Moron Parts store CUSTOMERS

Ok, I'll play. I've been a Chrysler parts guy since '89. In the early 90's, had a guy (from a legitimate, professional bodyshop) needing parts "for a Chrysler". Send him out to the car, he gets back on the phone proclaiming "it's a Renfrew Chrysler" (Renfrew being another local Chrysler store). I can relate to nearly everything flatheadpete has posted here. I got a million of 'em.

 

I lol'ed for real on that one. Guy must have been a gun nut and an old school farmer.

I gotta admit that if the counter guy looks young and clueless I have been known to ask for muffler bearings, turn signal fluid or underwater wood welding rods.

 

I'm at work in a parts store now.{dont tell the boss i'm on here!} Dont even get me started!!!!!!!!!! My whole day is one "WTF" moment after another! Parkland wa.... Gotta love it!

 

Customers need to learn that parts store clerks (1) don't know what kind of car you drive (2) can't tell you what's wrong with the car without knowing what it is, and even if they could, it's not their job to teach you how to fix anything. if you need instruction, go to college. parts stores sell parts. period.

customer: when I lived in California you could buy those at any auto parts store off the shelf.

clerkerhaps you should move back to California.

Russ

 

When I had my shop in Campbell, I sometimes took a break and ran the roadster up to the parts house. Often, I worked the counter at Alexander Auto parts when owner Bob stepped out. A kid in his 20s came in, said he needed plugs & ign cables for a Chevy.
"Plugs and cables for which engine?"
"350, Big Block."
"Uhhh, 350 is a small block."
"No, mine's been blueprinted. It's a big block now..."

 

I'm still laughing! Ever wonder where these cretons come from?

But I gotta brag on the parts guys and gals I know. I mostly trade at the two NAPA stores here in the area. One is here in Nowheresville and the other is just a few miles south. They've saved my bacon several times. I learn something new just about each time I go in there. So "hats off" to our NAPA folks!

 

Customer asks for new wiper blades and he wants me to put them on for him.I get out to the car and notice his old ones are covered with blue grease? So I ask him whats up with the gease and he tells me they were squeaking so he used some water proof grease.Fucking crack heads

 

I take Pearl Harbor Day very seriously for family reasons. I explained to my boss that I would not provide any assistance with Mitsubishi’s as they built the engines in the Japanese Zero planes. All day long we bantered back and forth about it but no one asked. Five minute till close a Spanish appearing man with broken English came in and asked me for a Mitsubishi repair manual. I said "GET OUT". He said, "what". I said were out thanks for coming in.

 

It's a daily thing. We don't go a single day without someone coming in with a chip on their shoulder for one reason or another. Just have to remember that for retail customers, going to the parts store usually means there is a problem with their vehicle and it's not a happy time or place.

Some folks need to feel smarter, or somehow better than those helping them. I don't know, but I suspect it's a lack of security, or just plain old inflated ego. It can be frustrating and insulting at times, but as a professional I still do my level best to make sure they get what they came in for no matter how hard they make it. I often think of things I would like to say or do to put them in their place, so to speak, but that would bring me down to the the gutter where they exsist. I'm mature and secure enough not to need to get satisfaction that way, it's not earned like that.

One of the best feelings though, is turning these folks around and gaining their confidence, trust and respect. I've done it several times and dealing with these good customers is probably the only thing that keeps me coming back to work each day. It certainly isn't the pay, or the backing from the corporate office, or the working conditions...

All I want from a thread like this is to maybe help the guy who comes in and asks for "HEI" wires, or an oil filter for a "350" with an obvious chip on his shoulder to maybe think a little about what he is asking for and what the person on the other side of the counter has to do to find the right part the first time. I know if I was on the other side of the counter I would want to give the counterman as much information as I possibly could to make it easier on BOTH of us. It's not too much to ask.

 

Somewhat off-topic but what the heck..... just after high school (late 70's) a guy I knew had made big bucks and returned to town intent on having a cool car. He bought a dog shit brown '74 Nova. He took it to a speed shop and asked for a high performance engine with carb through the hood. They must have seen "victim" written on his forehead. They installed a junkyard dog 307 and more phenolic (sp??) carb spacers than common sense would allow. Sure enough he got what he asked for. I can't remember what he paid for their expertise, but I remember thinking it was a little extreme.

 

Sounds like you need to find another line of work.

 

Im a carpenter but have to deal with this type coustomer also. once built a room addition that had a sliding pocket door . got a call several weeks after compleation from the home owner ,mad as a wet hen saying that after using the sliding pocket door several times that there was a large scratch across the door from something dragging the door. I had been very careful with nail length and position when trimming that door as it's very easy to have a nail tip protruding and scratching the door. i went to her house to check it out and saw (sure enough!) a huge deep scratch right across the door! after looking and looking for the problem i followed the scratch with my eye only to see it line up perfectly with a mirror that she had hung on that wall. after lifting off the mirror i discovered the problem. she had used a 16d framing nail (3" long) to hang the mirror and had driven it into the door cavity in the wall which was scratching the door. I took personal pleasure (she had been a bitch on wheels the entire job)in showing her what she had done! her answer was- "oh" shoulder shrug and walk away. no appology or anything.

