What the heck is wrong with parts stores?

[Bgunner]

Luckily for me there is not AutoZone local, need to hit mid county for that but we do have the other bad ones, Advanced Auto, Carquest (separated because there was a car quest before they were merged), Napa and a Federated Auto parts.

I needed some rockers for a Chrysler Pentastank

What is a Pentastank? I get the "penta" being the pentastar but lost on the "stank" part... other than they stank working on the modern, at the time, 80's early 90's models.

 

[Bgunner]

Man.... remeber when moog parts were actually better than oem stuff? Dem were the days.

Right. I used to talk highly of moog but now I consider them fair to lower end parts due to the quality drop over the years. Sadly they have fallen into the trap of eek every penny out the the product they can, quality be damned

 

[4.0blue98]

The 3.6L (maybe the 3.2 now too) Pentastar is a pentastank to me. I've got issues with them. Almost as bad as their Powerturd (3.7/4.7L Powertech). I am not a Chrysler fan even though I've had a few.

Clarification added. Old Mopars are awesome new Chryslers should never be called Mopars.

Honestly the Advance, Autozone and one of the Napas near me are pretty good. I do the part number list before I go though.

 

[Dirtman]

One of the only benefits of chain parts stores is that they are usually required by law to take used motor oil and antifreeze for recycling. I take great advantage of this.

I leave filthy milk jugs and buckets of all manner of disgusting fluids and goo at the back door of my local advance. Your problem now corporate jerks!

 

[4.0blue98]

Down in this area of Maryland we have county recycling stations that have tanks for motor oil, transmission fluid and antifreeze. Guess the chains are lucky down here.

 

[sgtsandman]

When I was replacing the u-joints on my ‘98 Ranger, I had to bring the old one in to match it up. The ones they had listed as fitting, didn’t.

Hell, I had to do the same thing at a junk yard for the same truck to get a driveshaft. Apparently, a 2.5 Lima with a manual transmission and RWD was not a common setup.

 

[Dirtman]

We have local recycling centers too, but they are pretty strict on what you can dump. They wont take old paint or random concoctions of unknown toxic chemicals. Strictly motor oil in the motor oil tank and antifreeze in the antifreeze tank, and they watch you like a hawk.

The parts stores are too stupid to know what you're leaving. Milk jug of paint, old varnish, bucket of glowing green nuclear waste... don't matter just leave it out back!

I don't know if it ever ends up getting dealt with properly, but I didnt dump it down the sink or throw it in the woods so I feel good about it.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Man.... remeber when moog parts were actually better than oem stuff? Dem were the days.

Kind of irritating, it was the newest balljoint on the truck.

 

[PetroleumJunkie412]

The 3.6L (maybe the 3.2 now too) Pentastar is a pentastank to me. I've got issues with them. Almost as bad as their Powerturd (3.7/4.7L Powertech). I am not a Chrysler fan even though I've had a few.

Clarification added. Old Mopars are awesome new Chryslers should never be called Mopars.

Honestly the Advance, Autozone and one of the Napas near me are pretty good. I do the part number list before I go though.

I'll take ya for a ride in my SRT8 gramps. Then I want you to tell me Mopar is dead. ??????

 

[4.0blue98]

Hemis don't count. They'll always be awesome!

I'd love a Hellcat...

 

[Bgunner]

Mopar is dead... the new generation is something totally different. A Hemi motor will always be the envy of many company's because of its power and versatility. Now don't get ne wrong if I get my nands on a 351 it's getting stroked and stuffed in my tiny ass 2WD light weight Ranger for the Wholly F*ck factor. But I love me the Hemi's, the older C10's and the good old late 70's ford pickup style. You can keep that side stripping because I like the that curved in look. Don't fill in that part of the body style... let it shine, It 's what I like about it.
Still pissed a friend sold his '79 after I put a motor in it for him and didn't offer it to me first. I watched it do the pulls after the motor job and an accident, that I watched, as the ass end lift 3 ft. in the air cause some one backed out in front of it heading down the the 45 mph part of the road. got to love those older trucks, when taken care of, for durability.

