American Standard Champion toilet Review and comments. Rated #1 by Consumer Reports

I am now a crook and a liar becasue a few days
ago I stumbled upon another champion toilet....

of course it was only a year old, and of course it was not
working right.....

Itold them I would not touch it and would change it out
for an ELJER in this rental property for $299.00

they needed something durable that would work for a single
bath house with 3 kids and parents......
(thats certanly not the champion)


I told them that their are complaints all over the internet
about this piece of junk....they looked at me funny.....

the landlady at first agreed, then once her husband and the renters
hubby put their heads together, they decided I was trying to
pull a fast one on them......and decided rudely cancel
my appointment .......


hey.... they know better than me and I hope after they fix it
for the fifth time ...sometime this summer... they have a

..........moment of clairty........

It is unfourtunate for them.

Unfourtunatly for us plumbers there are quite a few plumbers that do pull fast ones on homeowners. I correct their work all the time.

In time, they will realize that you are telling them the truth.

Master Plumber Mark,
I think in cases like these, you can ask the homeowner to call the manufacturer and order the parts, and then call you back when they have them in hand.

Of course you have to charge for both trips out there.
I wouldn't give a warranty on parts that don't last a year either.
But then you wouldn't be supplying the parts anyway.

I think that would be fair.

thank you for the advice , but I also failed to mention

that the tank was leaking on the seal between the tank

and the bowl too...so its was going to be a mess to work with..

getting that toilet tank off the bowl would be hell because it

is hell to install them and get them tight in the first palce.......

It takes a special wrench that comes with teh toiilet to jsut tighten
the damn thing down.......

so wait till the bolts get all rusty and you need to do reapirs to one..


I wont go back......its not worth my time and they wont listen...


so let them eat urinal cakes...

I purchased a AS Champion toilet in Nov 05 with a $25 dollar rebate from Lowe's after reading a good review from Consumer Reports. We are very happy with the performance of this toilet with no problems so far. After reading some of the reviews on your web site, I did verify we have the new improved flush valve. My only complaint is installing the bowl to the base was not an easy task. The cheap deep socket provided was worthless.

Mike Morgan
Sparks, NV

it did not take long, but my customer
has given up trying to repair the champoin toilet and
now wants it changed out ...

it took only two weeks....they finally threw in the towell

and had their "moment of clarity"


theyare complete pieces of junk

Installation was a bear. I thought I had the wrong tank to this bowl! My Father said he never saw anything like it in his life. (He's 72)
This Gem of a toilet has been nothing but a lump of...COAL to put it nicely.Even after gluing the poorly designed red flush gasket it place it STILL leaks from some mysterious place and worries me every single day. Yeah, before I glued the gasket in place, I received a water bill over $200.00.Tell me, ANYONE, where to sign up for the class action lawsuit. You couldn't pay me to buy another one of these.I WILL NEVER PURCHASE ANOTHER AMERICAN STANDARD PRODUCT.

Paul Newton
Dearborn Heights,Michigan.

Sorry, but another thumbs down on the AS Champion AND for the guy at Home Despot that so highly recommended it, saying it can flush 10 golf balls at once. The chain unattached itself and got flushed away within 2 days. we replaced it with a piece of thin plastic rope, which so far works. If you give it what to me is a regular quick flush it doesn't empty the bowl. holding the handle an extra second or two sometimes helps, sometimes not. it also sits so far out from the wall (about 4"), because of the design of the toilet. I should have bought the Kohler probably from the plumbing store and not trusted the smiling man at HD.
C Andrews

I bought three Champion toilets about a year and a half ago. What a mistake. Thankfully I didn't have to pay anyone to install them as I am a contractor. The tank never seated properly on the bowl and if not careful there is a danger of cracking the china. The clunk is annoying but I could live with it if the water didn't run constantly in two of the toilets. Also they run much slower than the first month they were in. I now have to flush two to three times to completely clear the bowl and even then it's not always completely clean. I called AS three times about a variety of complaints including the fact that I believe one of the bowls is from a cadet, not a Champion model. After three calls and letters I actually gave up. Please let me know of any potential class action suit. I'll sign in a second.

I will never buy another AS product. As a contractor I used them often, but this is garbage and they wont even send out a rep. Home Depot should stop carrying their brand.

Mark Turoff

We installed one of these toilets a couple of months ago. We are now almost $2000.00 in the hole in plumbing bills to fix the constant leaks and other problems. The plumber who installed it insists it is not their problem since it was the toilet we insisted on having. He later stated he gets a lot of complaints about these toilets and advised we should have gotten a Toto brand. I only wish we had not been suckered by the American Standards' advertising and that the plumber we hired to install the toilet had steered us away from the Champion.
D Wenzel

Did anyone ever find a solution to the problem of the flush seal leaking CONSTANTLY, or the problem of the tank not seating properly because the gasket seems made for some OTHER toilet?

