My last trip to NAPA

[shadango]

My grand-dad always said..."David, always get your auto parts at NAPA.....they have the best stuff."

Feeling that my grand-dad knows a little bit (rest his soul) I have tried to get stuff at NAPA when it made sense.

Today was probably the last time I will step foot in a NAP store on purpose unless it is to deal with a warranty on parts I have already bought or if its a no choice kind of thing.

Have had some foibles now and then at the local NAPA....bought two identical part number front rotors for my truck and they looked very different ......mechanically the same, but one was better quality than the other....no big deal I guess....

Recently I had my Ujoints replaced by them...again, two identical part numbers and two different ujoints as far as looks and grease fittings.........well, no biggie.

Today I went down to the NAPA store to get 4 new exhaust manifold studs and nuts.

First, the guy "helping" me seemed to be unable to read.....I ended up finding the parts I needed with him standing there.....at one point, we talked to another guy who insisted that there was no way,shape or form that my studs sealed back coolant in the head.....he guaranteed me I was mistaken......even after I told him that mopars do, at least mine does.....ok........then, I find out that they charged me $6.90 for a small "handi-pack" of 5/16" split lock washers......the shelf tag says " .69 each".....the computer says .69 eeach...but this guy said the "each" referred to the INDIVIDUAL lockwasher in the SEALED bag and not the whole bag.

Well, I needed them so I bought them...knowing full well that a bag of similar washers at Home Depot is like $1.00  ....But I am thinking maybe I am mistaken so I bit the bullet and paid $.69 for each lockwasher...plain old zinc steel lock-washer.

The guy made a point to tell me how he gave me the garage price...the list price is $1.10 each......

Does that sound right at all?  $10.00 for a bag of 10 lock washers??

..................not to me.

So, thats my last trip into the NAPA zone.

 

I am gonna let it go I guess and eat the $6 I figure I was screwed out of.....but man, talk about 

[quagmire]

That stinks.  Napa always is higher than anywhere else, and unfortunately, the vast majority of those parts are identical to ones available anywhere else.  The remanufactured parts are really the only parts that do have a wide range of quality amongst aftermarket parts stores.  I used to work at a Napa store when I was in college.  90% of the parts are relabeled other brand parts.  I can only assume that the Napa quality myth was true many years ago.

[moparmaniac59]

Sounds like a confused clerk. Some of those type stores have such a turn-around rate that they don't have time to train folks. So you end up with a bewildered high school teenager that only knows what the computer tells them and that is if they can use the darn computer. Then they don't know a rotor from a light bulb!! I went into Lowes with my brother-in-law to buy some lumber. We had some 1 x 4's of Arkansas pine. Not cheap stuff. I can't remember the price, but it is priced by the foot. I told the lady what we had, she punched in the skew number and told me the price. I kept telling her she needed to punch in the total length as the price she was quoting me was for only 1 foot. She got mad at me and I was trying to tell her we had 30 feet, not 1!! So I said OK lady, paid for 1 foot and left!!

                                                  Matt B.

[cudadave72]

NAPA is not the only parts store filled with idiots. I deal with them everyday!!

[Moparal]

go to a different store, find the same part, buy it, then show the reciept to napa manager. Just about every single store in competition will match the other stores price with no questions asked.

And gramps was kinda right when he was around. But us older guys are gettin closer to the end of the list. Now we have rice burnin fancy phone, big radio experts    But I did hear napa was changin on supply vendors

[shadango]

I may do that......thing is, the next nearest NAPA is 20 minute away.....spend $5 in gas to save $6....LOL

But just out of principle I may do it......ticks me off when I feel I have been pushed over a table and forced to sing moon river!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   

[Bullitt-]

I've been trying to get a pulley ordered for a week.... They keep saying the numbers are discontinued while there are at least 6-part numbers on their websight.   
   Sooooo where are there NOT idiots behind the counter?.

[ViperMan]

You're a better man than me...  I'd have tossed the bag on the counter and told him where he could "restock" 'em.

I like NAPA for the wiring stuff - they have lots of colors and sizes that most parts stores don't stock.

Jeff

[Super Blue 72]

I don't know what the different parts stores are stocking now a days but the stores are only as good as the guys at the parts counter.  Sometimes you get some guys that really know their stuff.

