Is it possible for weather changes to shatter a Toto Ultramax?

[SliderJeff]

Hey gang,

I finally ordered 2 of these gems for my house a couple weeks ago from ****. They were sent via a freight company and I opened the boxes and did a cursory inspection before the driver left. One of the toilets was immediately installed in our upper guest bath and the other has been left in the garage in its box, on the pallet it arrived on for the last 3 weeks since the room that it is being installed in has not begun remodeling yet. Anyway, I was putting the Christmas decorations back in the detached garage where the Toto has been kept and I needed to move the pallet out of they way. So I scooted the pallet across the floor and heard what I thought was metal bolts rolling around inside the box. I didn't give it a moments thought at the time. 30 mins passed and I started thinking to myself, "Wait a second, the bolts came with the wax ring, not the toilet. What the heck?" So I went back down and did a much more thorough inspection of the toilet while still in it's box. I was horrified to see that pretty much the entire portion of the bottom of the toilet is in pieces. Some big, some little. Now I KNOW there is no way in hell that this damage was there when it was delivered, and the thing has never been moved since arriving off the truck and being inspected by me. My best guess is that the temperature extremes over the last few weeks actually caused the porcelain to crack/shatter. I contacted ********* and they won't do anything for me, nor will the freight company (assuming perhaps that it had a hairline crack that I never saw since I didn't unbox the whole thing). Anyway, I've resigned myself to being out all of the money I spent on this damn thing, but as a last ditch effort, I wanted to ask if any of you had a thought as to something I might be able to do rather than just buying yet another $400+ toilet?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Regards,
Jeff

 

[Krow]

I have never heard of a toilet cracking unless of a drastic,extreme and sudden temperature changes to the porcelain (kind of like pouring hot water on a cold windsheild)

Either it came broken off the truck, or someone hit it in the cold garage temperature.

 

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[SliderJeff]

I have never heard of a toilet cracking unless of a drastic,extreme and sudden temperature changes to the porcelain (kind of like pouring hot water on a cold windsheild)

Either it came broken off the truck, or someone hit it in the cold garage temperature.

I can't possibly believe that I missed THIS MUCH damage upon cursory inspection of the thing. Plus, there's no damage whatsoever to the box or the pallet it's on. If someone (me, since I park on that side of the garage) would have hit it or gotten close to it with a vehicle, there'd be some indication that this happened, no?

Thanks for the reply.

Regs,
Jeff

 

[Krow]

Dropping the box at the shipping stage may not manifest itself as a damaged box (Just my opinion) Could have been at the stacking of the boxes at the warehouse, hairline crack, and then being handled (or mis handeled by who knows who)

Then presto, multipeice, assembly required toilet, (glue sold seperately)

 

[SliderJeff]

Dropping the box at the shipping stage may not manifest itself as a damaged box (Just my opinion) Could have been at the stacking of the boxes at the warehouse, hairline crack, and then being handled (or mis handeled by who knows who)

Then presto, multipeice, assembly required toilet, (glue sold seperately)

Which just again proves that because I didn't completely unbox the thing and go over it with a fine toothed comb looking for defects (which I couldn't do anyway since I don't have the room to do so in my garage, nor could I get it into the house at the time due to remodel work), I have exactly no leg to stand on saying that the freight company delivered damaged goods. For all anyone knows, I dropped the thing off the back of a truck or rolled it down the steps or something. This just pisses me off to no end.

Thanks,
Jeff

PS - I'm not sure all the King's horses and his men could put this thing back together again, krow.

 

[Krow]

I know exactly how you are feeling Jeff.

That is one thing I tell all my customers if they are purchasing their own fixtures. "Check inside the boxes before the truck leaves the premises". If the driver doesn't want to wait, then send it back with him. It has to pass the customers satisfaction before he leaves

My suppliers ship on site for me. Unpackage the fixtures, and check every little item so that there is no mistakes. In some cases, things will be missing in high end faucets, which are critical in the installation. So we go through every screw that is supposed to be there.

 

[Terry]

20% of all shipped toilets have damage.

This is not unusual.
I find that the toilets I pick up from the distribution center are perfect.
But if I try to ship them, one out of five will have damage.

I can hand deliver in the Seattle and Los Angeles area, but I never trust a trucking firm with them.

And there is no way that the online place you bought it from can do anything for you now that you have had it this long.
Too many things could have happened.
It's porcelain. It doesn't take much to break them.

My favorite story is when a handyman pulls a toilet and sets it in the tub rather then putting it in the garage.
So easy to chip the tub and break the toilet. Imagine gently placing a 100 pound clumsy feeling piece of china in a hard non forgiving glass coated cast iron vessel.
Booya!

One time I accidentally shipped a toilet from Brooklyn New York to my house in Redmond Washington.
A big semi rolled up with a toilet that was supposed to go to Boston.
The box was perfect, and the toilet looked good too.
I installed it for a customer, and there was a hairline crack in the tank area.
All that bouncing in the truck had been too much for it.
I sell a few thousand toilets locally, and it has never happened twice.
It was the truck ride.

 

[SliderJeff]

Thanks, all. I'm not sure what the moral of the story is. I mean, even if I buy locally, there's nothing that says there isn't a hairline crack that I won't find until a couple days after install or something. I'm not a porcelain inspection expert, so the likelihood of me seeing something wrong unless it is glaringly obvious is pretty small. Even if I did, the store I bought it from could claim I caused the damage in the car ride home. This is so frustrating!

Regs,
Jeff

 

[Krow]

Have the saleman pull it out of the box in the store and inspect it with him/her. Tap it lightly to hear any dull noises that would constitute a faulty porcelain. Flip it upside down and look at every surface, run your hands along the porcelain surfaces to feel for cracks. Other than that, you have to rely on the homesty of the sales person

 

[Terry]

I sell over two thousand a year locally without cracks.

It's not the manufacturing, it's the shipping and the handling.