Who knew how the time would go - replacing a toilet

It is absurd the amount of variety which exists for WC's. It took some time to narrow down to one. The process gave me a headache even though the criterion for me was minimal cost with a simple design. I chose a well known brand inspite of not wanting to pay for brand value. I suppose fear of the unknown prevents a rational choice.

The real headache was still to come.

I took possession of the WC. I took it home, relieved. Next day, the plumber looked at it and told me that the cistern/tank has a crack.

I took the cistern back to the dealer. My mistake had been that I had not opened the boxes and verified that there was no problem on taking delivery. The dealer examined the box with the cistern. It wasn't a crack. The cistern was in 3 or 4 pieces. The dealer refused to admit that his people could have delivered that box in such a condition. The item would have rattled and easily noticed by them that the product was damaged. There was no way for me to prove that the damage did not happen while I was transporting it or by our plumber.

I paid a 'discounted' price and took a replacement cistern.

When the plumber tried to install the WC, the cistern would not sit properly on the seat. Another trip to the dealer. We got a replacement cistern. It did not took any different and it wasn't. The new cistern did not fit either.

The dealer phoned the service department of the manufacturer. We chased the service department and waited. Meanwhile, I searched the net and saw that the specifications on the web site did not match the seat. I called the dealer. This time I did not have to make a trip to the shop. The dealer sent his staff to check, who probably knew that they had delivered the wrong product. So, they came with a replacement seat. A relief. The seat and the cistern fitted.

We called the plumber back, as he had left rather than sit idly at our home. He started on the work and discovered that the nuts for the bolts were missing.

The dealer grumbled that such errors are not possible but gave duplicate nuts from the spares.

The nuts and the screws did not fit. The plumber tried the usual Indian tricks to make it work but failed. Now I took the nuts and the bolts back to the dealer, who with great reluctance replaced them from another set.

He talked about bad omen (muhurat theek nahin tha). I suppose that makes sense - I should have had a havan at home before starting :)