Gouranga
Software Engineer
Hey everyone, this is not to slam a particular business but to warn my fellow DIYs. I recently had a cold water stem blow out on my Kohler shower setup. To be fair, I have replaced my fair share of these (including 4 others in this current house) and never had this problem before. So I figured it would be a 10 minute fix. Got the stem from the local Lowes exact model number, size, etc of the broken stem. Did a quick visual inspection, and they matched. So I installed it, and as soon as I turned the water back on. The stem came a flying out. To make a LONG story short. On these replacement stems at Lowes, turns out they either deliberately changed the thread or made an error on a batch. There was a VERY small difference between the threads. Just enough of a difference to strip the diverter and force me to replace the entire thing ($500 repair instead of $15). So if you should buy these parts be anal. Don't just do a simple visual inspection, count the number of threads on the stems and if they are off at all, take it back. Painfull, but well learned lesson.,