Kohler Cimarron toilet review, Owner comments and pictures

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I'm disappointed with the Kohler Cimarron. The flapper is poorly designed and closes too soon. I purchased another flapper which didn't work any better. I contacted the company and they sent me a flapper that was no better. I'm unable to purchase an "adjustable" flapper for the Cimarron because they don't fit this design. If I plug the hole on the side of the flapper it works like it should. I'm currently trying to find a permanent fix now that will last. It just needs more "float." I have to hold the handle down to flush properly and I have only 1/4 inch slack in the chain.
Otherwise, it was an easy toilet to install. Came with all necessary hardware. If the flapper worked properly I would rate it a 10. I paid considerably extra for the Kohler brand and regret it now. I would currently rate it a 3.
Mike S
 

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I installed the Koehler Cimarron Comfort Height toilet last week and am extremely pleased. My old 5 gallon flush Trylon toilet would need to be flushed twice in most cases. I have not needed to flush the Koehler Cimarron more than once. What a relief I am using so much lesss water and the toilet actually works. I could not be more pleased.
 
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becky t.

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Kohler Cimarron

My husband and I purchased a Kohler Cimarron less than two weeks ago for the girl's bathroom because we were tired of the old toilet needing the plunger every other time. We bought this one because it said you could 'flush it and forget it'. I was leery at the shape of the opening on the bottom since it was like a elongated rectangle, but , I thought .....we'll never need the plunger. Yeah, right! two days ago it clogged and guess what? A plunger will not work because of that weird shape! We tried two different plungers, and nothing! After two or three hours of trying buckets of water, etc. we gave up and called a plumber the next day. (my arms are still sore, BTW!) He had a super duper plunger and worked at it for about ten minutes and thankfully got rid of the clog. He said take the toilet back because otherwise we would need a snake to clear it next time. A PLUNGER WILL NOT WORK with this toilet because this toilet has a faulty design! We went back to Lowe's today and got an Eljer but I made sure to check out that it has a ROUND opening on the bottom so a ROUND plunger can be used!!!! I will never buy another Kohler toilet again! Wish me luck with the Eljer!!!
 

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have lived with this toilet for two years, and would not recommend it. Problems include poor bowl cleanliness due to lack of swirl, loud flush (my 6 year old won't flush it at night because it scares her), small and hard to press flush lever, and difficultly plunging because of the rectangular shape. Clogs are relatively rare, but still happen. If I could sell these, I'd switch.
D. Issac
 

redforever

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Kohler Cimarron

We purchased 3 Cimarron toilets a year ago. They are the one piece models, elongated bowls.

We have not had one plug and we have no problem whatsoever with the bowl washing adequately. You can set the water level, at least our son in law did. The tank fills completely each time and we get one quick, efficient whoosh every time.

Best toilets we have ever owned.
 

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The noise is normal. I also had a Cimarron, and I got rid of it because of it's bad rinse and replaced it with a Toto Drake, which sounds similar when flushed: a slight bang when the flapper closes and a nice hearty gulp when it "swallows".

achutch
 
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i am also a plumber, I also endorse the Cimarron, I have had no problems whatsoever with these closets, I know this sounds silly , but what brand of toilet paper do you use, I'll bet it begins with a C , THANKS
 

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Toilet Guru Sticks Again

I own two Cimarron "Tall Boy" EL's. Owned for three month's, yes they have a weak rinse and I have had one clog. I just ordered a Toto Drake today to install this weekend. I will let you know the results. I may end up taking the "Tall Boys" Back. I also experienced a smaller then usual bowl fill, the fill hose pointing down "that hole thingy" came loose and was pointing directly into the tank. Once pointed correctly, the bowl filled to it's standard depth and circumference. Guru out
 

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wouldn't buy again

It is lovely to look at and flushes the big stuff down, but the bowl gets skid marks every time after a number 2. A second flush won't clean up the residue either. This is not for a powder room that will get frequent use. I'm making myself sick talking about this. Is there a market for used toilets?
 

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Mine went to the "Reuse Zone", a building at the "transfer station" (fancy term for the dump) where items that can be reused are there for the taking.

My guess is that either someone took it and didn't mind the issues that you described, or it ended up in the dumpster. It is better off in either place than in my bathroom!

The TOTO Drake which replaced it (almost 3 years ago) is a keeper and has worked perfectly every time.

achutch
 

Nomad of Norad

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Class Five toilet not always flushing right...

