Normally I make the local auto parts store I’ve been using for years the first stop. Yesterday I tried to buy a distributor cap & rotor and lately always seem to get THAT guy at the desk every time I go in. There is no request too simple to overcomplicate or overthink. After a half hour of watching him type I politely excused myself.

I hate the chain stores with a passion and only go there to dump waste oil. Expensive and more often than not staffed by some disinterested kid.

Imagine my surprise when I started looking around online and found decent prices and immediate local pickup at an Autozone. I bought it on eBay and paid with PayPal. A half hour later got a message that told me the price was actually lower in the store and I had been issued a credit. They sent me a text in an hour and I took the ‘vette over and picked it up. $15 total with tax and it was even the right parts! I was surprised they had the cap & rotor in stock.

I can’t say I’ll be frequenting Autozone now but seeing their eBay storefront and doing a local pickup was great and I'll definitely keep it in mind! Far less painful than another trip back to THAT guy or having to endure the nose-picker behind the counter that has no idea what a distributor is. Just wanted to pass this along and maybe it'll help someone else too.

I’ll still go to my local store – have to figure out when THAT guy get his days off – but this was a nice little surprise this morning.

 

sounds like a good experience to me. why not go back? i use them, advance auto and rock auto as my due diligence for purchases. name brand stuff is name brand stuff.

 

Good for you brother!
I have suffered the endless minutes at a parts counter as well. Usually with some heavily accented and slightly stunned cheerleader of indeterminate lineage who should be slinging fries at McDonalds. It usually goes like this:
ME: "Hi, I need a set of small block Chev valve cover gaskets"

BIMBO: (Frozen look of panic) "A small what? Oh here they are, ......brake pads"

 

Glad to hear that your purchase went smoothly but a cap and rotor are about as basic as it gets. Try to get something not so common at those stores and it most likely won't go as well. There's usually a bunch of kids working behind the counter, laughing and telling jokes and they wouldn't know anything about parts except what the computer tells them to get off of the shelf. I'm not surprised though, these big corporations pay them minimum wage and minimum wage brings unskilled entry level employees.

 

I need a distributor cap for a 350 Chevy.

OK, what year?
1970
Does it have a/c? p/s? p/b?
No
Sorry. don't have a listing for that.
OK, how about with p/b?
No
How about with p/s?
No
How about with a/c?
YES!!

 

That pretty much sums it up.

 

many years ago I worked at a NAPA store in the days when we had paper parts catalogs. I bring the part # with me when I go to any parts store these days, I don't have the patience to suffer thru the ps?, ac? v6 or v8 questions.

 

I have been using Advanced Auto for my 72 vette and 67 gto and sometimes I am amazed at the parts they have in stock.

 

NAPA, Autozone, O'Reilly's, Rock auto all have on line parts cataloging. I typically will look up the part at Rock Auto (good picture of part), where they usually list a few brands with part numbers.
I will then type in the part number on E-Bay to check price and availability.
Rock Auto is a good source, but be aware of shipping costs as they pull different parts from different warehouses and charge shipping accordingly.

 

yes you have to watch that for sure....but having said that I find its still less expensive then the local auto store....

I just replaced the o2 sensors in my DD and I bought all the o2 sockets they had...long short pretty ugly etc,it was 3 or 4 of them and even with shipping it cost way less than half of the local store.

 

I shop at Autozone quite often, especially when I need the part that day. However, I ALWAYS go to their website first, find what I need, find availability at my local store, and go down there with their part number in hand. The good part is that you can find what fits what ahead of time. Also lots of their parts have lifetime warranties. I'm on my 2nd free water pump, and when my calipers eventually go, they'll replace them for free as well. Get to know the mgr., When I installed a Cougar radiatior in my '68 Chevy Sportvan, he let me go in the back an look through all his hoses until I found ones with the right bends and diameters.

 

I like having stuff same day at autozone. In southern california they have a surprisingly good amount of stuff for older Gm.

