Installation constitutes acceptance in the industry, and in any court in the land. Take their good will offer and run with it. The product should have been inspected at delivery or shortly thereafter and determined to be incorrect. You went ahead and installed the incorrect product. You own it.

It's not much of a good will offer since they are responsible for mislabeling and misrepresenting their product. The product was inspected upon delivery (as much as possible by comparing the order to the delivery invoice and product labels), but not every tile was inspected since they were stacked and wrapped on multiple pallets. They were notified within 2 business days of delivery; unfortunately, installation occurred during the holidays.

"It's not much of a good will offer since they are responsible for mislabeling and misrepresenting their product."

Since they owe you nothing it is a 'good will' offer.

If you had stopped as soon as the color variation was apparent you might have a leg to stand on.

Tile is made from clay, and there are variation in any natural material.

I must say I'm a little surprised by the comments so far. I can understand if the tile delivered was marked with "blend" instead of "charcoal" and it was noted and installed, knowing it was a "blend". In that case, installation might constitute acceptance. However, if the delivered tile was marked "charcoal", and ended up being a "blend" noted during or immediately after install, that should be a different story. Part of the delay was caused by the fact that the roofer and contractor expected some color variation, but not like this.

Ponderosa 303 per the website and catalog

What we ended up with (the Eagle representative didn't even know what blend this was - it's not consistent with any of their product lines)

If you purchased the roofing and just hired the contractor to install, then it's all on you. It is up to you to be on site and inspect the delivery of any materials that you order, because you ordered it. You need to be familiar enough with the product that you are able to certify that it is correct as mistakes are not unknown to occur. Take the money and run, as the manufacturer doesn't owe you a thing. Once you install a material, it means that you have approved it and there is no recourse for any return unless the product is defective. A different color does NOT constitute defective. Defective would mean that there are cracks or voids in the roofing, etc.

If your contractor was hired to roof your structure with XYZ roofing in ABC color, and he purchased the roofing, then any recourse for the wrong color being installed lies with the contractor, not the manufacturer. He installed it and it is incumbent upon anyone purchasing and installing a material to be aware of it's installation requirements and design parameters. If he was at all uncertain if this was the right color after a row or two, he should have put the job on hold and contacted both you and the manufacturer. I don't know if he was feeling pressure from you to get the job done because of the delays, but he should not have installed the roofing. Take it up with him if he purchased it.

Whatever you do, don't "paint" the tiles. That would be a nightmare for many reasons.

You ordered one thing and were delivered another thing mislabelled.

It is up to you to be on site and inspect the delivery of any materials that you order, because you ordered it.

So a homeowner who has a contractor is still expected to be on site for every delivery and before anything is installed? And if the contractor installs a mislabelled product, you have no choice but to eat it?

Unlike the other posters here, I am not a lawyer. Considering the amount involved, invest in an hour consultation with a licensed practitioner with experience in building issues.

I assume these are vertically scored concrete tiles intended to simulate weathered handsplit wood shakes although in the brochure photo they look so uniform they seem like plastic or fiberglass. The color variation in the site photo doesn't look bad to me but it does make them look more like slate tiles but they seem more like natural materials than in the brochure. More photos would be helpful.

I have found that when specifying natural materials that will not be finished in the field (brick, tile, stone, shingles, etc.), it is critical to include a description of the desired appearance in the specification and how much color variation is acceptable and to require that sufficient samples of the actual material be given to you for your written approval before installation begins since manufacturers' model and color codes are not sufficient and completed installation constitutes acceptance of the material if it is not defective as others have pointed out.

In some cases it is wise to require a mockup on the site and it is always a good idea to require a pre-construction meeting to review all materials and their installation unless you don't mind surprise substitutions and detailing during construction. This is the responsibility of the owner or the owner's representative, something that is often misunderstood by owners and rarely mentioned by contractors on single-family residential projects.

"it is critical to include a description of the desired appearance in the specification and how much color variation is acceptable "

Good luck with that on a typical residential job.
And defining color variation limits or verifying them is not a simple task.

Not a lot of folks have color densitometers readily available.

You must have stopped reading halfway through the sentence that you selectively quoted where I recommended that samples be provided for the owner's approval. The specification description can only serve to inform the contractor that the owner is serious about the appearance of the roofing tiles.

I don't know of any other way to be sure the owner will be satisfied than to give them samples of the actual delivered materials to approve. Owners who do not include such protections in the specifications or elsewhere in the contract (even for a single-family house) usually lose that protection because a residential GC is unlikely to offer it. That appears to be what happened to the OP and it is regrettable.

