Leaky faucett

[Two Much]

About 8 years ago we put in a new kitchen and a Price Pfister faucet and sprayer.
In the last year it started leaking at the top onto the counter. So the head guy
would take it apart and tighten it up then it would be good for a few months.

At the beginning of December. it started happen ending more frequently,
so he took the guts out and bought it to Home Depot.
They had nothing they sell us that would work.

He said, we better pick out a new faucett.
I said, let's call up Price Pfister...he said, we don't have a receipt and its eight years
old, and we don't know the model number?

I searched for the book, and found it and called them up.
They asked me when and where we bought it and the model number...

They sent out a totally new guts kit, free of charge and no shipping.
it's now works like a brand new faucet.

How's that for customer service?

[leehljp]

I think some "free replacements" have to do with the individual customer as much as the company's warranty policy! Good for you and for the company!

My wife can talk an "out of warranty" replacement with ease, but hates to. ME - I am like the Liberty Mutual Commercials, There is always a hidden reason for the company not to honor the contract as it seems to be written.


Congratulations on the fix!

[cwsmith]

Congratulations on the fix,

When we remodeled this old house, we put Price-Pfister faucets in both the bath and the kitchen. Same problem that you had in the kitchen, and same kind of quick and very nice service from P-Pf. Their customer service was, as you describe, quite exceptional. Only problem was that a few months later it started to leak again, and once again we did a replacement; and once again after a few months the leak re-occurred. I'm hoping that you won't have this problem.

So understand, that I really HATE plumbing! My Dad was a plumber (later a licensed steam fitter) and when I was a kid I used to go out on the job and help. While I learned a lot and did everything from soldering pipe to caulking and leading section sewer pipe, I hated it. New jobs were great, but repairs were always problematic. Just seems like nothing new fits anything old.

Today, I'll replace things like faucet packings/cartridges, they most always just don't seem to really fix anything in the long term. In the case of my kitchen faucet, two replacements were enough and I then just called my friendly plumber, Steve. Generally, he doesn't like Price-Pfister and replaced the faucet with a Delta. Basically, he things that P-Pf uses too many parts, too many different models, and too many changes in components. The Delta has been in three years now, we'll see how much longer that lasts.

Regarding P-Pf designs, I really like them and that's why we purchased them for our remodel. But the internals seemed a bit flimsy for some things. For example, our bath/shower faucet is a three-handle design. The center valve controls whether the flow goes to the shower or the tub spigot. After just a couple of years, you'd turn on the shower and it would leak drastically into the tub. I took it apart and it was this very thin hard plastic gasket that was worn and cracked. Checked locally and no one had a replacement, so called P-Pf and they sent one right out. But two years later it broke again, to the point that the shower head never got the water flow. On a Friday night, that meant NO shower for a few days, and I'm not much for taking just a bath. So, I took it apart and after closer exam found that it was just about the diameter of a much thicker (but more pliant) yard hose gasket. So, I had a few of those and though I had to do some slight cutting on the outside diameter of the hose gasket to get it to fit, it worked! Four years now and that hose gasket is functioning perfectly. I asked P-Pf, why they are using such a thin and frail gasket and all I got was, "that was the way they are designed".

Some plumbing things I just don't understand.

CWS

[Two Much]

We've never taken a service contract out on anything and never had any problems.
As my son told me once, things usually brake down within the first few months...it's
called the infant mortality rate.

Also, when they call you after delivery and offer you a three year contract,
be aware it's really a two year contract, as you are already covered for one year.
When I point out this fact to them, they still try and razzle dazzle me...
I then say -- you mean I'm covered for four years, the year that comes with the
product, plus the three year contract you're trying to sell me?
"No, it's a three year contract for blah, blah, blah"....
They make a very high profit on contracts.

[cwsmith]

Very good point and I totally agree.... service contracts aren't usually a good investment.

We had a 3-year service contract on our kitchen appliances; stove, frig, and dishwasher. My wife refuses to use the dishwasher, preferring to wash the dishes by hand in the sink. Yet, we've had two calls on that dishwasher, because a valve keeps failing. The frig is just darned awful noisy. Nothing can be done about that I guess, and the range... we've had to replace the timer twice. The glass in the door is all fogged up, but the service guy refuses to work on those, since he says they break too easily. So, in our case the service contract worked for us. But we did not renew it this past year as it has gotten too expensive.

All of these are Kenmore... which we will probably never buy again. We decided that on the next failure, we're going to buy another brand of whatever it is that breaks.

This was the first time we ever bought a service contract, and I think it will be the last. In the case of the present appliances, we were in the midst of doing the remodel and didn't put a lot of thought into shopping. In the past we'd always bought Kenmore (my FIL was a manager there in our earlier years) and they always served us very well. This last purchase, not so much.

Happy New Year,

CWS

[Two Much]

cw, The only appliance that ever crapped out on us was a fridge after about seven years.

The freezer would ice up and we had to
defrost it with a hair dryer. It was every few months this icing up happened. That chore got old fast. I wanted
a new French door fridge anyhow, so there was my excuse to toss the old fridge.

The big problem is the space was not deep enough for a big fridge.. When we put in our first new kitchen in 1985'
we moved the fridge to down by the door. In order to have it there, we took out the studs behind the
fridge, flashed the wall so that we could pick up the 3 1/2" ...Then about nine years ago, we bought the new fridge which was
not as deep as all the others, (this is the one that broke)

So, when it came time to buy this new one (a couple of years ago)
I agonized about buying this French Door fridge that was going to stick out 'too much.'
My solution was to build out the wall next to the fridge, and live with it. It no longer looks like it sticks out too far,
even though it's about 3" deeper than the old one.

[JimD]

I'm glad you got good service from Price Pfister but I don't buy their faucets. Occasionally I buy the really cheap ones, like HD's glacier bay brand, and know that I will have to deal with O-rings and/or gaskets at some point. I have one in each of the girls bathrooms right now. They're a couple years old and working fine. When they don't, they will probably just get thrown away and replaced with a Delta or a Moen. The house before this we had built. The builder let us buy all the stuff for the bathroom but his plumber would only install Moen or Delta. They both use cartridges and at least Moen will send them to you for a phone call. That house also had almost 100 psi water pressure so we did get a few leaks. A new cartridge always fixed it and I never paid for one. The faucets were all Moen. We had at least 6 bath faucets and one kitchen faucet. The shower controls were all Delta and I don't remember replacing one of them.

[vaking]

Congrats on a good service. To my knowledge Price Pfister is one of the trademarks owned by Black and Decker along with Dewalt, Porter cable, Delta and few others.I also have some PP faucets and they work fine after about 10 years in service.

[Two Much]

We have moen in our showers, and in one bathroom sink we have a moen faucet.
I was told by plumber that moen was the best. We've had great luck with the moen faucets.
The reason we chose the PF for the kitchen was I liked the look of the PF for the price.