How good are Toto toilets? Are they really all that?

[Terry]

I received a message from specialist in Intellectual Property in the software industry about this very question.

Personally I suspect your claim about Toto being "99% perfect", because I suspect you may have a profit motive in trying to make the Toto look good. A specialist in Intellectual Property.

He seems to think that I'm making this stuff up.

There are even numerous posts on your own forum about defects in Totos, which you haven't deleted. This would seem to imply that there may be greater than 1% Totos out there. So, that's why I asked how you are defining your "defect rate".

As a retail salesman, and an installer of product, I keep track of how many units I sell, and how many have been returned.
I divide the number of returned items by the number of sold units.
Pretty simple I think.

Lets see how this goes.

If I do a quick search over a short period of time I get:
3,458 TOTO toilets sold
4 returned for replacement.
So if I divide 4 by 3,458 I get 0.1156%

Correction by Gary
4/3458=0.0011567. You have to multiply the answer by 100 to get per cent. So it's 0.1156738% ;-)
Gary

So that pretty close to 1/10 of one percent returns.
Or 99.88 percent still out there in homes.

Jakeru, would you care to comment?
I understand that you have installed two toilets?
Correct me if I'm wrong here.
Of which you have had 100% problems with
American Standard Cadet 3, should have had the bowl replaced, but you repaired it instead of returning it.
Kohler Pressure Lite, needed the bowl replaced, but you ground the bowl rather then returning it.

[SteveW]

I have had great luck with 3 out of 3 Totos I've installed in the last 3 years, based on info from this site.

On the other hand, had frequent clogging with Wellworth toilets, and some significant repair costs with a Flushmate.

I couldn't buy from Terry even though I wanted to, unless I wanted to drive halfway across the country with a UHaul to pick 'em up, so he clearly didn't benefit from my purchases.

[Redwood]

I'll easily agree with everything Terry has to say about Toto!
They are that good!

[Hackney plumbing]

I think Toto is top of the line. Great toilets and I have them in my home.

[Gary Swart]

I have 2 in my home. Trouble free out of the box. Zero clogs. Yeah, they are that good.

[Ian Gills]

American Standard Cadet 3, should have had the bowl replaced, but you repaired it instead of returning it.

Interested in Jakeru's reply to this. I did not realize anything was wrong with his bowl.

[Terry]

Interested in Jakeru's reply to this. I did not realize anything was wrong with his bowl.

Some of the rinse holes in the bowl of his American Standard Cadet 3 were not punched out.
If you look at his posts, he mentions that.
I've never seen that happen on a Toto.

If it had, I would have expected a new bowl for it.

American Standard?
I'm replacing 20% of the toilets.
That means only 80% are in service.

It's pretty hard to make money selling a product when 1 out of 5 need replacing.
The labor to go back, and do a job twice?
You've got to be kidding me.

[Terry]

Jakeru,
I thought what I was saying was simple.

Let's make this real simple.

I had to remove and replace 20% of the American Standard toilets I've been selling.
That means two or three extra trips.

I have had to remove and replace less then 1% fo the Toto products I'm selling.

Look at this part, "Had to remove and replace" "Had to".

Even my girlfriend laughed when she read it.
She has a "for now" working American Standard Champion.
The tank was replaced in the first few months because of a faulty flush tower in the tank, and America Standard didn't have parts at that time.

She also has a Toto Aquia.
For her, and she has both, she said that if she had to "pay" for a toilet, it would be hands down for a new Toto.

I've had to return one tank out of the 263 Aquia toilets I've sold.
So, what is the percentage of returns on 1/263?

Jakeru,
Live long and prosper.

[pkgman]

I've had a Toto for quite a few years. Never, never, never, had a problem. Now I'm looking for another one for the other bath room.
Terry, this is a great fourm but...
4/3458=0.0011567. You have to multiply the answer by 100 to get per cent. So it's 0.1156738% ;-)
Gary

[master plumber mark]

we did a nasty factory re-model this spring,

the owner was a millionaiiire, and flew in
on his leer jet to supervise the job...

we had to change out 6 toilets and installed
^ TOTO handicapped one piece toielts to make
this fellow happy....

all ....ONE PIECE.... so my cost was about 600 each or more. price was no bject..

We ended up getting the job becasue I did not mark up the toilets and a few other fellows must have literally gouged them on the bid.

I basically threw them in at cost after the fact
and the bid for the plumbing necesary....

anyway, they went into public restrooms for office and warehouse persons, and we have
never gone back yet for either a stopped up toilet or any other problems...

I was sort of worried about putting the one piece toilets in this situation, but its been ok......

[SteveW]

QUOTE:
Personally I suspect your claim about Toto being "99% perfect", because I suspect you may have a profit motive in trying to make the Toto look good.

