Old Mira Excel shower - replace cartridge only or the whole thing?

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Hi all, we have an old Mira Excel shower mixer tap in our loft bathroom, believed to have been fitted in the early 2000s. It has recently given up, valve very stiff and difficult to turn, and then finally broke down (can turn but no water coming out). We ordered a replacement (Mira Element) and installation service (£400) from Mira website, but the engineer turned up this afternoon with no new shower mixer with him due to a logistics hiccup (he thought it was delivered to us directly but it wasn't).

The engineer did take a look at our old shower, and suggested that: 1) changing the cartridge (£190) would fix it; and 2) due to some weird white plastic ring thing that was put in place on the mixer tap (see photo below), if we insist on installing a new tap, it would risk destroying the tiling and not being able to put the shower tap back up; and 3) a new Mira Excel would be much better (and of coz much more expensive) than Mira Element. Wonder if it makes sense at all? I still do want a new shower as you can see the old one is... very old, but want to minimise the disruption to the old tiling as much as possible (hence went for a Mira like-for-like replacement in the first place). Thank you!

mira.jpg
 
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Presumably you can get your money back from Mira?

Buy the dearer shower yourself and get a plumber to install, should be straight forward if it's a like for like unit.
You won't need to destroy the tiles then either.(y)
 
The white plastic panel is a spacer, some exposed showers like that had a plastic/metal bracket that the body plate screwed onto to provide extra support. If that's removed carefully then the mosaic should stay where it is, worst case though would be if the mosaic did move then a square Chrome - S/S - coloured plastic plate could be fitted to cover any damage

I'd go with a new shower as the internals on that will be well worn.
 
Thanks both! I originally went for Mira's own installation service thinking that their own engineer would do a better job, but now doubt it. I'll order a new Mira Excel from Screwfix (much cheaper!) myself and get a plumber to install it then.
 
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Just called Mira to cancel my order, and asked them about the new Mira Excel as it is not even offered for like-for-like replacement installation on their website. The lady explained that it's because the new one's pipes are sticking out 18mm from the wall but my old one's pipes are only supposed to be sticking out 13mm.... Will get a plumber to come and have a look if it's do-able...
 

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