet broken in shipping by UPS

[Ballvalve]

SO I finally gave into all the folks here saying the Drakes are incredible and made in the USA and got a eco drake delivered for 200 bucks.

So the tank was made in Mexico and the bowl made in China. Grabbed the front skirt and the outlet hole on the bowl to pull from the box and the skirt came right off in a few pieces. Then the outlet hole
on the bowl seems quite small with a big lip or flange on the inside that would give a big turd a nice rumble or pause on its way to better places.

Okay so maybe UPS modified the bowl, but doesnt look like it. Thin and weak ceramic. More likely the container that landed at the harbor took a good drop off the boat.

Looks like its back to the cadet 3's for me. Is toto giving into the price point game?

 

[Jadnashua]

Toto has factories in numerous places around the world, and since they are relatively heavy, depending on supply and where you are, it could come from many places. Typically, QC is top notch. Some people that used to sell on-line gave up, since too many of the things got damaged in transit. It's one thing to get a truckload on palets, and another once they are broken apart into individual boxes. Sorry to hear about your delivery. I had one in pieces when I ordered on-line, but was successful in getting 4 others intact and no defects.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Terry]

A toilet dropped from a truck that gets broken is not defective. It's broken.
Any porcelain object dropped from a truck will break.
Go ahead and try that with any brand. Drop it, and it breaks.

I get less then 1% returns on TOTO no matter where it's been made.

The American Standard is made in Mexico and sometimes Honduras. Quality control is not as good as on the Toto.
I believe Wally says that his plumbing firm is installing 90% TOTO, and that he had previously ordered a pallet of Cadet 3's and had so much trouble with them, that he had quit selling them.

So go for it Ballvalve.

By the way, if you done any reading here, you will know that we discourage mail order toilets.
It's just another case of someone too cheap to buy locally, and expecting the same result the rest of us are getting.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that shipped porcelain breaks.

The US made products I've seen from Toto lately are
Ultramax
Ultramax II
Drake II CST454CEFG
Soiree
Guinevere

It's rare on the West Coast to see a US 744 Drake. Way too much demand for the factory in Georgia.

Delivered by Amazon. I was asked to install this mess.
That's why buying locally is the better idea when you're buying things that break up when dropped off the truck onto the sidewalk.

 

[Ballvalve]

AMAZING!

Finally bought a Drake eco, sounded like most in the US were US made. Tank from mexico and bowl from china. Front skirt thin, like 3/8" and "pulled" off in pieces. Strangest part for such a high rated toilet is that on the outlet hole of the bowl, you have a good 1/4" inner lip, like it was designed to catch turds and make the hole smaller - no taper at all, n o clean shot out the hole. Is that nomal, or was it made on a chinese friday? Going back to kohler and AS again. My last 100$ kohler was made in Wisconsin, dont have to plunge it, and that means I just flulshed 100$ down into the further flush of America into the chinese hole of bankruptcy. If Kohler can make a 100 or 200$ toilet in Wisconsin, and make a profit, and support budding American artists in their advertising, we are really stupid to allow the flood of imports in.

 

[Ballvalve]

OK, but whats with the thin front skirt and definite sharp lip inside the outlet hole?

 

[Terry]

I guess it's the first time you looked at the lower side of a bowl.
It's what we see every day.

What the bottom of a toilet looks like.

A toilet is not a solid piece of clay. If they were, you wouldn't be able to pick them up.
If you don't drop the bowl on the ground, it isn't an issue.
I almost never see breakage, but then I pick my stuff up locally.
The last time I shipped using Oak Harber Freight Lines, Inc.
They broke all five toilets. I made the mistake of telling them they were porcelain, and to be careful. The guy driving the fork lift got angry with me, and took off as fast as the little bugger would go up the ramp and then cranked the wheel over hard just as he passed out of sight.
Every one of the five toilets were broken. And their reply back?
They said since I gave them new unopened boxes that I couldn't prove my claim.
That was the last time I shipped porcelain to the lower 48
For some reason, shipping to Alaska works, but then everyone knows that have guns.
Don't mess with Alaska they say.

As for the outlet, they've looked that way for as long as I can remember selling them.
They work, just like a light switch. Simple.

 

[Ballvalve]

...and the American Standard Cadet 3 for just $163, the balance on which could be gainfully used to provide a fish supper for me and the family.

I gave in and received a toto drake surprisingly sourced from china and mexico for 209$ that came broken and that broken bowl part was the chinese crafted portion that seemed oddly thin in the porcelin cast. I see a cadet 3 delivered for $155 and its all from Mexico. Rather keep those guys working south of the border than across the big blue. I have 4 cadet 3's at rentals for years and never heard a complaint yet. Bought a Kohler Wellworth for 188$ at the braindrain box store for 188$ that flushed anything, and actually came out of Wisconsin, althought that may change any hour now.

Going to a fish fry right now - Spawned in Alaska, caught on a japanese ship, offloaded in china and cleaned, breaded in California, fried in Indonesion oil in an American fryer, doused in British malt vinegar made in Pennsylvania, all to flush down a chinese bowl with a honduras tank with an ohio flapper valve. Then through American pipes to the treatment plant and finally the nitrogen rich water goes back to the ocean to raise up the next generation of doomed fish.

