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Ok, so its icy and slick here, typically crappy weather for this time of year, so I don’t have the ability of go across town to the race shop I usually go to, so I thought I would stop by the local autoparts chain to get, are you ready for this super complex part. A distributor recurve kit for a Gm distributor…like an 8 dollar common part. Mr Gasket makes it, probably others too. same part fits any chevy from 1957 to 1974. Anyway, not one, but two different stores gave me the deer in the headlights look when asking for this. They were clueless, plain and simple. One of them even tried to google on his phone, still couldn’t find it. I looked up the part number a few minutes ago and its a Mr Gasket 926G. Ok not rocket science here. and so one of these stores (one with 3 guys on the sign) actually pitched me their performance line about a week ago and said we can price match. The have chrome plastic skulls, Hello Kitty seat covers,fart cans for Slowyotas and all sorts of other garbage, but no springs and weights for a Chevy distributor. WTF moment there. I have to ask this question, does that seem like such and obscure part ? Its not like its a crankshaft for a 1933 Rolls Royce or something. Next time I might just ask for a distributor cap for a 1960 Facel Vega if they want obscure. Even that crosses over to something really common, but they wouldn’t know it. Has anybody else had this experience with older parts ?
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[quote=”barneyb” post=131757]Chevyman, reading the description of your truck reminds me of a car my cousin had. He bought at auction a state trooper vehicle back when they drove the big Dodges. He found what Dodge had done for the police package was use an engine that wasn’t available to the public until the following year. Also, the following year had a changed body style. So, first nothing in the books matched the engine and second things like exhaust and motor mounts, anything that connected the engine to everything else was unique to the police package for that year. Listening to him trying to explain this at a parts house was comical.[/quote] Haha ya I bet, as you can imagine I can relate. I mainly order from Summit and Jegs nowdays for this reason. NAPA is my second choice for simple stuff and everywhere else just can’t cut it. The best resource is the guy wrenching on the vehicle. This leads me to what I said in my last post on this thread, KNOW WHAT YOUR SELLING. If the parts guy also wrenches, he is more valuable. If he know the particular vehicle inquired about, that makes him even more valuable and if hes familiar with modification, he is irreplaceable.
Yeah, where I work is very similar. What I despise the most is how nobody will back us managers up against a customer who is SORELY in the wrong. Our superiors completely undermine any authority we have. I strive to adhere to policy and keep the store making money keeping my guys paid while we are forced to let people flat out steal from us.
Working for a new car dealer I had to go in and do a warranty repair on the reverse gearset in a manual 5 speed transmission.
The gearset arrived and I yanked the trans out and tore it down on the bench. The gearset did not even come close to matching.
The parts dept. ordered another set. Same as the first; wrong.My suggestion was get corporate involved as the computer showed the number was right but the part dead wrong.
They ordered another and had it overnighted. Same as the first; wrong.
Continuing the insanity they ordered a 4th set. Again; wrong. Same as the first.This time they got the factory rep involved when I started raising hxxx and he was baffled also. That guy spent about 6 hours burning the phone up before getting it sorted out.
The factory had made a change in the trans reverse gearset right before the end of the production run but forgot to publish it. Dealers, regional offices, computer program, factory service manuals, no one knew a thing about it.
It was a Japanese car with a Japanese manufactured transmission and the revised gearset had to come out of Japan. The 5th time got me the right parts but working on flat rate warranty time and wrestling this cost me big.I drive an old car, a 2003 Lancer Evolution, aka Evo 8. An Evo 8 starts out as a Mitsubishi Lancer but then gets about 4000 extra welds (actually, I don’t know how many but more). The Evo shares front doors, roof and trunk lid with the Lancer. Rear doors, quarter panels, front fenders, hood, engine, drive train, brakes and suspension are different. Okay, so what? Well, the people that produced the parts list database for the car assumed it was just another model of Lancer and all the usual parts fit. Going to any parts house except the dealership is an adventure. I have to know on seeing the part whether it will fit or not.
Still, I don’t see why helpful counter clerks are all that necessary. Sometimes I have to resort to the internet but I get the parts I need.
[quote=”barneyb” post=131826]I drive an old car, a 2003 Lancer Evolution, aka Evo 8. An Evo 8 starts out as a Mitsubishi Lancer but then gets about 4000 extra welds (actually, I don’t know how many but more). The Evo shares front doors, roof and trunk lid with the Lancer. Rear doors, quarter panels, front fenders, hood, engine, drive train, brakes and suspension are different. Okay, so what? Well, the people that produced the parts list database for the car assumed it was just another model of Lancer and all the usual parts fit. Going to any parts house except the dealership is an adventure. I have to know on seeing the part whether it will fit or not.