--A specialist in Intellectual Property.
END QUOTE.



Why didn't I see this before?

Terry, a sly dog if ever there was one, set up this web site, allowing DIY'ers to get FREE advice from professional plumbers, electricians, etc. just to lure in unsuspecting dupes like me. Then, he starts promoting Toto products, knowing that many of us will buy them, which in turn creates great personal wealth for him by --

what route, exactly? Most of us don't live near enough to him to buy a Toto toilet from him, and he doesn't ship 'em across the country.

Oh, now I get it - Terry is obviously getting kickbacks from Toto for every toilet he gets us to buy -

- only, how exactly would Toto know that I was influenced by what I read on this site when I bought my 3 toilets in Omaha, Nebraska?

Hmmm - I still don't see how Terry could be getting much personal gain from the countless hours he has spent putting up this FREE website, and moderating it.

[Jeremy Hillary Boob, PhD]

I've got 2 of 'em and (as Tony the Tiger would say...) they're great. Every other toilet I ever had was nothing but trouble. In 2 years, not the slightest slightest problem, and I even installed them myself---nothing to it. A little pricey, but definitely worth it.

[Firemark]

Terry,

I used your site to make a purchase decision and resolve some install questions. I admit to already having a prejudice against the American Std brand after having bad luck with them previously. I ended up buying a couple of Aquia III's which are terriffic as well as a Drake from another supplier in my region of the country.

The concern here is how fair is the forum in treating alternate opinions? Does everyone have to agree with you or your most frequent posters before you edit their responses or worse, have berating comments posted in reply?

You and the collection of experts offer some very sound, helpful advice on solving problems. However, when an outsider such as myself see blatant editing and insulting comments posted in reply it lowers your credibility and eliminates any value the information posted on this site. Casual users will never know if they're getting a straight answer or one that's completely biased. It may be your business and your site, but it's just a toilet to the rest of us. We're looking for help, not to be proselytized on the virtues of Toto.

It may be time to re-think your editing practice and come up with a published policy that treats all questions fairly and posters with respect.

[jadnashua]

Posts are rarely deleted. If it is edited, the software indicates that and by whom. I delete very few messages, and generally restrict that to spam or vulgar and almost never edit a response. If I do edit it, it is to add something, not delete. At least as far as I know, the only one who may have a financial gain from this is Terry himself...none of the moderators or other contributors get and renumeration. In their own area, some posters push their products, but there are often enough counter-offers to give a fairly round, balanced response. I've been very pleased with the four Toto toilets I purchased, and they do work much better than what they replaced. In my travels, I tend to see airport remodels that seem to be switching to Toto stuff...they must feel it is worth it, too.

[Terry]

It may be time to re-think your editing practice and come up with a published policy that treats all questions fairly and posters with respect.

It would be nice if people would post their "one" comment on the review.

One and done.

Jakeru and Ian Gills spam the review over and over again.
With Ian, he views it as entertainment.
He makes me laugh.
It is kind of like entertainment.
He may wind up with his own blog here.

Jakeru didn't make me laugh.
He was just plain inaccurate and with an attitude.
When I pointed out that his two toilets had 100% "remove and replace" issues, and that I had less then 1% on the Toto, he kept insisting that I must be lying. Lying or too dumb to know better I guess.
I thought that was disrespectful.
And kind of mean.

Do homeowners think that plumbers can't punch numbers on a calculator?

Many of the times when the plumbers are reacting, it's when good advice has been given, and the homeowner acts as if we just "didn't get it"

We get it.

In the Jakeru case, it was merely book keeping records.
The numbers don't lie.
I pull my records, do a product search, and Bingo, there's my report.

Many of the plumbers posting here have their own business, and they know how efficient things need to be to pay their light bills.
I would say math is one of their better subjects.

Jakeru removed his own posts after that.
I woke up Sunday morning and they were gone.

Two years ago, I pulled an American Standard Champion from a West Seattle home, and installed a Toto Ultramax, I offered the Champion to my neighbor across the street, knowing that he already had one.
His question to me was,

"Is there something wrong with this one?"

His Champion had already started having problems.

I wound up giving him a nice one-piece Kohler that I had pulled out instead.
I knew that one had been working fine.
It had been replaced with a Toto Sanagloss Ultramax, but the homeowner said that the Kohler had been working pretty good most of the time.
So the neighbor wound up with a $400 toilet.

And Firemark,
I just reread some of your posts.
You know how to bring it too.
If we all get more polite, are you going to get with the program too?

It seems TOTO was too lazy to print separate instructions for their radically different models and then did a poor job of writing them.
Firemark

Dude,
It's not rocket science.

Or is it?



Firemarks cool video on the Aquia
I hadn't seen that before.
And it has the SS204 seat on it.

Drake 800 grams by Veritech Video