New age snake oil

That redish ring is a part for an American Standard Champion toilet. It was photographed beside a washbasin drain so you can see how big it is.

Not even as complex as a canning jar rubber, that little ring began leaking before the toilet was two years old and costs $30 if you buy it in a plumbing supply store.

Leaking is a major complaint with this model - from the little rubber ring and also from where the tank attaches to the base.

This was the wonder toilet of the new age, or so it was implied by the ads which showed buckets of golf balls being flushed, in case you ever eat buckets of golf balls. This is the toilet later described on a toilet chat board as a "piece of shit."

That a manufacturer would put a certain-to-fail gasket in a toilet and then charge $30 for a new one is committing the same merchandising scam as Maytag with its $40 refrigerator water filter and as Hewlett-Packard with its $30 ink cartridges; same with expensive razor blades, batteries, Playstation games and many other snake-oil-level products of the new age.