Non Ranger issue

[James Morse]

Thanks. Yeah, Jiffy Lube ain't a place I go. She likes it because when the do inspection, they're not horribly picky. On the other hand, I go to the dealer up the street that used to be Saab (now Lexus and Audi) because they are real picky and my philosophy is if I'm doing safety inspection, I want it safe, so, find stuff, if it's there, which they normally don't because I try to have them good, but for instance they didn't like no battery tie-down on the Mazda and they're right, it's a $5 part and you don't want that thing flopping around in there do you. I just never thought to see it.

So I ended up ordered all the parts from O'Reilly which I never dealt with but they are saying the parts will come to my house tomorrow free shipping so that is hard to beat (not all stuff was in stock at local store). Plus they are 1/2 mile from me (new store) so as I see it that's local, I can go kick them in the shins if there's issues. I should be able to take cores to them local (it would seem so - didn't ask). I decided it's not worth it to save more with RockAuto etc and wait longer then have to ship cores to them etc.

I'm getting both front sides rotors, pads, calipers, hoses. Rear just pads. $480 after cores return which is WAY less than the commercial shop. $170 for labor. $650 total is a far cry from $1050 and it's adding rear pad replacement so really you'd have to compare to like $1200.

Could I have got by doing just one side, probably, but it'd make no sense. The way I look at it is, I'm saving about $400 so if I spent a day screwing around with it (and not done cuz I gotta take it over etc) that's a good day's pay.

And granted the various advantages already stated of commercial shops. But I think I'll be ok, and hopefully no long delays because the sooner she's driving it the better. Now I can do some other stuff for a while.

Last note, that $400 or so (say $500 if you included the rears) saved, I'll know, next time, to just think of that difference as, that's the cost of -not- having to mess with it, you just take it, drop it off, pick it up. And warranty. All that. If it wasn't such a big difference I'd just take it to a shop.

If the guy flakes out and is like, oh, I can't get to it for a couple weeks, then, since I have the parts and a shop and tools I would probably just do it myself at that point (and not charge her, lol).

I appreciate all the help and support and will update hopefully soon to let you know how it went.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

I'll pay up to 20% more to keep local people employed.

 

[RobbieD]

I'll pay up to 20% more to keep local people employed.

I will too. It's worth it me, and I've found that the loyalty comes back to you with good service.

So I ended up ordered all the parts from O'Reilly which I never dealt with

I used O'Reilly for some of the parts on my recent brake job, and was satisfied with them.

Their website has the manual and power brake master cylinders backwards, but the people at the store were good to deal with and made it right. Quality of the parts looked fine.

And they took used oil, which is a real pain to dispose of properly.

I think that you did fine what you paid.

 

[James Morse]

oh he's local, not sure how close, but I'm almost in Salem and he's in Salem so that's at most 5 miles, Salem isn't big.
commercial shops is local employment too... but I'm all for cutting the middleman if I get decent results. Young guys (everyone to me is young, being 68) trying to make a go of it and willing to work extra hours past their regular job and being solely responsible for the results, I support that.

I don't know if you can really call O'R. local, but, yeah, they have a store. There was already Advance and Autozone (also pretty new) and they are like in between them. All 3 less than a mile away.

Thanks for the encouragement. I think whatever I could have saved past that, would have got eaten up in hassles and waiting for stuff. If O'R. really gets my parts here tomorrow that is a hustle.

 

[sgtsandman]

I'll pay up to 20% more to keep local people employed.

I generally agree with this. With the turn over in big box stores like Advance, AutoZone, and O’Reily’s it’s damn near impossible to see the same person you dealt with last Fall in the Spring. So, unless you are a garage that goes in to get parts all the time, chances are slim you will see the same person behind the counter 6 months to a year from now. And around here, there is no local “mom and pop” auto parts stores.

The closest to that is NAPA and they don’t give a crap about you unless you are a garage that does business with them all the time.

 

[Roert42]

I believe most Napa's are a franchise, not corporately owned, at least the ones around here.

The counter people at the Napa I go to most have been the same for a long time. They have been a parts house since the 70s, Napa franchise for over 20 years.

 

[sgtsandman]

I believe most Napa's are a franchise, not corporately owned, at least the ones around here.

The counter people at the Napa I go to most have been the same for a long time. They have been a parts house since the 70s, Napa franchise for over 20 years.

The NAPA stores here do appear to be franchises.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I believe most Napa's are a franchise, not corporately owned, at least the ones around here.

The counter people at the Napa I go to most have been the same for a long time. They have been a parts house since the 70s, Napa franchise for over 20 years.

