This was for shower kits, but I was told that generally the big box stores will replace say, brass parts for plastic. It's how the manufacturers get it down to the price point at which Lowes or HD wants to sell it. Actually, manufacturers are told the price point, and it's up to them to get it there if they want the distribution deal with Lowes or HD.

I believe there is some technical issue with the Persuade, no matter what the parts of made of, that makes repairs very difficult. You might want to ask the plumbing forum or TL or someplace about it before buying one.

It's been a while but I do remember a lot of plumber outrage about the functional design of this one when it first came out, but then anything unusual usually provokes a lot of plumber outrage.

I was told the same by our contractor. He said P traps in toilets are often not glazed in the box store ones. Maybe cheaper flushing parts. Not sure if its true. I know we were told the same when we bought a Maax shower. And they did look like lesser quality in Home Depot.

It is not cost effective for factory production to have two quality levels of otherwise identical product. If the model is the same it's identical.

Contractor, plumbers,and other service people promote this myth because they make a profit on procuring the product for you. It's dishonest and it's done all the time. Do your own homework like Ikplatow.

Now to the untrained person there are differences in product by model. I went through this with Rev A Shelf. Bought a pullout at Lowes and it seemed too light weight. Checked the Rev A Shelf site and found the product. They did make two version of the same sized pullout. One was heavy duty and one for lighter duty. Just so happens Lowes stocked the lighter duty one. No bait and switch. It was on me. The model was different and I should have checked beforehand.

Thanks for all the responses. More online reading suggests a general dislike of Kohler because of all the different proprietary parts they use that can make repair slow and expensive (Toto gets more love for using readily-available off-the-shelf parts), but there are certainly lots of Kohlers out there and the one in our main bath has been just fine. More concerning were the comments that this particular model fits tight against the wall all the way to the floor, so repairs to the waterline (and other stuff) require moving the entire toilet. The DXV Seagram might be a better choice in that regard, but no dual flush. Why is nothing ever easy!