Still, I don’t see why helpful counter clerks are all that necessary. Sometimes I have to resort to the internet but I get the parts I need.[/quote] Helpful counter clerks are necessary and they make the parts buying process painless. If you hire a high schooler or college student who has never even changed a tire or his own oil to work at an autoparts store, you get what you pay for. There is a night and day difference between those people, and the guys who actually like and work on cars and give a hoot about their job. It goes for any job really, if you like your job and have a passion for what you do, you will be more successful. Having a computer at the parts counter may be helpful, but it doesn’t tell you everything AND I prefer it when the guy says “I know exactly what you need” without even looking it up. I prefer to deal with competent individuals who are self reliant. That’s just me.
The trend to making everything a publicly held chain or big box operation has pretty well taken over everything and in my opinion this sucks. Wal Mart beats down the smaller stores, Lowes ran all of the smaller indie lumberyards out here, the chain fast food junk has wiped out every indie food place here except one, and on and on.
Car dealers are the same. Those small town dealers are forced out and replaced by much larger dealers in small cities and mega-dealers in major metro areas. Some of those dealers (I worked for one of them) still operates under the same name but they’re now part of a publicly held chain of dealers that number about 3-400 dealerships.
The personal touch………. :woohoo:
[quote=”Bluesnut” post=131836]The trend to making everything a publicly held chain or big box operation has pretty well taken over everything and in my opinion this sucks. Wal Mart beats down the smaller stores, Lowes ran all of the smaller indie lumberyards out here, the chain fast food junk has wiped out every indie food place here except one, and on and on.
Car dealers are the same. Those small town dealers are forced out and replaced by much larger dealers in small cities and mega-dealers in major metro areas. Some of those dealers (I worked for one of them) still operates under the same name but they’re now part of a publicly held chain of dealers that number about 3-400 dealerships.
The personal touch………. :woohoo:[/quote] Ya it’s quite sad ain’t it? I find small business in general to be more knowledgeable and personal. For example, lets take a dedicated small hardware store vs home depot. The mom and pop hardware store will typically know their stuff and make the transaction very personal and memorable, ya know make you want to come back. A big chain like HD will just try to get you out the door. They also hire high schoolers and college dropouts who don’t know a locknut from a grade 8 bolt. Big difference.
EDIT: Funny Home Depot story illustrating how important it is that you know what you sell. My tractor needed a battery, so I went down to my local home depot with the dead old battery and asked for a replacement with the same CCA. Ok, so the younger kid goes back to the lawn and garden section and pulls a battery and returns. The CCA is half of what the battery I gave them was. I tell the kid “did you look at the CCA?” he replied “I don’t know what CCA is” I was not surprised, these kids don’t know squat other than what the latest app for their phone is. I told him, I’ll get it myself, thank you.
Now I may sound harsh, but I am upset with what this country is coming to. Complete incompetent kids that couldn’t punch their way out of a paper bag, and have little to no skills. When I go to any brick and mortar store, I always seek out the older folks. They know what they are doing most of the time.
We’ve got one mom and pop hardware store here that has been around for a while and I can honestly say I love that place. The original owner passed away about 5 years ago and his son runs it now. It started out as a bric-a-brac shop and expanded eventually to an old defunct lumber yard. They carry mountains of new and used tools, electronics, plumbing, electrical, guitars and just about anything else you can think of.
The place is dimly lit, the aisles are barely big enough to walk through but if someone needs that obscure stuff they generally have it.
They have plumbing and hydraulic fittings I’ve never seen or heard of, a selection of thousands of Fillister head screws, and countless other oddities.
There’s an old man roughly about 80 with a long beard working there and somehow in all of that stuff he knows where everything is and can answer any question asked of him.The one weird thing I don’t get is that they have hundreds and hundreds of bins full of bolts, screws, pipe fittings, and so on and most are price marked individually by hand with a Sharpie pen. Can you imagine………….
I think most are sold now but they even have or had a dozen or so very slick cars under the lumber roof at back. A pair of beautiful 68 Novas, slick 67 Chevelle SS, 67 442, couple of old MGs, couple of old trucks, several nice old Cadillacs, couple of Vettes, etc.
They were all nice but one of those Novas is the one I wanted; a beautiful maroon with black vinyl top, slightly larger tires on rally wheels, and a stance that just looked perfect. A modded 350, 4 speed, and a Posi; not much to dislike at all. 🙂They seem to do well and I hope they continue to hang on. They beat the prices on the big box stores and often by quite a bit. If Lowes gets 5 bucks for a plumbing fitting this place will get 3.50, etc.
