I just wanted to inform you of a recent situation that I experienced with Peerless (subsidiary of Delta) faucet company. My wife and I purchased our first house back in December of 2006. Since then we have replaced the bathroom sink faucet, and the kitchen faucet with Peerless faucets purchased at either Home Depot or Lowe’s. We didn’t want to buy the cheapest faucets out there, so we went with faucets that were more expensive. We installed a Brita filtration system onto our kitchen faucet because our city recently had a water main break and lost 1,000,000 gallons of water which of course stirred up the contents of all of the water in the water pipes and caused our water to turn a nice rust color. When we took off the aerator to install the Brita filtration system, I told myself that I should hold onto the aerator for when we get rid of the filtration system. Well when the time came to get rid of the filtration system, it seems that I kept the aerator for the old faucet and not for the Peerless one (STUPID)!
So, I figured they must still sell parts for this so I looked online and found the manual for the faucet and the part number for the aerator (RP41673SS). I e-mailed their customer service department telling them that I lost the aerator and asking them if they sold replacement parts for my faucet. Below you will find the response that I received.
First response from Peerless:
“Dear Mr. Vigneau, Thanks for writing!
Unfortunately, the RP41673SS is obsolete and no longer available.
Please write back if you have any questions or need further assistance. Best Regards,
PhilPeerless Customer Service”
Oh…you can be sure that I had a response for them:
“Thank you for the quick response, but I fail to see how they are obsolete, when I recently visited my local Lowe’s (where I had purchased my faucet) and they were actively in stock there.
What would be the replacement part for the faucet model that I stated in the original e-mail.
I am looking for the replacement aerator for this faucet and it doesn’t have to be the exact one, just needs to be stainless steel.”
Second response from Peerless:
“Dear Mr. Vigneau, Thanks for writing back.
The aerators as separate parts from the faucet, are obsolete. They are not available and unfortunately, there are no suggested replacement aerators.
Please write back if you have any questions or need further assistance. Best Regards,
Phil”
My final words/e-mail:
“That is too bad. I was trying to keep the streamlined look of my Peerless faucet, but alas, I am unable to do so.
I was happy with Peerless prior to this, but this doesn’t make any sense to me.
What I don’t understand is that since you still make and sell the faucets and every faucet comes with an aerator, how can you not have any aerators or say they are obsolete??? What happens if someone breaks their aerator on their faucet?
Maybe I am not talking about the correct part. When I say aerator, I am talking about the screw on piece that attaches to the end of the faucet where the water comes out. It has a screen in it to filter and also limits the flow.
Thank you for your time, and Peerless will no longer be a top choice nor will I recommend it to anybody else.
Mike Vigneau”
So instead of purchasing the same color/finish as my current faucet (brushed Stainless Steel), I went to Home Depot and picked up a replacement aerator that was close to the same finish for $7. They could have kept a future customer if only their customer service was better or if they pointed me in the right direction. I will no longer be purchasing Peerless faucets in the future. I pulled off the aerator on my bathroom faucet and installed it onto my kitchen faucet since it was the same finish. I installed the “new” aerator from Home Depot onto the bathroom faucet. So, even though they may not have the exact aerator, a bathroom aerator or any other aerator with the same finish/look would fit the kitchen faucet. And that is how a $7 piece lost a customer.
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