Our contractor did order the tiles after we specified which manufacturer (Boral or Eagle), and which specific tile line and color. We did have samples in hand from both companies which were requested direct from them, as well as addresses to see the finished products. Eagle has said from day one that the delivered tile was not what we ordered (from the regional supervisor as well as 2 field reps that came for an onsite visit to take pictures). The field reps didn't even know what tiles we actually ended up with, but they definitely were not a "color variation" of the 303.

My contractor and his roofers may bear some blame since they didn't stop installation immediately, but they shouldn't be responsible for about 90% of the replacement cost since this is all due to a manufacturing or packaging mistake made by Eagle.

completed installation constitutes acceptance of the material if it is not defective as others have pointed out.

That is a standard part of many contracts. But it is not a principle of contract law, absent that clause. Plus, there is the complicating action of a third party, the gc (and his sub) and his relationship and responsibilities to the homeowner.

My previous advice stands.

Not relevant to the issue, but I prefer the installed tile to the catalogue photo.

If the installer had samples to compare to the tiles that were delivered, why did he install tiles that did not match the samples? The samples were not only for the owner's approval they should be on site to prevent installation of the wrong material. The GC has a greater responsibility for this unfortunate situation than you realize. However, the absence of a specification requiring the GC to verify that the materials matched the samples complicates the matter.

I don't mean this as a criticism but if you saved some money by relying on your GC instead of an independent consultant to provide quality control and assurance for the project, now may be the time to spend some of the savings. You should get the GC to "participate" too. Trying to blame the mistake on one party is not likely to be successful.

Look at the half full scenario here, because it could be MUCH worse than a happy accident of a better color here. Your contractor did a good job installing the roof with good variation in the color, and it doesn't leak AND the manufacturer is offering you a rebate! They certainly did not have to.

"We asked our contractor to order that specific model and when the pallets arrived (wrapped with clear plastic), the contractor and roofer verified that the label / invoice matched our specification."

Inspecting the shipping label and invoice is not enough! The GC should have broken open the pallets and compared the roofing with the sample and pics of previous installations he had. Dye lots can vary quite a bit also so, I can see where the color might look a bit similar on the pallet. So, even if he did a physical inspection, he still might not have realized that something incorrect was delivered.

However, he should have realized that it was incorrect after just a course or two was begun. At that point, he should have immediately stopped the job, holiday weekend or not. It doesn't matter if the manufacturer was unavailaible. It doesn't matter if you weren't available. You DO NOT install incorrect materials just to keep the job rolling. You suck it it, take photos of what the color looks like installed, repackage what you can and wait until you can contact the manufacturer on Monday and then work on something else.

And if you can't contact the owner to tell them what has transpired, you leave a voice mail with the GOOD NEWS that the incorrect product was NOT installed and that you will be in touch with the manufacturer first thing Monday to straighten this out. You do not continue installing an incorrect color, because at that point, if you do that, then YOU are on the hook for the problem, not the manufacturer.

If you absolutely cannot stand the serendipitous installation of a better looking material, and the contractor will not reorder and reinstall, then your next move would be to contact a construction lawyer (5k retainer to even start) and begin the process for a suit. Your claim is too large for small claims. And the lawyer fees will eat up a lot of what you could possibly recover. But, if it is worth it to you for the principle and you can afford the suit, then it's worth it.

Thanks for the reassuring opinions on the resulting roof color. At least it's not a major disaster. However, DW specifically vetoed the blended look when we looked at installed examples, and you know what they say about "happy wife, happy life."

At this point, I wish Eagle Roofing would just take responsibility for their mistake and do what is right. They've already said that if we had noticed the issue before the installation was fully complete (not a row or two), they would have corrected the problem. I don't know how that converts to a $3500 credit. Perhaps that is the cost of painting all the tiles, something that can only lead to problems in the future.

Eagle could at least offer something reasonable compared to the costs that they would have incurred if the contractor had stopped installation within a couple of hours. They would have been responsible for the disposal/reloading of the defective tiles back onto the pallets from the roof, return shipment to the distributor, delivery and unloading of the new correct tiles back onto the roof. They would also be responsible for at least a day's labor for the roofing crew since they would also need to repair some roofing underlayment.

More than likely they would have just disposed of the mislabeled tiles since they still can't ID it. That raises another issue, how would I obtain a warranty or get replacement tiles if needed? They don't know what "model" I have now.