Yesterday, I had a three hour battle to fix a leaky shower that should have only taken like 20 minutes.

A leaky bathroom shower is not a huge problem. Single handle shower system, so solution to fix it is to replace the cartridge inside of the shower handle.

First problem was, apparently the leak had been happening a while, and the set screw to get the handle off was frozen like no other screw I had ever seen. Allen wrench won't turn it. Broke off one allen wrench when using pliers to give it more force.
No problem. Home Depot. Penetrating oil and T-handle hex key. Strip out the set screw.
No problem. More penetrating oil. Screw extractor. It gets a bite very easy. 20V cordless drill is powerless. 7 amp corded drill, and the bit turns in the chuck. Tighten chuck as tight as tight goes, bit turns in the chuck, binds the chuck, now corded drill needs repair.
No problem, drill the sucker out. Hex key is suprisingly soft metal. After progressing through about 8 sizes of drill bits, get the set screw drilled out, time to pull out the cartridge.

Cartridge is stuck like you would not believe. Pull on the stem of the cartridge with pliers. Won't budge. Brace the rough in valve in place with my foot and jerk and jerk like no other. Cartridge stem comes clean out. Holy crap, what to do now? I really don't want to rough in another shower faucet.

Needle nose pliers grabbing plastic parts of cartridge. They just shread off one piece at a time. Pull off 100% of the grippable area on the cartridge. Ug!

No problem. Home depot. Assortment of large screws and bolts to go into the cartridge stem hole. Get a good grip with a massive screw. Jerk and jerk and jerk. Rough in valve is moving in the wall way to much. Thinking about cutting an access hole (which, for some reason, didn't exist) to rough in new faucet. Decide another route.

Grab a wrecking bar and a piece of 3/4 PVC. Cut a piece of PVC just long enough that I can brace the pvc pipe against the rough in valve on one side, and use the wrecking bar as a lever to pull on drilled in screw using the other side of the PVC pipe as leverage. Pull the head off of the screw with the wrecking bar.

No problem. Get the screw out with vice grips. Use a bigger screw. Same PVC / wrecking bar solution. Finally some movement. Pull it out about 1/2 an inch, cut a new, longer piece of PVC. Repeat process four times. Finally get it out.

New cartridge goes in easy, get the valve dried in. It's 10pm at this point, so give up and install a new trim set today.

To be fair, the set screw issue could have happened with any system. But the amount of force required to pull that cartridge out was extraordinary, and simply unacceptable. I have had much less trouble with other shower systems. The American Standard single handle system I used was pretty straightforward to replace the valves.

If you want an example of what this struggle looks like, here is a video of someone that went through a similar experience.



And the sequal:



So, if you are installing a new shower, I would avoid Moen single handle shower systems.

I had the same problem on two showers in my home. Moen has a problem they refuse to fix. I did not have as much trouble as you did , but it took me half a day each shower. I hope someone has a better solution.

Thanks for sharing.

1) I don't want to buy a $15 part for something I will use twice a decade

2) Pretty sure the tool would just have pulled out the pin on me, putting me back in the same place I started.

I had this issue too. Absokutely miserable.

Had the same problem with my two showers. The handle in my son's got really hard to turn, and I was afraid he was going to break it.

Watched a few videos online and convinced myself I could change out the cartridge myself.

Could not get the d@mn thing out. Of course, by this point, I've got the whole faucet removed and the water turned off, so there was no going back. Thankfully, a neighbor came to help me, and I swear, you could see the wall moving from how hard he was pulling. He was afraid he was going to damage the shower.

Neighbor had the special "tool" they sell. It didn't make a bit of difference. Tried vice grips and something else as a lever (can't remember what). Still wouldn't budge.

I don't remember how, but we finally got it out. WD40 maybe? Seems like it was the o-ring that was making it so hard to get out.

Preemptively changed out the one in my shower a few months later. Got my dad to help me that time. That cartridge came out easier than the other, but then my dad dropped one of the tiny little pins that clips the cartridge in down into the wall. So, back to the store (we have a running joke in our family about how many trips to Lowe's does it take to get a DIY project done).

At this point, nearly all of the Moen faucets in my house have been replaced - kitchen, both showers, and two bathroom sinks.

