We are actually replacing two of our toilets in our mudroom and powder room baths with Toto. These two bathrooms get lots of use by our family and guests. Our current toilets are a Kohler and an American Standard. We have had continual clogging issues since the beginning and both were from a plumbing supply company. My dh installed Totos in his dental office and has had no issues so we decided to replace ours with Totos as well.

swisscook, actually, the Toto IS itself the second choice. The best toilets in the world are designed and made in Japan, and Toto is the largest plumbing manufacturer, but it has strong competition in its home market. The second largest Japanese toilet maker, Inax, which has about a 30 percent share of the total Japanese domestic market, and a somewhat higher share of the Japanese domestic high-end market, is now making a sales push in North America.

If you know German automobiles, then Toto is Mercedes, and Inax is BMW or Audi. (I don't know how I would factor VW into the analogy.) Inax is more of a technology pioneer than Toto; Inax actually was first to market with an "advanced toilet seat," sometimes called a "bidet toilet seat," in the late 1970s, before Toto introduced the first Washlet.

In styling, the Inax designs are a bit edgier than Toto, aimed at a younger, hipper clientele than Toto. Inax is following the same kind of high style marketing strategy that Kohler is pursuing in North America.

In features, model for model, Toto and Inax match up point by point: any new feature that Toto introduces shows up in an Inax within months, and any new feature that Toto introduces shows up in a Toto model within months.

In the commercial market, Inax in recent years appears to be scoring a clean sweep; every major airport in Japan has only Inax toilets, and the bathrooms in the newer luxury hotels in Japan are pretty much all Inax these days, too.

But do not expect Inax toilets to have a bargain price because you may think of them as obscure; Inaxes are pricey.

Here is a link that might be useful: Some of the Inax toilets available in the USofA

We installed 2 Kohler Class 6 toilets from Home Depot and they are great. They are used constantly and haven't clogged once. If either of out other 2 toilets need replacing, I'd buy the same ones.

We just put in 3 Kohler Kelston toilets. The two in the addition haven't gotten much action since we haven't moved in over there yet, but the one in our renovated bath is the house's main toilet (the other existing bath isn't accessible when my 2-yr old is sleeping). In the 4 months that we've had it, it's been perfect- no issues with my newly potty trained 2-yr old's TP obsession, and no leftovers either.

In the last year we have installed the toto drake and the kohler cimarron both class (5?) (6?) Can't remember the exact class, but we got the highest class that was offered. We purchased them from local plumbing companies in sale and ended up being cheaper than online...we purchased right around earth day...they had a sale on the water savings toilets.

Anyway, I would hands down, recommend the toto over the kohl ciimarron. The toto flushes better without any markings. Both were comfort height, but the drake is 1.28 gallon flush vs the 1.6 flush of the kohler.

Kohler cimarron is fine, but like the toto much better.

I know there has been debates back and forth, but we happened to have both toilets in our house.

Normally, I'd agree with the plumber, especially when it comes to things like faucets but we got our American Standard Champion toilet from Home Depot almost two years ago and it's worked like a charm with not one issue. My only dislike is that we went with the taller comfort height and for a short person like me, there is nothing comfortable about it.

The thing that you need to keep in mind is each make may have several model numbers available. The Memoirs by Kohler is a great example. Some of the Memoir models have not performed very well while others have worked just fine. The one we have in our guest bathroom is at least 6 years old and never once have we had an issue with it, yet time after time I read complaints about the performance of the Memoirs.

I used the MaP report to help me figure out which models had the best performance and it provides specific model numbers for each make. The American Standard we bought had the best performance rating available and since Home Depot carried that specific model number that's where we bought it from.

I never even considered the Toto because I did a lot of research and IMHO, they are not the best product out there and in the MaP report they did not perform as well as I would have expected for the cost.

This link explains the report a bit, the second link will take you to the report itself which is listed by manufacturer. Good Luck!

http://www.allianceforwaterefficiency.org/Maximum_Performance_(MaP)_Testing.aspx

Here is a link that might be useful: MaP report (Maximum Performance Testing)

Corky1 the rumor is true but mostly when it comes to faucets because the inside parts where you can't see are plastic and the buyer never knows the difference. The way you can tell is by the product number. If the model number of a faucet sold at Home Depot is slightly different from the same model sold in another store, chances are it's got plastic insides, if the product numbers match, than they are identical in every way.

