The DIYer and Auto parts stores

[Jeff Telford]

Hello all,

I am an average DIYer, mostly because I enjoy fixing vehicles and I’m cheap…. So now to my point, my perfered auto parts store is Oreilly’s and for hard to find stuff Rock Auto or Amazon between the three I work off of warranty, likely failure rate / life span of the part then cost and purchase my parts accordingly. What is your perfered auto parts store or supplier?

Topic

[Mike]

I started out as a German car DIY guy, and have been a http://www.germanautoparts.com customer since the business was running out of the owner’s home back in 2000. It’s a rock solid European parts supplier who I’ve done spent between $5k and $10k with, and I’ve had the least amount of problems per transaction with them over the last 14 years.

Everything else can usually be handled by the Advance/NAPA/Oreilly markets, which I pretty much group into the same category. Many internet parts are the same brands that they sell. For instance, tons of internet exhaust parts are Walker, but that’s what NAPA sells. I’ve been putting parts on cars from these places professionally for almost 10 years now, and I try to avoid them for my personal and family/friend vehicles I take care of. I tend to go with the dealer for anything that they aren’t charging a fortune for, TireRack for brakes/suspension parts, Amazon, and walk-in parts stores for certain things like batteries, oil pans, axles, and things that have cores or are insanely cheap and easy to replace again. Even then, I use those stores largely because of my professional access to them and discounts. I get virtually nothing from a walk-in parts store for a European car, a Mobil1 oil filter or oil is about it. They just don’t have that market handled.

A perfect example of why I avoid them is that if your car came with stabilizer links and tie rod ends that had sealed joints/boots , you will get a copy of that part with a grease fitting and a loose skirt kind of boot that leaks it all out over everything before it fails sooner than the original part.

[David]

Having worked for Advance for 4 years I tend to head there first as 99% of the time the prices are the same. But more importantly, who do I trust?

For a DIY’er you need one thing out of your parts store. Someone behind that counter who knows a thing or two about cars. I will go 30 minutes away to a store 20 miles away than deal with the one not 5 minutes away. And it all has to do with trust. Many of the guys at the store further away know I worked in their system so it can make finding my part easier and the correct part the first time. The other? not even willing to pull up the routing diagram for my acc belt.

If I need a hard to find part, such as an oil dipstick and I have a Dorman Part number, I’ll call up the store further away, cause at least if the guy picking up the phone has no clue what it is he’s looking for, he’ll give the phone to someone who does.

[Author]

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