Sad thing is, the builder of my last house says Moen is the "best" brand out of al the ones at that price point. So, I guess that means they are all garbage.

I've spent extra to get Delta for the last 6-8 bath valves I've done. They seemed well made.

TMoney2007 said:

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I've spent extra to get Delta for the last 6-8 bath valves I've done. They seemed well made.

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Agree with Delta - much easier install with little hassle. Always seems to have replacement parts available as well.

Last time I did mine, the only thing that worked was wiggling, rocking, and pulling very hard for a long, long time. Patiently. Pulling it straight out without wiggling got me nowhere.

In addition to the o-ring, my valve had flexible black rubber on its sides that came loose and made it nearly impossible to pull it out. Seems like that was what was making it hard to turn in the first place.

I just changed mine out and don't remember having this problem. Though when I finished the job, the handle was so much easier to turn than before.

From that and this thread, it makes me think preventative maintenance is to remove the cartridge every now and then and lube up the o-ring.

Our first home I had to replace a cartridge in our ?delta? faucets for one of the baths. First issue was the moron tile guy tiled over access to the assembly. I had to painstakingly chip away bits of tile, avoiding smashing the hole tile, to expose the cartridge.

It wouldn't budge. Sitting in tub, both feet pushing while holding the cartridge w/pliers. Eventually it popped out and I'm lucky I didn't shoot through the back wall of the shower.

the problem was the rubber rings on the outside of the cartridge were coming out of the groove as I pulled, bending back between the cartridge and the tube it sits in. edit - re-reading, basically what jel_2002 said.

The next delta faucet didn't have this issue and I was able to replace it in less than 2 minutes.

I had the exact same problem, except mine happened during the freeze, after I had turned the water back on to the house. The single handle was impossible to turn, and finally snapped and just spun, so had to replace the cartridge. Not sure if it was coincidental that is happened right after I turned the water back on to the house.

Off to Lowes to fight with the millions of other people in the plumbing section, but they did have my cartridge. Guess I was the only one needing that part during that time.

Once I fought and fought with the old cartridge, and replaced it, the handle now turns by barely touching it. Thought it was kinda odd how easy it turns, but hey, it works.

Yep, that's exactly how the faucet in my son's shower was. It was always stiff to turn, but finally it just became almost impossible. Switched out the cartridge, and now that thing almost spins freely. I thought it was weird. Almost seems like it's too loose.

The difference in my shower faucet is not nearly as dramatic. It never froze up, but the replacement is not as loose as the other one.

As a side note, if you are the original owner of the home, Moen will send you a free replacement cartridge. You have to wait for shipping, which isn't convenient if yours is in imminent need of replacement. But, I have since ordered "back-up" cartridges from them that they provided for free. I'm just keeping them in my cabinets in case I ever need to do this again.

All I ever had to do was tell them I am the original owner of the house and the builder installed them. They've never asked for proof.

They've also replaced my kitchen faucet (the part that failed was not replaceable, so they sent me an entire new faucet), two bathroom sink faucets, and a new handle for my shower. All of the sink and shower faucets have had issues with the finish either chipping off or discoloring, and one of my sink faucets, the aerator just fell out one day. I think hard water deposits chewed it up.

As a side note, when they sent me replacement sink faucets, even though I requested my exact model, they have slightly redesigned them. The base on the new faucets is just slightly smaller than the older ones (I guess this saves materials/costs during manufacture). So, you can see the "ring" of where the base of the old faucet sat on the granite. I was able to mostly clean it up, but I can still see it, and it irks me.

Had moen at my old house. Bought the tool and ended up having to use it 3-4 times. Seems those cartridges only last a few years. Glad I don't have them in my new house.

25 year old American standard dual handle shower replacement was just as bad.

I have Moen fixtures throughout and haven't had any issues this far, but don't want to spend an entire weekend changing cartridges when the time comes. So it seems like I should just plan to replace these proactively every 5 years or so.

One question for those that have had troubles. I think it's pretty common knowledge that the quality of blue/orange versions of fixtures is less than the same from supply houses. Are those of you that are having issues dealing with those cheaper fixtures? Or is the problem universal across all grades?