I bought mine from a regular plumbing shop. I have heard that AS has a problem with quality control, especially with respect to wobble. I either got a good one or the plumbers did the QC check before delivery.

Thank goodness your first one was bad enough that you had to take it back. Maybe if HD sends a few shipments back to them, AS will clean up their quality.

I'm sure by now you have flushed a few loads and are enjoying the confidence that you will never have to use a plunger again.

"I'm sure by now you have flushed a few loads and are enjoying the confidence that you will never have to use a plunger again."

To be honest - I'm not sure how much confidence I have in the toilet yet. It seems to work great - but I was really surprised at the poor quality control that AS had. Out of the 6 boxes they had only 1 wasn't defective. I'm wondering if there was some other defect in either the bowl or tank that I missed that is going to pop up and bite me.

I really have better use of my time that to mess with toilets on the weekend.

carolinakid, I hope you've had a better experience by now...

And if so, may I ask a question re installing them: I had wobble (just a little) until I bolted down the bowl--is there supposed to be no wobble at all even before you bolt it down?

And a second question: re installing the tank: how snugly does it fit down on the bowl? That rubber gasket is not allowing me to get very close; if I try to tighten any further than I have, I start to get the warning porcelain -stress sounds, but it's still a small ways up from the bowl and you can see air through it. Is that correct? Thanks.

You can see air between the tank and the bowl is what I meant, not air between the gasket and the bowl or tank.

You can see air between the tank and the bowl is what I meant, not air between the gasket and the bowl or tank.

I wonder how that happened. Sorry.

Large gap of sunlight between tank and bowl is fine... some brands have little rubber studs/standoffs incorporated into the gasket, so that you can tell you've "mashed it down" far enough...

... you've got me REAL worried with those "porcelain warning sounds" though. =:O I hope that time and temperature changes do not come back to crack your unit. You can probably back off quite a bit before it leaks. Snug is good, stress cracking is bad. DANGER WILL ROBINSON!

Turns out it was paint chips coming off under the washer, not the whole thing cracking. We went to Lowe's tonight and watched the plumbing lead guy tighten bolts down on another Cadet (taken out of the box) until they touched with only a bit of unevenness...still not what our other toilets look like (not the same model), but tighter than I got it today. No little rubber studs/standoffs here, though. Instructions say to make the top and bottom touch in the front and back, as I said in that other thread. I do appreciate your replies.

Does anyone who has a Cadet 3 have any thoughts on this issue? How level/tightened down did you get it all?

Well, no one would believe it but we happened to go to a house for another reason on Saturday and they had just installed a Cadet 3! I saw it and how it was mounted--there was a bit of light, not completely sitting on the bowl, but touching in front and back, and not moving. It gave me courage to go home and tighten ever so slowly until I reached their level of tightness and things are fine :)

As far as the bowl setting on the floor without wobbling....if the floor is flat and level and the bottom of the bowl is flat, then there should be no wobble before the gasket is put in and the bowl screwed down.
I wouldn't go crazy in tightening the tank to the bowl. In almost every brand there is a gap between the tank and the bowl. Just tighten the bolts down until the gap seems even on both sides and the bolts seem pretty snug. Fill the bowl and flush. If everything is dry, you are probably okay. If there is a small leak you can tighten a little more. The big danger is over tightening and breaking the porcelin.

coolvt, the bowl of the one we put on vinyl went down flat, no problem. The one we put on tile was wobbly until we shimmed it. Now it's fine.

The problem was with how far to tighten down the tank to the bowl. And yep, we reached what you're talking about. Thanks. All seems good for now.

What coolvt said. Every DIY plumber needs old towels at hand. Don't be timid. With your hand at the ready on the (quarter-turn?) supply stop valve, fill the tank a quarter of the way, if no leak, go to half, etc... once tank is full, give the tank some gentle to moderate nudges from all directions. If no leaks (or excessive movement), you're good to go. In general such joints get a little better over time, as the rubber conforms or "seats" more and more to the porcelain.

