THE AUTO PARTS STORE

[dkn1997]

I know we all know that auto parts stores these days totally suck, but what I experienced yesterday proves to me that it has sunk to new lows.

We all know where the "good" stores in the area are, and they are few and far between and more often than not, lack a big national chain name on them.  A need arose yesterday for what I consider to be a pretty standard part, so I figured to save some time and sitting in saturday afternoon traffic, I would go the national chain store boobs.

It starts with me roatating the tires on my daily driver, a 99 grand prix GTP.  Well, it turns out that the budget tire place that installed  the tires in the first place might have been trying to my tires like a nascar pit stop and cross threaded 3 of the lug nuts.  I knew I was in trouble when I removed the first lug nut cover (plastic decorative nut that threads over the lug nut itself) and the entire cover/lug nut came off in my hand.  So, I figure no big deal, I will go out and buy 5 lug nuts and 5 wheel studs, right?  I try to be proactive and make some calls first.  AutoZone is closest so I call there, store #1 says "the people that used to work here lost the lug nuts and wheel studs"
store #2 (another autozone) says, theres two sizes for your car, which one do you have?  So I pull studs out and bring one there.  the same guy I talked to said, no we don't have those.  so I say, you toldme on the phone that there are two different kinds and you don't bother to tell me that you don't stock either one?  then he says, "this place sucks, the prices are too high, and you should try advance auto parts"  he even gives me directions!! 

From a customer svc standpoint, he did me a favor, but if this guy worked for my company, I would not just fire him, I would take him in the back and stuff his face into the brake lathe (that is if they even turn rotors there, which I doubt)

Since Advance was on the way to one of the "good" stores, which I was trying to avoid the longer trip in the first place, I gave them a shot.  They were very polite and had what I needed.  I decided to do rotors and pads too and the kid was pretty knowledgeable and took a cheapie chinese wearever and an expensive bendix rotors out for me and put a set of calipers on them.  showed me that the wearevers probably could not even be cut one time, where as the bendix were much thicker.

Some things I learned:

1. stop being a lazy F and just drive 35 minutes to the good place the first time
2. NEVER SET FOOT INTO AN AUTOZONE EVER AGAIN, EVEN IF IT'S JUST FOR A PINE TREE AIR FRESHENER
3. For a big chain store, Advance is pretty decent.  (Pep Boys seems to have a lot of stuff too-they had an idler pulley for this same car that I needed on christmas eve a few years back)  I did try them first in this case, but they were out of stock on the studs-another pep boys had them, but it was far away.
4. Never assume you have seen the worst attitude on a yonger person, someone else always steps up and puts them to shame.

p.s. anyone from Long Island know of a decent autoparts store North of the LIE and east of centereach?

I know of some good ones, but not close;


Parts world in Bohemia
Mars in Bayshore
US 1 in patchogue
Roadside in Medford.

[Charger_Fan]

Wow, that's pretty pathetic for sure. It's reasons like that why I always tell people to go to a "real" parts store, like Napa & the like. The only thing stores like Auto zone are good for is their oil sales. Other than that, I never set foot in one of those stores.
I've been out of the auto parts biz for over 12 years now, but I feel that after all this time, when I know more about the counterman's job than the counterman does, I'm definitely in the wrong spot.

[dkn1997]

By their horrendous attitude, they have guaranteed that I won't even go in there for wax anymore.  When had my 1st charger in high school in '86, I remember that the guys at the parts store would actually tell you how to fix the car and sell you the parts