Up until the last couple years, all of the NAPA stores around here were staffed by chain smoking (in the store, even after the smoking bans for businesses here) old farts that would refuse to help you unless you were someone they knew that came in all the time. I gave up going to them for a long time because of that.

 

[James Morse]

I used to go to NAPA back in the 70's, 80's as where I lived that was the only parts place, at least that I knew about. It seems like on the older cars it wasn't uncommon to be replacing distributor rotor/points and plugs. Filters, oil, etc. The other thing they did was you'd take your rotor or drum to them and they would turn them smooth or they would tell you 'not enough left' then you had to buy the part. Last time I asked around about this the answer I got was "we know of no one who turns rotors".

When I was trying to get a lower rad hose for the XLT and wanted it like now, NAPA gave me a part, I compared it to what was on there, no way it would fit, it was grossly different. When I took it back they were just "OK" and you'd think they would be like, oh, we need to make a note of that being the wrong part" or something - no. Subsequently ordered from RockAuto and it was perfect. So that kind of destroyed any residual faith I had in them. At least that store.

 

[Roert42]

Just like anything else you get good spots and bad ones.

I go to the NAPA near my work the most, I like the guys that work there. They deal with a lot of shops, but still pretty helpful to walkins.

There is one near my house across from the beer store, but they don't seem to want to deal with walk ins, just shops that call and place and order, send their guy out to drop the parts.

There is one also near my house, but father away and the other direction, also conveniently across from a beer store, people there are way more helpful to walkins.

 

[James Morse]

Yeah it seems to be catch as catch can. There are several NAPA here I just went to the closest one to me, maybe the others are better.
I've noticed the new (maybe a year old) Autozone "tries harder". I went there and got several battery hold downs to give to dealer to install during inspection not knowing what would fit and told them I assume I can bring back what doesn't fit and they said sure, then said, you know what, even if you open it, we'll take it back. They want the business.
Dealer installed it (correctly) no charge. So ok, it's five minutes, but you know how they are. I go to the dealer (Lexus/Audi) for inspections because a) you can get an appointment at dealers, otherwise you are stuck in line hours or have to leave it there for days and b) in my experience they are a lot more picky than, say, Jiffy Lube, and if I'm doing safety inspection, I want it actually done.
Of course some dealers will always find wipers are bad or something even if they are just slightly marginal, but if they're ethical they shouldn't use inspections as a chance to load parts.
If you think about it for $15 it's actually quite a bit of work to do them. Of course if you bought the vehicle there, usually they are free.

 

[Roert42]

Here the inspection price is set the state, I think it's $55 for the safety and $35 for emissions +Tax. The state gets a chunk of that and the shop gets a chunk.
Some guys are pickier then other, however it's the individual tech that holds the inspection license, so if something happens it's that guys license that gets revoked, not that shop.

The shop I go to is pretty busy as it is, normally a week wait for an appointment. So they don't seem to try and sell more work for themselves if it isn't needed. Plus, if something is wrong, they will let me bring the truck back a couple weeks later after I fixed it and not charge me to inspect it again.

Some places, if you don't have them fix it, will fail the inspection and you still need to pay. Then if you bring it back later want to get paid again.

 

[James Morse]

That's interesting about the individual responsibility.
What happens here is if you fail you get a red sticker, you have to fix stuff I think w/in 2 weeks or you're driving non-inspected vehicle.
During pandemic they gave a lot of leeway on it and they extended temp plates/registration validity times because you couldn't get stuff done. DMV started taking appointments which to me is a big improvement.
As to inspections what they do now is (and this is new), expired inspection isn't a primary offense, so, you can get a ticket for it, but you have to first be stopped for something else, like, burnt out tail light, speeding, etc, then they can also ticket you for inspection lacking but they can't pull you over just for that (before they could).

 

[Roert42]

Around here, I don't think they can really tell if your inspection is expired or not without pulling you over and looking at the stickers. They change the color of the stickers every year to make it easier to tell, but still hard. Most of the time if someone gets a ticket for expired inspection, its after they got pulled over for speeding or something.

Also, expired inspections are considered "fix it" tickets. So you can just pay the ticket, or you can make a date at the courthouse to dispute it, and if you show up with fresh inspection stickers they drop the ticket. You probably still have to pay some "clerical fees" or something, but not the $500 for expired inspection.


For some reason, I remember someone telling me that a missing inspection sticker has a lesser fine then an expired inspection sticker. Not sure if it's true or not.

 

[James Morse]

If that's true you should just scrape it off.
Seems like every state has different laws about it.