A few months ago, we installed two new Kohler class-five toilets. They took the place of two low-water toilets we'd installed in the early 90s. The new install was partly because one of the old ones was loose, that the underlying flange was possibly broken, and the two hadn't really performed all that well anyway.

We brought in a plumber to install the two new toilets (my folks are getting old, and I'm no handyman), and so far as I understand it, the plumber didn't notice any obvious damage to the flange under the front-bathroom toilet, and just went ahead and installed the new toilet.

We have the old style cast-iron sewage pipes in this house (this house was built in the 60s or so, or maybe the 50s...) so the low-water toilets weren't really suited for this house anyway. Or so the lady in the plumbing department at Lowes seemed to think. But, then, those early water-saver toilets were a joke, anyway.

In any event, the new toilets are the kind that are advertised as being totally clog proof... the ones from the TV spot where the guy frantically dumps everything in sight into the toilet trying to clog it up so he has an excuse to call in the lady plumber working next door...

Well, sometimes the new toilet doesn't seem to flush quite right. I flush it, and the poop doesn't entirely leave the bowl. The toilet doesn't seem to complete the whole flush. Other times it works perfectly. I've gotten into the habit of holding down the lever until it completes the flush, though, because sometimes it seems to only start to flush, but then stop immediately.... like it takes only the first second or so of the flush action and then stops in its tracks, as if I hadn't pressed the lever all the way.

Yesterday, I went to flush it, and it instead drained the bowl... very slowly, and the poop and TP didn't move one iota, except to be lowered down onto the now-dry base of the bowl! I waited for the tank to fill, watched as the bowl slowly filled back up to about its normal level, and then I flushed it again... to the same result. This happened several times in succession before I finally gave up on it, and went to take a shower.

Some while later, I came back to it and found that the water had largely drained out of the bowl, this time on its own... and I flushed it again. This time it immediately filled the bowl, and the poop went nowhere. And the water level came to higher than it usually sits, and remained there. I grabbed a plunger and started plunging it... which sometimes helps after LOTS of pushing, but is probably futile. Incredibly, after a moment of this, the water level seemed to be slowly rising! In fact, after I simply stopped plunging, it ever so slowly rose to the top of the bowl... and then slowly started overflowing it.

Now, I'd earlier brought the issue of the not-quite-flushing problem up with the lady at Lowes (who strikes me very much as an expert in these matters), who tells me that there's simply no way it could be the toilet at fault, and that there has to be something messed up further down the pipe from it. She thinks either that a major root has gotten into that section of our sewage pipe, or that there's a problem with the venting pipe (or whatever its called) that typically goes up to an opening in the roof -- say, that some animal crawled in it and died -- but that it cannot possibly be a problem with the toilet itself...

I'm not really all that good at relaying that info to my folks, though... I've probably done a better job of it here than I did to them... and anyway they don't seem to have been listening, either.

I brought it up again yesterday, during the overflow problem, but Mom just thinks that's all nonsense, and insists the problem is PURELY that I'm using too much toilet paper, and even this time went so far as claiming that I was folding it wrong!

I keep remembering this thing I saw on History Channel about "bathroom tech," where they showed all the work they put into making sure these new class five toilets will flush anything you dump into them, trying every possible thing they could to clog them up -- filling them with a gazillion golf balls, filling them up with abnormally large piles of simulated, solid poop, and so on, and then flushing it -- to satisfy themselves that the design they'd developed was worth shipping.... and anyway, there was a poster (for a different brand of class-five toilet) in the toilet aisle at Lowes showing a little boy standing there almost buried in toilet paper, with words to the effect that there's no need to be concerned about the toilet not flushing...

So no, I don't buy for a second the notion that the answer here is being really really careful with the toilet paper!

Oh yeah, and apparently also there's been some kind of "leak problem" the last couple of weeks. I gather the tank mechanism sometimes, intermittently, keeps on filling the tank and they have to pop open the top and stop it. Apparently it just fills the tank to capacity... and keeps on going, letting the water keep going down the overflow. I hadn't ever noticed it doing that myself, but I'm not usually where I can hear it, as it happens, and they hadn't volunteered the fact to me either, I guess they just assumed I'd noticed it as well. :rolleyes:

And a couple of times this last week, I'd come into the bathroom to find that the toilet rug was sopping wet, and been pushed off to the side. Dunno if that has anything to do with the leak they were talking about above, thought I do notice they've freshly caulked all around the base of the toilet lately...