Sometimes you get guys that all their automotive knowledge is from the Fast and The Furious movies..."I got NAWS, dude"....   

[Chryco Psycho]

That is how they pay for the 8K tool sets they give away on pinks & the Nascar sponsorship
 I had to get a seal the other night & they charged me $27 for the exact same seal , same make & # is the one that got screwed up that I had paid 15.90 for 2 hrs before from my regular parts store . the only reason I got there is last option

[the_engineers]

For the most part, all of the parts stores are getting the same stuff from the same vendors...Cardone, Raybestos, Car-pak, etc.

You'll be better off to find a counter jockey who knows his stuff and work with him consistently.  They do make a small commission on your purchases (Advance Auto does, at least).  I found a guy when I started on my car.  Advance Auto matches pricing from Summit, so I started buying EVERYTHING from them, through my guy.  I spent close to $3000 with them/him when all was said and done.

Needless to say, if I called, he paid very careful attention to what I needed and often went beyond to source the "disco'd" parts that most others would have given up on after a 30 second search.

Find 1 guy.

[heminut]

A big percentage of people who sell parts now are pathetic! I worked at the local Car Quest for 2 years while my wife was in nursing school, and was amazed at the inability to find parts of some of the people I worked with! Nowadays if they can't punch all the info into the computer so it can spit a part number out for them they are lost. When I went into Car Quest and started pulling books to look up parts the owner hired me on the spot, saying that he hadn't had anyone other than himself working at the store for some time that could actually use the parts books. A lot of the kids working in parts stores nowadays are to lazy to even try to look up a part in a book!

[moparniac]

You're a better man than me...  I'd have tossed the bag on the counter and told him where he could "restock" 'em.

X2 

[hebeegbz]

shandango if i got this right i wasted 10 mins on mindless crap over  six  bucks , i cant get that time back at least you have the washers . but i have to ask why were you wasting the sales guys time with the water jacket arguement ,i wonder if some ware theres a guy on a forum telling his friends about some sales man and a customer rambling on about mopar heads ,and how his head was about to explode waiting for assistance .

[shadango]

shandango if i got this right i wasted 10 mins on mindless crap over  six  bucks , i cant get that time back at least you have the washers . but i have to ask why were you wasting the sales guys time with the water jacket arguement ,i wonder if some ware theres a guy on a forum telling his friends about some sales man and a customer rambling on about mopar heads ,and how his head was about to explode waiting for assistance .

Not quite sure what you mean here, but will take a stab at it.... 

Are you saying you wasted your time reading the post I posted? Sorry if you feel that *I* wasted your time,, but you didn't have to read the post....maybe you meant this in a more friendly manner than you come across? I would hope thats the case.

That said.............

There were two separate issues here.....first, I had mentioned to the first guy that the studs passed into the water jacket and therefore needed to seal good.....it was at that point the 2nd NAPA guy decided to yell out across the store to school me on how I was wrong.  I wasn't asking him for his opinion on that ...he decided to give me his (wrong) information without my asking....so he was wasting MY time, not the other way around.  I DID let it go after about 30 seconds as it didn't matter to me what he thought, I knew the real deal.  I mentioned it here only to illustrate that I have learned that even the NAPA guys, who I thought I could trust as knowing something, can also be very wrong.  This guy was adamant that the studs did NOT pass into coolant, and barely stopped short of calling me a liar.  I didn't care for that.

The other issue here was the pricing stuff....Yesterday, I ended up taking back the washers and nuts since I pass by there on the way home from work.....went down the street to the hardware store (where admitedly I should have gone to begin with) and got STAINLESS lock washers for .25 each (not the $1.00 each NAPA wanted for plain old zinc lock washers)......that's a 400% difference in price.  I basically got back $8 at NAPA for the 10 washers and 2 nuts that I bought and spent $6 at the hardware store...got the same stuff back, in stainless, PLUS got a few other things I needed like some vacuum hose and pipe fittings.

You may not feel like it would have been worth your time.....thats cool.  But like I said, I dont like getting raped on prices.....$6 or $6,000, there is a point at which principles come into play.  Sometimes it is unavoidable and you eat it because youy have no other options. Sometimes it can be prevented.  I prefer to save money where I can for other stuff.   There is always something else that needs money thrown at it. 

I was only going into detail to try and explain my thinking here....my original post was me venting....no one needs to read it.....