And again, cost of the fry, compliments of the [south] American standard.

 

[Terry]

The TOTO bowl had been dropped off the truck.
Try that with any brand of porcelain, and guess what, it breaks.

Your beef is with UPS. You know, they guys in the brown vans.

20% of all shipments of porcelain are broken in shipping.
That's why I recommend buying porcelain locally.

These guys can really throw things around.

 

[Ballvalve]

I preferred the other thread version, but it's your football! Mainly was surprised by the Chinese source, not what I wanted... And they do have guys with hangovers in the chinese clay room like in wisconsin too. Add in shipping by ANY source of any toilet and I expect damage.

Probably will epoxy the front skirt on and use it in the shop crapper with some tank from the yard, so I got lemonade from lemons.

Either ups or the vendor replaced it in heartbeat for nothing, so the shipping risk doesnt seem to be on the buyer.

That internal lip, if placed in a water line, would probably equal 100' of flow resistance. Seems like turds should have a smooth shot out the bowl without a step to overcome, especially in these low flow days. Why don't they taper the inner outlet?

 

[Terry]

Most people use a product first, and then talk about how they "work".
The Drake is my biggest seller, almost all of it is from repeat buyers.
Maybe they know something that you don't.
Let me see............Oh Yeah, they've used them.

 

[Redwood]

I don't know Ballvalve I've never quite seen fit to hold a manufacturer responsible for safe shipping of their product.
I have seen a 1/2" X 4' long round piece of iron strapped to a firring strip returned looking like a horseshoe by Brown....
Hardly the fault of the manufacturer....

Somethings you might want to complain about to the seller if they didn't assure that a product was packed well for shipping....

Sometimes you might receive a product in good condition that has defects or, doesn't work right in which case you would complain to the seller or, manufacturer and get either a refund or, new product....

Let me get this straight...
You didn't buy it from Terry...
Terry didn't ship it to you...
Terry didn't make the product....

All Terry, and other members here did is recommend a fine product based on their experiences with that product...

And when you receive that product smashed beyond recognition by the shipping company you come here and tear into Terry making derogatory comments about a product that you have never yet seen intact nor tried out....

Makes perfect sense to me but then I'm a "Certified Lunatic"....

 

[Ian Gills]

If it's not made in America I, personally, would no longer see the point in paying the premium and buying a Toto.

Speaking of fish, I have a new favorite. $5 a can but God it's good and US made too.

Watch the flappers on those Cadets though. If they go, buy Korky replacements.

And if your flapper goes on your Toto (see recent post on this) also buy a Korky replacement.

 

[Ballvalve]

Friendly redwood, from one certified whining lunatic to another, If you had read my writing, you would notice I am surprised when anything comes in from UPS [and they are here every day] unbroken. Because they are so big and the vendor of the toilet has such a profit margin, I dont give a damn or complain when they come broken, I just notify and they send another. They both make enough to suck it up, and I am happy to wait for my next sacred Toto.

You may have missed the part where smashed beyond recognition is not applicable, as the cracked and thin front skirt Toto went into the shop crapper today without that lovely front veneer. Makes it easy to spot leaks at the flange!

Maybe I missed something, but I have never commented on "how it works" - I asked a question about a very definitive LIP on the outlet. You plumbers who ream out burrs on pipes should wonder why that lip is there. You would never accept a 1/4" inward burr on a coupler, would you? Then I suggested that perhaps some chinaman went thin on the front skirt after a hard night at karaoke.

And Terry, Redwood gets away with the wife beating and get a life lines? Does not seem to meet the standards of conduct you have put forth here. I thought we fought over women and fence lines, not toilets.

 

[Ian Gills]

I fight over toilets but am in the minority (perhaps thankfully).

 

[Ballvalve]

Ian, for about a buck or 2 max, you can get a 12 oz. can of Alaska wild caught salmon, try Wallymart or online guys. No mercury as with the Tuna. Bar Harbor just closed its last sardine cannery on the east coast after about 100 years. About the only other American fish in a can is clams.

 

[Ian Gills]

I'll give that a go. Thanks.

 

[Ian Gills]

News to me that America builds superior products.

I only buy American because I like Americans.

But I would never buy an American car under the illusion it was any good.

Have I missed something?

You'll be saying the plumbers here are good next.

The burgers (and fish) here are the best though!

And I owe a lot to this country.

God Bless America!

 

[Ballvalve]

Agree, but I think you missed Ford trucks and Dodge caravans. Whole wild keta salmon on sale here for 1.98$ a pound.... No coloring added!

And terry, how about working the delete button on redwood?

 

[Terry]

I deleted one paragraph.
He's funny though.

I always get a laugh out of his stuff.

And remember, don't let the delivery guy drop the toilet out of his truck.

 

[Jadnashua]

I've had better luck having them shipped freight on a pallet, and then picking them up at the depot myself. Saves a couple extra loading/unloading events, and, at least for me, the depots aren't that far away.