We installed our bathroom sink faucets quite a few years ago. Several years ago. After a few years the handle on one of the two Moen faucets broke. I eventually remembered that they have a lifetime warranty on their hardware. I figured out how to connect with them and their customer service was awesome. They were able to identify the part that broke and send me a new one.
Fast forward several more years, and the handle broke yet again. It took me a couple of days to remember once again that they have their warranty. I called the Moen customer support, and the agent once again was very helpful. This time they sent me the part that broke along with a new valve and a couple of other parts that I messed up trying to pull the broken part out of the old handle.
When everything arrived I figured I could switch out the parts pretty easily. That was a mistake. I followed the not so amazying instructions correctly I think. When I got to the point where I could finally remove the valve cartidge, it was not coopaerating. I managed to get it to rotate as directed and then I could only extract it about a half an inch or maybe less. I pulled with pliers and vice grips, and tried to use a screw driver to get a little leverage. Nothing was working. I watched a couple of you tube videos, but the one guy was using special tools, and the other guy just started tearing the cartridge apart. He was working on a shower, so the opening was horizontal and he could clean up all the bits he was creating. The sink I was working on was more vertical, so I was worried there would be small parts I wouldn’t be able to remove if I followed that approach.
I kept thinking about how I could approach things differently, and finally tried to make my own version of one of the tools from the video. I used a socket and washer to wedge against the system, while I screwed the original screw back into the stem. With that setup I was able to use the screwdriver to get leverage between the socket and faucet, and finally get the part out.
Just as I suspected the rubber gaskets were both pulled off. I don’t know if there was anything I could have done differently to avoid that happening. It may have been unavoidable due to the age and wear. anyway one of the pieces was stuck and I had to work on getting that cleared for a few minutes before I could put everything back together. Amazingly the faucet is now working again, and I’m more convinced that I’ll be buying more Moen products in the future.