Rubber on glazed glossy porcelain makes for a very effective seal, but given what carolinakid says about the QC on the Cadet, my concern would not be with under-tightening the bolts, but with whether the 2 holes involved are glazed at all points that mate with the gasket. =:O

Don't forget to revive this thread in 90 days with a follow-up report. I sure hope AS is not having their stuff made in China or similar low-quality locale.

Thanks, fixizin--so far so good, although the wobble issue on the tile toilet was pretty severe, and the tile didn't seem all that un-level to begin with... I guess it would be good to caulk where we've had to shim over the tile floor, for extra support? We're not caulking around the one installed on the vinyl; no shimming was needed and I feel that it's better to know of a leak asap, yes?

At least one trap of two was definitely glazed. I should check the other one...

Going to revive this thread since I saw a few people looking for toilet recommendations and since this forum was so-o helpful on making my decision (Thanks to dchall_san_antonio for saving me $$$).

After having a clog about every other week, I replaced all three of my over 15-year old Kohler toilets in my house with the American Standard Cadet 3.

I had the opportunity to check out the Toto Drake, but felt that the Cadet 3 offered several advantages:

1) Ever-clean glaze. A silver antimicrobial glaze.
2) Swirling flush. Felt that this would keep the bowl cleaner vs. the Drake which seems to be more direct without swirl.
3) Availability. Can goto Home Depot or Lowe's to pick these up (and return them!).
4) Cheaper!

Installation was straight forward onto hardwood floor and natural stone. I used rubber shims to eliminate the rock which was pretty easy (http://www.hammerzone.com/archives/bath/projects/remod_w1/toilet/new_1/install.htm). My rubber shims were from Ace Hardware and were a red square of rubber which is intended on replacing washers originally.

The only quirks:
1) Home depot/Lowes only stocks the following:
- Bone and White.
- White available in round/elongated and regular/Right Height.
- Bone available in round only, UNLESS you buy the complete ADA toilet package at Lowes for $221, then it comes in Elongated Right Height.
2) Water seems to stick to the inside of the bowl instead of settling at the bottom. Don't remember this happening on my old bowl.
3) Tank doesn't meet the bowl, but no leaks yet!

Otherwise, the flush is awesome and I haven't clogged it yet!

For those interested, my white elongated toilets were made in Mexico, while my Right Height Bone elongated was made in Brazil.

If the tank does not touch the bowl, I think you should keep cranking it down gently until it does just touch.

It took more effort than I expected to torque down the tank because of the very fat tank seal, but I torqued it down to just touching the "sanitary dam backsplash" (look at the unit and you will see what I mean). It did not crack. It is very solid without rocking.

Like house_md, we just installed an American Standard toilet from HD and have no problems with it. We got the next size up, the Champion 4 and "right height" elongated bowl, which reportedly had many quality control issues.

I opened up the boxes in HD, inspected the parts for obvious flaws and found none. I set the bowl on their concrete floor to check any rocking. At home the thing looked huge. Actually, it looked kinda like the QE2 coming in to dock. It fit into the existing space and we became accustomed to its appearance.

We also got the soft-close seat by Bemis, about $40. Works fine, I expect the soft-close mechanism will wear out sometime. The tank, bowl, lid, wax ring, and longer water supply hose (for the higher tank) cost just about $300

It has not clogged even with our children who use t-paper very enthusiastically. BTW, the video demos show t-paper dumped in and flushed immediately. If you want a real, more difficult test, let the t-paper absorb water for about a minute and then hit the go-handle.

Overall it is much quieter and faster than our previous throne with a normal flush. It makes a funny flushing noise. It goes "gurgle - FOOP! - gurgle" The "foop!" is the big flapper slamming shut.

Here is a link that might be useful: silly sales video flushing golf balls

its been 9 months...how is the thing working..any regrets?