Is there something online somewhere I can point my folks to that shows, visually, how it's possible that it could be a problem with the pipes down past the toilet? Something with detailed diagrams and stuff? They don't want to spend the money bringing in a plumber with one of those pipe-camera things, because they figure the pipe-camera thing would be really expensive to bring in, but it's the only way I could imagine it being possible to prove, or rule out, that the problem is a big, fat, tree-root messing things up down there...
 

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If the fill valve is not shutting off, and the toilet is plugged, it can overfill the bowl.
You may need to clean or repair the fill valve.

The plug is either in the trapway, or in the piping below.
One way to check the toilet would be to run a closet auger through, making sure that is clear.

The closet augers I like to use have an end on them that is over 1.5" across.

There is really no such thing as a bowl that can't be plugged.
I find that little rubber ducky's plug them real well.

auger_01.jpg
 

Nomad of Norad

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Okay, I don't doubt under unusual situations it would be possible to clog the thing up. Say, cramming a big, thick towel directly into the hole in the bottom of the bowl. What I meant was, under normal operation of the toilet, with nothing but toilet paper and semi-soft poop, even lots and lots of it, it shouldn't be that easy to stop it up. After all, the primary purpose of a toilet is to flush toilet paper and poop. Not rubber duckies. :cool:

I think the matter that happened yesterday, though, with the bowl slowly emptying, was a weird fluke or something, because I've never seen it do that before.

On the other hand, for awhile now I have heard the fill valve cut in for maybe two seconds or so, then cut out again, every little while. Could that be an indication that something in there is adjusted wrong?
 
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Terry

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There are plenty of toilets that work better than the Kohler Class Five.
The trapway on the Class Five is not a good design.

I had one in the house for a while, and plugging it was not that hard.

cim_1_trapway.jpg

Kohler Cimarron trapway. Most plugs happen right where the trapway ends.
The bend is too tight.
 
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Nomad of Norad

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Well, we came close to buying a different make and brand, next to that one was a print ad saying it would flush a bucket full of golf balls, but they had only one in stock... so we went with the Kohler because we wanted two identical units. :rolleyes:

Would it help to get one of those plungers with the rectangular-shaped cup?

And, what exactly WOULD be the circumstances under which that slow-draining-bowl event likely happen?
 

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Read the post above with the picture of the closet auger.

Any plunger with a small end works.
You just leave a bit of water in the bowl to seal around it.
Short strokes up and down, may an inch or two, pretty quickly, and then slightly lift the plunger.

korky_plunger.jpg
 
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I recently remodeled my bathroom and one of the products i opted for was the Kohler one piece Cimarron ADA height toilet. I am no expert so before deciding I did research on different available models, their engineered features, colors, costs and reviews. I have used the Cimarron now for a few months and am dissatisfied with it. It has a 3½ inch drain as opposed to others that have a 3 inch and the older toilets with a 2½ inch drain. It has a fast flush which is strong but it does stuff up sometimes and most of the time it is easy to clear with a plunger, but not always. I rate it's ease of use as a 2 because I take into consideration the number of flushes needed, the stain removal ability and needed cleaning after use. It has a straight drop flush with no cyclonic action what-so-ever. Add to that the very low water level in the bowl and some areas of the bowl where hardly any, (if any), water at all flows from the inside top rim and you have a major inside of the bowl cleaning problem. I have a bowl brush next to the toilet to use after almost every use. Get a toilet that has a high water level in the bowl with cyclonic action for better performance. If not then learn the manual of arms with a bowl brush!!
Stew f. Plainfield, NJ. Saturday march 15, 2008.
 
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Just wanted to add a couple cents to this thread since my last post. Last year we moved into a 25 year old home, complete with a pair of dated American Standard Plebe's. I bought these two toilets to replace because of a) the Kohler name, b) the "power flush" feature, and c) the comfort height elongated bowl. It has been almost a year now since I installed these and my review is still largely positive. I've had them clog on occasion, but they are easy to plunge. It takes a few swift strokes to do so but it works fine. To get the max effect of the flush you need to hold down the lever until all the water is out of the tank. If left alone it will close a tad early. The bowl wash is annoying though. These do not stay clean.

For $250 each I think they're worth it. Happy trails.
 

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WOW! :eek: After reading this thread, I guess I better hold onto my trusty 30 year old American Standard toilet! I installed it when I remodeled the bathroom in 1978 and it still works perfectly. Replaced the "innards" a few times, but it very rarely clogs. Only when my son was a small child and various objects found their way into the bowl, was there a problem. We have our own well, so water metering by the town is not a factor.
 
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