Kohler - Sterling Plumbing No Warranty Returns on Cracked Sterling Bath Tub Kohler Wisconsin

Bought a "brand new" Sterling Ensemble soaking tub. After installing it while wiping it down a crack was found at an inside corner after being highlighted by the dust being wiped off. No surprise, the plumbing distributor immediately claimed I must have damaged tub during install because I am not a licensed plumber (Joe the plumber you are clearly from a breed of geniuses!). When contacting Kohler I was too informed they could not have possibly caused the crack and it must have been me the inexperienced do-it-yoursefer. Their obligation under the warranty could only be confirmed by a qualified service technician. If the technician found the crack to be due to manufacturing defect, then they would pay - if not I pay (just for the service call!). I called the 1 listed service company and asked how this usually goes, and guess what? Cracks are never the fault of the manufacturer. When I looked Kohler up on this website I was shocked to find I am one of many genetically challenged non-professional plumbers. Needless to say, I purchase another one of these tubs since all of my rough in work was based on this tub. The second tub was acquired via the help of my dear friend who owns a plumbing company. Apparently if you are a plumber, you buy in volume from wholesalers and if you find a crack they will help the plumber get it resolved because they don't want pissed off customers. Kohler was very rude and insincere when I called to request resolution. I am a professional engineer with a degree in mechanical engineering and studied extensively the mechanics of fractures - I was shocked when the so-called service technician claimed a couple of holes and some glue would fix the crack. Oh please, how many of you paid for the no deductable windshield crack repair to see your windshield still crack several years later? To end my story, I took a hammer to the cracked tub to get a feel for what kind of stress and force would cause such a crack, holy toledo! I don't even hit nails that hard, so if the tub doesn't have a crack they are really quite tough....very much in opposition to the idea that us do-it-yourselfers are out there cracking their tubs so easily. By the way, a classic point of crack origination in any solid will be at a point at which there is highest stess - like geometric discontinuity or places of thinned bulk material thickness; a.k.a "corners" -> this is why most reputable products built to withstand fracture are reinforced at places that finite element stress modeling reveal as probable weak points to allow K1C fractures to originate. Hey Kohler got any engineers studying fracture mechanics on your tubs? Wish me well on the new tub, no cracks so far and I began tiling the tub surrounds tomorrow!

Mario
Boise, Idaho
U.S.A.