Porcelain wood look tiles are a popular choice for flooring and use in bathrooms. They come in common sizes such as 6x24,6x36, 6x48, and in this case 6"x40". The can be rectified or pressed edge. A rectified tile is cut on a saw at the factory to produce a straighter edge. A pressed edge tile has a rounded edge, and comes out of the kiln process and into the packaging. The problem with pressed edge tiles is that they can be crooked, bent, bowed, or cupped since the kiln process shrinks and warps the clay as it is fired.
Italian factory porcelain is usually regarded as the highest quality when compared to other countries of origin such as Spain, Turkey, Brazil, China, and USA. But in this instance, the tiles from this order were some of the worse I've seen. When placed back to back there was a 1/8" gap on the ends of the tile while they were touching in the middle. About 25% of the tiles in this order of 1300 square feet were bad, so we had to sort through them all and use the bad ones as cuts and other obscure areas like the closets. This created more work for my installers and lowered our profits.