Thank you, Terry, and everyone else for this great forum. Great to have access to such a wealth of information.
My Mom is 81 years old an on Social Security. She needed a new toilet. She really does pinch her pennies.
I took a deep breath, and decided to go with the Cadet 3 ADA, rather than the Drake.
I bought the toilet at Lowes for $203 out the door. I took the toilet home and inspected it, having read many reports on this forum of quality control problems with American Standard.
I could see no problems with the toilet. I noticed that the tank and bowl were both Hecho in Mexico.
I installed the toilet yesterday. The installation was a snap, took less than an hour.
I wasn't sure about how tight to make the tank to bowl bolts. I tightened them down snug. There was still some wiggle in the tank, and the tank was not setting on the bowl, about 1/8 inch gap.
I turned on the water. The thing flushed fine, and did not leak. I was scared to tighten the nuts any more, I didn't want to crack the tank.
I just put a shim behind the tank, between the tank and the wall. That put an end to the wobble.
My mom likes the looks of the toilet, and it flushes everything we have put in it.
But, the thing sprays onto the seat. No matter how you flush it, it will spray out 3 or 4 little bitty drops of water [or whatever] onto the seat.
If you flush it while sitting down, it will spray water onto your butt!
My mom is not wild about this, to say the least.
I came onto the Terry Love forum last night and searched "Cadet 3 spray."
I saw that this is a chronic problem with this toilet, happens with many of these toilets, and nothing can be done about it.
My girlfriend is right now bringing up here a shiny new Toto Drake ADA, about $360 out the door in Atlanta, no seat.
My girlfriend and I have 5 rental houses, and a couple days ago, we were talking about replacing 3 or 4 of our toilets with the Cadet 3.
Now, No Way, Jose.
I have seen the light.
Goodbye, Mexican Standard, hello Toto.
I will give a report on the Toto tomorrow, but, I will be massively disappointed if it is not a great toilet.
I can see why so many plumbers do not want to mess with the Cadet 3. Just think, if you installed five of these in a week, you get callbacks on 2 of them because they spray, you are wasting serious time taking these mediocre toilets back to Lowes.