I live near a 24hr autozone Hub, so if I need something my place doesnt have its usually there.

For brakes they make new maufactured chinese cast ones. I told them I was looking for delco original castings, but new rebuilt and we looked through boxes of them and they were really helpful to find good ones.

When I order stuff on rockauto, its a crapshoot, it could be new cheap castings or old messed up rusty crap thats sandblasted and rebuilt.

 

This exactly. I do the part lookup and either order it online for local pickup or just bring the part number down.

It is certainly less expensive but I also try to split my business with the local autoparts store as I want them to stay in business for when I need parts 'now'.

 

I never buy anything on-line that could impact my safety or the integrity of the vehicle. IMPORTANT parts get purchased locally...and never from "The Zone" (I'm not a big fan of 'Dura-Junk').

If I purchase something on-line, I am assuming that if it is junk, it will just be an immediate loss of funds. I like the convenience of doing on-line buying; but it's difficult to resolve quality concerns over the internet.

 

Autozone and Advance Auto websites can be a bit invasive and spam to you death after a single purchase. They didn't invent that but are very good at it. I liked this transaction because it was a stripped down eBay storefront that made it extremely simple. It pointed me to an Autozone for pickup that I never paid much attention to and honestly, once inside it looked more like the plain old auto parts store it should be rather than a modern work of art. They just built a brand new store much closer to my home and it's so weird and bright and funky looking that I think it must be what Purgatory would look like for guys like us.

I always have a hard time with Rock Auto's website - I've tried multiple browsers and still find it klunky.

As for doorknobs staffing parts counters - nothing new there no matter what year or what store. This was a good way to easily do my own picking and choosing and edit that person AND the shipping costs right out of the equation.

 

I am DONE with Rock Auto. I recently needed a clutch kit for my 70 LS5. I went to Rock Auto's sight and put in my vehicle information. Their website directed me to a clutch kit with a 26 spline. I now know that is incorrect, but it cost me $20 to ship it to me and $10 dollars to ship it back. They did end up paying the return shipping charge, but I'm still out $20.

I tried to call them to get them to pay the shipping, but you cannot call and talk to a person at Rock Auto. In fact, you cannot even find an email address to make a recommendation they change their website to direct the next person to the right part.

Essentially they have zero customer service. And I will never buy from them again.

 

Let me hit this from both sides:
The kid behind the counter is taught to use a computer. He has no other way to look up parts. He HAS to go thru that stupid list of 'what size motor, with or without A/C' before the computer will even take him to parts lists. He cant just walk back into the parts area and know off the top of his head what part number is a starter for a SBC.

Now, on the OTHER hand.....I'm willing to bet that less than 5% of current parts store employees have turned a wrench on their cars (well, other than their K&N air filter and fart can muffler tip) None of them seem smart enough to cross reference parts or look up non stock options.

Unless I'm in a dire emergency, I avoid the big stores and order solely online.

 

I am having really good luck will the local O'Reillys here. Had one young employee telling me about the 5.3 LS motor he is going to turbo (showed me the turbo) for his S-10 drag truck.

Once you explain that it is '75 Corvette with 496 big block, Edelbrock heads, FAST XFI, etc etc, they work with you.

 

If you go to a parts store and the person behind the counter does not work on vintage cars then forget it. The whole process is not setup anymore to support a hobbiest. I have been looking up my own parts online now for over ten years. You have to know what you want too...so you can reinforce where the online filters take you.
It is just the way it is now.
I hear older guys bitch all of the time about just needing a cap and rotor for this and that....and the parts jockey asking what year it is.....then the old guy gets pissed. I am sorry to say....but if you bitch about the guy behind the counter, you are as out of touch as the guy/gal trying to help you.

Jebby

 

My local O'Reilly's is awesome and I have zero of the issues mentioned above. The worst thing I have happen is they tell me the part is not stocked at the local store but they will have one for me in two hours.