You can use a knife in the grout joint and cut it back at a 30 • angle

Used a similar product, which broke off below the grout line. If you bend one back and forth that hasn’t been used yet, where does it break?

I've never used this brand, but the kits I've seen come with nippers that cut off the plastic tabs, so they must be designed to cut them off below flush

Which direction are you hitting them relative to grout line? Perpendicular would break them like this.

I'm hitting them in line with grout line to try to break it off from the weak spot/notch they put on the leveler but it ends up deforming the plastic and ending up breaking flush. If I hit it perpendicular to the grout line then it breaks cleanly off flush with the tile.

There's a notch of slightly thinner plastic near the base that's where it bends and break

Try flexing a few prior to installing to weaken the joint and see if that helps. Also, should be hitting parallel to grout joint with mallet.

to me it kinda looks like you're double-using them as spacers, and if so, the tiles holding them will essentially strengthen them throughout the thickness of the tile. so the weak point of the levelling tabs becomes where there's no more tile; flush with the surface.

Looks like you have filled the grout line with thinset around the tab so it cannot break off properly. You need to be mor careful with your thinset or get one of those grout scrapers with the carbide or diamond grit to grind out the remaining thinset and spacer piece.

Guarantee it's because you let thinset build up around the spacer which prevents it from breaking low enough. Cut this one out manually. Use a Dremel if a knife won't work. In the futur, clean off the spacers with your spatula before they dry and this won't happen .

Utility knife will get it done just have to be careful.

I had same issue with qep level tabs.

What I found worked for removing the spacers was vise grips grab the unbroken off tab then pull parallel to the grout line.

For broken off ones I used a razor knife with only a little bit of blade to not reach my water proofing, to cut the broken ones out. Total pita.

I've never used these, what's the point versus a normal spacer?

I did this same thing my first time tiling, didn’t really realize how bad it was til it was time to snap the tabs off.

Used this and everything was perfect within like 30 minutes. Not a big deal.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Marshalltown-2-in-Steel-Blade-Red-Plastic-Grout-Saw/5001934179

Yeah, thinset around the base of the spacer is absolutely your one and only problem here. I usually will place the tile first, then use a 1 inch putty knife to scrape the excess thinset away from the edge of the tile, then squeeze the spacer in.

Yeah you have to clean the edge of the tile with a small putty knife then put the clip in. And yeah it’s a huge pain in the ass and you will def chip a tile or two trying to get it clean. It’s just so much easier at the start takes 15 secs to wipe it rather that 15 mins carefully scraping

Too much thinset around the clips. Have an old tooth brush and clean water to clean around the clips as you’re installing.

Sorry the OP is having a hard time with these. It is a good lesson for other DIYers to make sure not to let mortar build up around these leveling thingamajigs. I am about to start my first tile project where I will use the plastic levelers, so this was useful to see...

It brings the 2 tiles level with each other so the tile is flush. You won't get uneven tiles.

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I think you may just need to gear them up so they can take on higher xp challenges - might speed along the leveling process.

(Sorry/not sorry for this useless joke comment).

You mean flush? Like the vertical plane because it's like a t shape or something? Instead of having to eye ball it?

I do alot of tile work. I started running my finger around the grout line before I insall the next tile. It wipes away the morter or mastic. Makes clean up a breeze. Also clean your grout lines as you go much easier to clean before it's set. A sponge and bucket of water is a very good thing to have on hand when doing tile work

Yes, they are like an upsidedown T that then has something that either screws to it or goes through it clamping down on both faces of the 2 tiles.

So i would use a carbide grout removal tool. I found it works better with the plastic than the diamond grout saw.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Marshalltown-Carbide-Bit-Red-Plastic-Grout-Remover/5001934083

In our experience they made a huge difference in the proper leveling of the tiles. We tiled the whole ground floor of the house, and the part where we only used regular spacers isn’t as even as where we used the tile leveling system (fortunately it’s just a small part, we wised up pretty quickly) the system we used is made by Peygran; we were able to reuse much of the system and just needed to repurchase the plastic clips. It’s not cheap, but the result was worth it.

They do act as spacers in addition to levelers. You can get the plastic clips for 1/8 or 1/16.

Yeah, I seem to have overthought it. Those other comments about thinset seem much more logical than my thought process.

As others said, looks like you have adhesive around the spacer, which prevents it breaking where it should.