[quote=”Bluesnut” post=131955]We’ve got one mom and pop hardware store here that has been around for a while and I can honestly say I love that place. The original owner passed away about 5 years ago and his son runs it now. It started out as a bric-a-brac shop and expanded eventually to an old defunct lumber yard. They carry mountains of new and used tools, electronics, plumbing, electrical, guitars and just about anything else you can think of.
The place is dimly lit, the aisles are barely big enough to walk through but if someone needs that obscure stuff they generally have it.
They have plumbing and hydraulic fittings I’ve never seen or heard of, a selection of thousands of Fillister head screws, and countless other oddities.
There’s an old man roughly about 80 with a long beard working there and somehow in all of that stuff he knows where everything is and can answer any question asked of him.The one weird thing I don’t get is that they have hundreds and hundreds of bins full of bolts, screws, pipe fittings, and so on and most are price marked individually by hand with a Sharpie pen. Can you imagine………….
I think most are sold now but they even have or had a dozen or so very slick cars under the lumber roof at back. A pair of beautiful 68 Novas, slick 67 Chevelle SS, 67 442, couple of old MGs, couple of old trucks, several nice old Cadillacs, couple of Vettes, etc.
They were all nice but one of those Novas is the one I wanted; a beautiful maroon with black vinyl top, slightly larger tires on rally wheels, and a stance that just looked perfect. A modded 350, 4 speed, and a Posi; not much to dislike at all. 🙂They seem to do well and I hope they continue to hang on. They beat the prices on the big box stores and often by quite a bit. If Lowes gets 5 bucks for a plumbing fitting this place will get 3.50, etc.[/quote] That’s really cool. I tend to go to mom and pop shops whenever I can for those reasons. Where I am, there are still alot of mom and pop shops but not nearly as many as there used to be. To get fishing supplies I actually go to a mom and pop tackle n’ bait shop right up the road rather than a Wal-Mart or chain store. Paint, theres a mom and shop place for that too. If more people seek out mom and pop shops rather than big chains, we can prevent the trend from ever reaching it’s pinnacle.
One other thing that I think hurts is the Interstate highway system. I understand the need (especially for truckers) and people traveling who want to get from A to B the quickest but it puts the hurt on smaller communities by diverting all of that traffic. They lose their stores, gas stations, motels, etc, etc.
When I travel I usually take 2 lanes and backroads at a slower pace as I like to see the off the beaten path sights and always eyeballing old cars. A few years back on a trip to CO from OK I took an obscure back road in NM and spotted an old Dodge Charger (I’m a Mopar nut…) sitting among some junk cars and buildings. On the way back I stopped and managed to find the guy who owned it to see if he would turn loose of it but no; wants to hang on to it.
It’s been parked for 25 years and is straight with a cracked windshield is all. Better, it’s a ’69 RT with white interior, floor console, factory A/C, PS, PB, and has the Tic Tach Clock in it. Talking to him I discovered that he even lived and worked in my area of OK way back then before moving to NM. I was hopeful anyway; just didn’t work out. Small world. 🙂
[quote=”Bluesnut” post=132018]One other thing that I think hurts is the Interstate highway system. I understand the need (especially for truckers) and people traveling who want to get from A to B the quickest but it puts the hurt on smaller communities by diverting all of that traffic. They lose their stores, gas stations, motels, etc, etc.
When I travel I usually take 2 lanes and backroads at a slower pace as I like to see the off the beaten path sights and always eyeballing old cars. A few years back on a trip to CO from OK I took an obscure back road in NM and spotted an old Dodge Charger (I’m a Mopar nut…) sitting among some junk cars and buildings. On the way back I stopped and managed to find the guy who owned it to see if he would turn loose of it but no; wants to hang on to it.
It’s been parked for 25 years and is straight with a cracked windshield is all. Better, it’s a ’69 RT with white interior, floor console, factory A/C, PS, PB, and has the Tic Tach Clock in it. Talking to him I discovered that he even lived and worked in my area of OK way back then before moving to NM. I was hopeful anyway; just didn’t work out. Small world. :-)[/quote] Agreed. My grandparents told me about route 66…you know the great American route that disappeared off the map thanks to the interstate? Well, they told me stories of how it was once booming with shops, diners, motels etc. Because it’s now a “scenic route” alot of what was once there is abandoned. Most of my travel is backroads, I barely ever go on the interstate.
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