In need of a new toilet less than a year ago, we installed what we thought was an environmentally sound solution. So far, all we have is the sound...and guilt about all the water we're wasting as we sit and pray for rain here in Arizona.
C Laney

I bought and installed an AS Champion Round bowl toilet. This was in spite of the reviews in your page. This was also in spite of my neighbors experience with two AS Champions. Actually it was four AS Champions. About two years ago he installed one. Turned out it was leaking through the china to the outside of the bowl. Not at a seal, but actually through a hole/crack in the side of the bowl unit over the channel that pipes the water from the tank to the bowl. He returned it to Home Depot and got a second one that installed and worked without problems. He was happy with the unit and about nine months later, he installed a second AS Champion in their second bathroom. This one also leaked through the china (not at a seal) at the bottom of the same pipe from the tank to the bowl. Again, he returned it Home Depot, got another bowl and installed it with no further trouble. After all was said and done, he like the toilets. The clunk wasn't that intrusive and it had a powerful flush. Based on this, I bought an AS Champion from Home Depot as well.

I had the same problem he did. I even inspected the bowl unit in the store looking for voids in the bowl casting and saw none. It turns out there was a hairline crack in the pipe/channel from the tank to the bowl at the bottom of the bowl unit that I didn't see. It leaked about a table spoon or two with each flush. There was no water visible on the bathroom floor. I have an unfinished basement under the bathroom and a small puddle appeared in the basement the day the toilet was installed. At first I thought it was the wax ring, but remembered my neighbors leaks. I took the toilet outside, tilted it so the pipe (in the bowl unit) from the tank to the bowl would hold water after I poured water down the hole from the tank. I could see a drip a second coming from the crack, even though the crack was barely visible. I also returned the bowl to Home Depot. HD replace the bowl, no questions asked. I installed the replacement and have had no problems since.

The Quality Control seems to be pathetic based on these three units. But, the toilet can seriously move waste material and I'm getting used to the clunk. We'll see how well the valve/tower unit holds up.

Jon

When we had our new home built I wanted the brand new state of the art Champion Right Height Toilets installed. The plumber was not familiar with them, but said he would try. We had three installed, Guest Bath, Hall Bath and the Master Bath.

From the getgo the plumber said he had some problems adjusting them, but he got them working within their parameters. When we moved into the home last year in Mid-March I made sure to test all of them thoroughly. They did "Klunk" but that was the tower coming down. A trade off for the perfect (or so I thought) flush.

Then the week we moved in, the Master Bath's Flush tower spung it's springs :eek: . I called American Standard up and explained the problem. I asked where we could get the part. The tech said that we could not replace that part, that the entire top tank had to be replaced. She said a new one would be delivered within two weeks :eek: . One that our plumber would have to replace for us. At our cost of course. So much for the warranty. We had to pay our plumber for coming to take out the tank and then for coming to install the new tank. A new tank that now had the sporadic missed flush problem when you pressed the handle. This toilet makes the biggest klunk out of the three.

The other two toilets - the hall bath. That one never seemed to fully flush. Sometimes we'd have to flush twice because it failed to clear the bowl. Going to the American Standard website was no help. So I still have to call them up on this one. And now after eleven months have passed, it's starting to develop a new problem. After I flush, the float on the float tower sometimes gets stuck and doesn't want to rise all the way. So water keeps running after the tank if filled. I did try cleaning the plastic post underneath. That worked for a short time, but than it went back to getting stuck.

The Guest Bath toilet works the best. Has the best flush out of the three. It really clears the bowl well - very well!. But this past week the float on the float tower now gets stuck on just about every filling - just like the one in the hall bath. I did notice some mold/algae growing in the tank. Maybe that's on the post and causing the float to stick as it rides up the post. I need to check that out. But I will be calling AS on Monday.

So, as you can see, I really like these toilets when they work. :o They work very well and efficiently. But when they don't work well :( , they cause an uproar because they are far from being the "American Standard". And I think many of the posters are experiencing the same type of problems. That means AS must know about these problems. They should be sending out advisoraries to Home Depot and us, their Users. And of course Consumer Reports - where many of us first discovered these toilets.

Ken

I just purchased a complete, never installed, AS Champion tank from my local L***s for $2.70!!!.

I figured with all the problems It would just be a matter of time B4 I needed the parts and it would save the customer a 2nd trip.

Surely Some Manufacturer Other Than American Standard Will Come Out With A Fix-kit To Replace The Champion Flush Tower. If Anyone Finds One, Please Let The Rest Of Us Know.