 

[PetroleumJunkie412]

Mopar is dead... the new generation is something totally different. A Hemi motor will always be the envy of many company's because of its power and versatility. Now don't get ne wrong if I get my nands on a 351 it's getting stroked and stuffed in my tiny ass 2WD light weight Ranger for the Wholly F*ck factor. But I love me the Hemi's, the older C10's and the good old late 70's ford pickup style. You can keep that side stripping because I like the that curved in look. Don't fill in that part of the body style... let it shine, It 's what I like about it.
Still pissed a friend sold his '79 after I put a motor in it for him and didn't offer it to me first. I watched it do the pulls after the motor job and an accident, that I watched, as the ass end lift 3 ft. in the air cause some one backed out in front of it heading down the the 45 mph part of the road. got to love those older trucks, when taken care of, for durability.

Is an electric Mustang a Mustang?
Is a mid engine corvette a corvette?

New supra can burn in hell. It's a BMW.

Point is, it's Mopar. Mopar was the ramchargers putting the hurt on GM so badly that they were banned.

New ramchargers (in spirit) replaced them. Now they embarrass Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Porsche on a drag strip for 84k out the door.

Jim Thornton is dead. Mopar lives on.

It's back to business as usual with cylinder head sorcery and 1000hp factory crate engines.

 

[rjaaaaaa2]

So you think its bad NOW!
I go back 50 years and guess what, no computers. you tell them what your looking for and then they step over to a rack of catalogs 10 feet long and start their search through the pages and pages and pages well you get my drift and then when they get to the right catalog and the right area then they start with the what model ?, what motor ?, auto or standard, ac or no ac, and so on that's when they start running their finger down the page after page after page until they finally take a straight edge and run it across the page to come up with a part number. They then have to go over to another counter with more books and look up the location of that part in there storage shelves. now they take a piece of scratch paper jot down the 12 digit part number and the 5 digit location code and then they disappear for 15 min. finally to return with something that my or my not look like your part because if they jotted down the wrong part number or perhaps just transposed one number in it then that caused them to look up the wrong location code and now it's back to the catalogs.
My experience was that more than likely that if you didn't have the old part in your grubby little paw then you would be back again to do this all over again looking for the correct part.
So now all I have to do is go to my computer look up the part from many different vendors, find out who has it and where, print out your search and your on your way to the local shop or order it on line. Me personally, I like the new way.
That's my 2 cents

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

So you think its bad NOW!
I go back 50 years and guess what, no computers. you tell them what your looking for and then they step over to a rack of catalogs 10 feet long and start their search through the pages and pages and pages well you get my drift and then when they get to the right catalog and the right area then they start with the what model ?, what motor ?, auto or standard, ac or no ac, and so on that's when they start running their finger down the page after page after page until they finally take a straight edge and run it across the page to come up with a part number. They then have to go over to another counter with more books and look up the location of that part in there storage shelves. now they take a piece of scratch paper jot down the 12 digit part number and the 5 digit location code and then they disappear for 15 min. finally to return with something that my or my not look like your part because if they jotted down the wrong part number or perhaps just transposed one number in it then that caused them to look up the wrong location code and now it's back to the catalogs.
My experience was that more than likely that if you didn't have the old part in your grubby little paw then you would be back again to do this all over again looking for the correct part.
So now all I have to do is go to my computer look up the part from many different vendors, find out who has it and where, print out your search and your on your way to the local shop or order it on line. Me personally, I like the new way.
That's my 2 cents

They also got good at id'ing stuff without the books. Those guys are fun to run into, I say I need something like this, they say "I wonder if one off a _______ will work" as they scratch their chin and head into the back.

Now it is more like I ask for a carburator base gasket, they scratch around on the 'puter for awhile and say they don't show anything so it might be a dealer only item. Meanwhile I have been wondering around and find it on the display rack.

I remember in the early '00's like a month after I got my Ranger I took the alternator in to Napa, old timer that owned the place at the time argued with me if it is was off an '85 Ranger because it looked too new without opening a book.

Somebody had converted my truck to an internally regulated alternator...

 

[91stranger]

I think anyone who has had to buy auto parts knows that the old part in the hand will always be better than just hoping some guy/girl who's never seen your vehicle will find the right part on the first try. Getting auto parts is like getting plumbing.... Unless you know damn sure what you need or bring in the old part then you will be back at least one more time. Anyone who is hoping that same person can give them tech advice is just asking for problems.... Do you ask the hostess at the restaurant how they season the food? Nope, you would ask the chef that. Same goes for cars/trucks. Now the real question.... What seasoning is best? engine crud parmesan? brake fluid sauce? rust chips with salsa?