 

Have you ever had a customer call the cops on you? Many years ago I was a service advisor at a Chevy dealership. A woman storms in with a Chevette amking a loud noise. Looked under the hood and her AIR pipes had rusted out. We didn't have one but there was one in Indy. Told her I could have it tomorrow. She blew a gasket, was traveling to Cali for family emergency and could not stay the night. I got on the phone and found one in St. Louis which was where she was heading. I lined it up with them that she would pull in and they would replce it. Explained it to her and she again blew up. Asked for a phone so she could call the police and tell them how we were mistreating her. Gave her the phone and the number for city police. Listened while she ranted to the cop onthe phone. She hung up and said he told her she needed to call the State police. She called them and ranted to them. They asked to talk to me, told them what I had waiting for her in St. Louis. Cop laughed pretty good about her being a crazy bitch. Gave the phone to her. she listened a while slamed the phone down and stormed off. Man am I glad I am not in that job any more.

 

If I was the owner, I would have fired your ass on the spot. No unemployment either. Do you seriously think Mitsubishi was the only supplier of war materials for the Japanese forces? Why not do the same for German cars? Hitler killed over 3 million people

 

35+ years ago, had a dimwit piss and moan that the AIR pump we sold him (when he came in originally he tossed old pump on counter and said "gimmee one of these") still did not charge his battery and it was defective. He also was proud (when he came in first time) of saving the mechanic thieves robbing him by doing his own work.

 

I did have an issue with mitsubshi sales commericals (zero-zero-zero, zero down, zero interest, zero dealer fee) on Pearl Harbor Day.

 

You're right! ANYBODY that supports countries other than the USA is an IDIOT!!!

 

people like you are the reason the rest of the world thinks america is full of idiots...

 

Man, I love this thread...

 

I work in a Ford/Freightliner commercial truck parts dept for the last 29 years,favorite is still....."I need the thing next to the thing thats leaking fuel,and the year doesn't matter either because there all the same"....I just hand the idiot any part close by and tell em here ya go!

 

Wow, that's cool, some dude who already has enough trouble getting by in this country and you make him feel like shit for asking a question... good work.

 

I got your back. It's time we quit kissing anti-American asses and start kicking them.

 

Was he invited? He can go home.

 

I agree, and when I was behind the counter, I took pride in being an actual resource for my customers. I have a pretty decent memory. If you came in the shop I worked at more than a few times, I would probably remember a good bit of your vehicle's information. I remember one guy, would come in- I'd greet him by name, and he'd say I need a (whatever) for the wife's car. That was almost always all I needed to get him his parts.

But, knowing what you're doing, and being willing (even wanting) to be extra helpful does NO good whatsoever when you're dealing with a raging asshole. Case in point:

I'm working the store by myself one Sunday. Guy comes in and asks for a thermostat and gasket for a 1977 Delta 88 with a 350. (told ya the memory is decent) I know GM really liked to play mix and match with the engines in the 1970's, but any GM 350 is going to take the same thermostat, so I ask him what temperature he wants, and grab it. I check the gasket book, and sure enough, it lists Olds, Chevy and Buick 350's for the car.

I tell him that the car could have one of three different 350's, and we don't carry the universal gaskets. Does he know which engine he has?

"No."

"Did you drive the car here, I can look at it and tell"

(getting surly) "no!"

I'm still not out of possible solutions. "Is the distributor in the front or the back?" I can determine which engine it is in two questions if he plays along.

"JUST GIVE ME A DAMN GASKET!!!!!"

So, I sold him one. I don't know what that gasket fit, but I know three things that it did NOT fit.

 

Another customer we had. I'm sure he was waiting for his Mensa card to arrive in the mail any day, comes in to buy brake pads for one of his Camaros.

Keep in mind this guy has two '69 Camaros- the one he was buying the pads for was an original Z28. The other one was a Yenko. (yeah, they're OT- but still some nice machinery)

A couple of days later, he comes in, carrying the box that the brake pads came in. He's pissed, because these pads we sold him made HORRIBLE noise, and didn't stop very well. He opened the box and took the pads out, and I nearly shat myself- this brainiac had actually managed to put the pads on backwards- metal to the rotor, friction material to the caliper.

 

WWII ended 66 years ago. The generation of Japanese who were alive during the war years is rapidly dwindling and the last survivor will die in a few more years. The Japanese responsible for the Pearl Harbor attack and the war have been gone for decades. Let it go.....

And by the way, two of my family members (brothers) were on the USS Arizona on December 7, 1941. One survived, one did not.

 

were you?

 

Uh, it was closer to 14 million in the camps alone, add about 21 million Allied troops (~5 million POW's), and about 27 million civilians, and you get the idea....

 

OT, but kinda related. Back in the'80's, one of the bodymen in our shop got hired by State Farm as as adjuster. Came in for a visit one day and told us that earlier in the morning, he got a call to inspect a burnt out late model truck. Went to the owner's farm, and was told where to find the truck. Mike went thru the gate and out into the field and there was the guy's truck, in perfect shape other than the burnt up rag sticking out of the filler neck. Same adjuster told us a few days before, had almost the same kind of vehicle fire reported. This guy put a rag in a gas can, lit it, then put it in his new OT 'Bird. Guy reported it "burnt to a crisp". Idiot put the rag/can in the car, and shut the doors. Smoke damage. Both of them went to jail

 

Born here and pay taxes.