So if I'm reading this report correctly, the Toto's listed only remove between 500-800 grams of waste per flush vs. the Mansfield (which I've heard is the most replaced builder grade toilet in the country) which removes 1000 grams of waste per flush? I'm leaning towards Toto but wonder if I'm reading this report right.

lukkiirish writes: "I used the MaP report to help me figure out which models had the best performance . . ."

The MaP report will help you determine which models had the best performance under a very specific set of test conditions. If you have movements that comprise only condom-like thin plastic bags filled with miso (soybean paste) to a diameter of 3/4 inch and a length of six inches, the MaP test is a very accurate predictor of (only) whether the (big chunks of) waste will go down.

However, if your (pardon the expression) turds are stiffer and less flexible than miso-filled plastic bags or if a member of your family generates turds longer than 6 inches, the MaP test will not tell you whether a toilet with a MaP rating of even one million grams will flush the turds. If part of your concern goes beyond the "will they go down?" question, the MaP test will not tell you whether the flush design minimizes -- or maximizes -- "marking" (brown streaks) on the inside of the bowl.

Moreover, if the solid waste content of your movements rarely exceeds the average volume/mass per movement, which is in the 400 gram range, then, for those 400 gram movements, a 1,000 gram MaP toilet will not flush that movement any better than a 500 gram MaP toilet will send the turds on their way.

functionfirst writes: "So if I'm reading this report correctly, the Toto's listed only remove between 500-800 grams of waste per flush vs. the Mansfield (which I've heard is the most replaced builder grade toilet in the country) which removes 1000 grams of waste per flush? I'm leaning towards Toto but wonder if I'm reading this report right."

You probably are reading the report correctly, but you must be aware that MaP measures a very, very narrow performance parameter. Choosing a toilet soly on the basis of its MaP test results is like choosing an automobile solely on the basis of its 0-100 mph acceleration time, or choosing a digital camera solely on the basis of megapixels, or choosing a stereo loudspeaker solely on the basis of the highest supersonic frequency that it can reproduce.

lukkiirish writes: "I used the MaP report to help me figure out which models had the best performance . . ."

Yes, exactly, I used it to "HELP" me figure out which models had the performance. That said, lots of people have used our toilets in the last six years and never a problem so I'd say the odds of finding the best working models by using the MaP report are better than you describe.

If you limit your selection of automobiles to those that can accelerate from 0 to 100 mph in under ten seconds, you will be left with a short list of automobiles, most of which are probably well above the average in quality and features. However, the best automobile for your purposes -- one that will serve your needs better if, for instance, good fuel economy is important to you -- may well be excluded by the limitation of 0-100 under ten. A Toyota Prius would not make the list, for instance.

The same considerations apply to toilets capable of flushing in one flush two or three times the quantity of standard 4"x3/4" stuffed plastic tube equivalents to the 250 grams or so that most humans produce in one movement. Below, I give a link to a thread on Terry Love's toilet forum that explains the (surprisingly common) problem of long, hard stools experienced by people with spinal cord injuries or Parkinson's disease. If you read through the thread, you will learn that the only toilets likely to solve the problem are the Caromas with a 4" trapway (Caromas use wash-down technology and also have less sharp bends in the pipe than most).

But, as my friends who have Caromas will attest, the Caromas have small water spots, which means, without putting too fine a point on it, that there is more of an air pollution problem around a Caroma toilet than around most other toilets. So the Caroma is not the universal answer to every person's dream, either.

In short, the MaP is one test, a good objective test, of one aspect -- for many people, perhaps the most important aspect -- of toilet performance. (Just as a 0 to 100 mph test is an objective test of one aspect of an automobile's performance.) But, even then, MaP does not give the definitive answer for which toilet necessarily flushes better than another for the needs, for instance, of a person with a spinal cord injury or Parkinson's disease, conditions that cause the solids to be flushed to differ markedly from the standard plastic bags of miso used for the MaP test. And it does not address the aesthetic of bowl marking that some so-called "Class 6" toilets exhibit, or the question whether the homeowner wants a toilet with a small water spot and consequent big smell -- or a pressurized toilet with a high MaP score but a very loud whoosh -- in a guest bathroom close to the dining room where guests will be seated for dinner.

Here is a link that might be useful: One case where MaP fails to give guidance

Caroma

We put a Toto in our downstairs powder room, and wish we hadn’t! Our Toto does not have a smooth continuous bowl, but there is a kind of ridge ring indent and change in the bowl slope which hits just about exactly at the toilet water fill line. That ridge seems to hasten development of a ring of “yuck”, far more than any other toilet in our house! And it’s not more frequently used, nor is it due to lack of reasonably good house cleaning.