You might think that a toilet seat is pretty much a toilet seat and that replacing a broken one would be easy. Well it should be but Caroma, a company that boasts of innovation in 'sanitaryware', knows how to make it hard for you. The toilet in my ensuite in the house we bought 11 years ago has an unusual, perhaps unique, design. The hinges go straight back rather than at rightangles to the seat. This is an innovative idea from those geniuses at Caroma that doesn't seem to have worked out because they stopped manufacture of this line about a decade ago. Replacement toilet seats are no longer available and Caroma, nor anyone else, manufactures anything that will fit.
According to the company representative I spoke to during the week this is not their problem because the small print on the sale document (read it she suggested) says the company 'reserves the right' to stop manufacturing and will only keep manufacturing parts for seven years after stopping manufacture. This means my only option is to buy a whole new toilet suite. Gotcha.
My suggestion that people usually buy this stuff to last a very long time and indeed it is often sold with the promise that it will last a lifetime etc was met with a ritualistic incantation of the lines about company policy, reserve the right, read the fine print etc. Read the fine print on a toilet sale document - unbelievable.
The lesson. Be bloody careful about innovation in 'sanitaryware' because you lose not Caroma.
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