wah wah wah could you whine any more? just deal with it. that's how it is every where. give them your goddamn phone number and guess what, problem solved! face it, rodders are a minority. most customers that come into these places are looking for simple maintenance stuff (oil, filters, spark plugs maybe, etc) and most of them don't know shit about their cars. the system has been designed to cater towards these guys because they're the majority. sorry but it's the truth. you just need to learn how to deal with it. i used to work at a pep boys when i was in college. i never had a problem getting any one any thing at any time. either way, it really sucks to see them go. same thing with sears. both have been around forever and corporate greed is killing them off. sad.
I did deal with it, I just walked out and.... Oh, wait a minute, phone is ringing . . . . . . Ok, I'm back... It was a goddamn tele-marketer... I wonder how those fuckers got my phone number? They wanted to know how long I'v owned my '72 camaro...
pep boys in south florida was selling water trash pumps, no not water pumps but a 2" 5 hp trash pump. who was the moron at pep boys who said " we need to add a line of trash pumps to our floor space we'll sell them by thousands"?
You know you're fucked if you walk in and there's no thick books on the counter. I hate the computer runaround with the hired helpers. Hopefully if some of these chain stores close down, at least one will become an indoor slot-car track. I deal with NAPA or Merle's here in Tucson ( a locally owned REAL parts store)
I think the best thing about Pep Boys is that they always have Cherry Bombs in stock no matter what store you go to, best source for them, and still pretty cheap. Other than that they have a couple of things that the Zone or Kragen dont carry, but they are never my first choice when I go looking for a part.
another chain that will follow this trend..is Murrays auto parts.. if you need a dam air freshener they got em..yep even in "puce color" its not an autoparts house its a dam botique...sonsofbitches
Maybe Sears should have stuck with MICKEY! That was before their image was changed. Circa 1965. In '58 my buddy bought a "pretty" blue and orange rebuilt 59AB off the Sears floor for his 41 conv. And the guy running the department actually new what an engine was. They sure gave that business away.and look where they are now.
The hard core parts stores will always be around napa, car quest exc .. . .. How many chrome spinner hubcaps and penthouse air fresheners does pep boys need to see every month to pay for the building? My last stop is always the cheep chain parts store. I want a parts store that sells good quality parts and the "chrome and flash" isle is about 4 feet long....
We have an assortment of most of the Big Ones near by Autozone, Advance, NAPA, Pep Boys, O'Reillys, along with very few Mom & Pops. O'Reillys just came in a couple years ago. O'Reillys has bought out CSK. It is the same as everyones else has stated, know what you want before you go. All of the good people that worked for any of the others went to O'Reillys. I have to admit I have worked for Autozone for a short time. I don't recommend it to anyone unless you are desperate. They DON'T teach their guys anything about auto anything, just their internal systems. That is why you get what make,year, engine,trans,etc that is the way the computer system is designed. I know that when I was there they had a 150% per year turnover in counter guys and a 100% in mgnt, that was company wide. One funny example was one day when I was working a guy I know, that is like most of us Smart A** and builds his own, he has a 39 Plymouth. He came in with brake calipers in hand, walks up to the counter and got the usual what make,Etc He told the guy Plymouth, and when he told him the year I thought I would LMAO. When he told him 1939 the guy just stopped and didn't know what to do next and my friend just stood there waiting with a big grin. When I quit laughing, I stepped in and asked him what did the calipers come off off and what did he need. I always caught flack for not looking at the computer first and actually talking to the customer and finding out what they where working on and trying to accomplish. So we wonder why some of them are in trouble.
After visiting several pep boys in different states, have come to the conclusion their primary business is auto repair, and the parts just happen to be there. You know how high volume discount repair shops (sears, etc) often get that "you're an idiot" customer service mentality? It seems to bleed over to the parts side of things in every Pep Boys. When you factor in the parts customers usually have more car-knowledge level than the service customers, the whole parts side of their business is set up to fail thru poor service.
The guys working at Pep Boys admit that they've become an accesory store, I seldom go anymore unles the have a special on something I need. For parts, well they don't carry much, especially for anything not standard on LOTS of cars. Small block Chevy stuff they do still carry, but if I need anything else it means trips to two places, so I go straight to the second place and get it all.
Soon enough there may be enough out of work people with skills who have the balls to actually start a manufacturing company in America...that is what this is all about after all....we all bitch about all the chinese crap but who is doing anything about it? Write a business plan, get some government money to open a factory and hire a bunch of workers ..keep it non-union but be fair to the employees,provide the best quality product in the world at a competitive price (hell..I pay a little extra for good quality when I know it's good) Anyway..I hear everyone bitching about the chinese this and that....well it ain't gonna change until people step to the plate and MAKE America great again!
It's tough when 1% of the population controls 95% of the wealth, and that 1% only cares about the wealth and not about the population.
Thats a pretty shitty thing to do and one of the reasons companies have to make parts overseas to turn a profit! Thanks for abusing the system asshole
i usually go to advance or autozone only if i'm in a pinch for something, pep boys was at one time a favorite but their like the others except for the repair business for the general public. sears and k mart have been on life support for years and i think the slowdown will finally do them in. you can't beat the counter guys at napa or carquest, most of them will usually listen to my crazy requests and attempt to find the part i need or tell me an alterative.
You can buy Chraftsman tools at the local bolt and nut dealer in Pascagoula MS. Kmart took over sears and the managment that ran Kmart into bankrupsy took over management of Sears then they started to screw the employees and the customers every way they could. I worked as hvac ref tech for Sears and 2 of 3 customers I went to answered the door telling me their grandparents, parents and they had bought from Sears all their life but they wouldn't buy another thing from Sears as long as they lived after the way they were treated over warranty or preventive maintenance agreements. I would have been suprised not to hear Sears/Kmart was in trouble.
Quite the contrary - K-Mart is the one that actually bought Sears! According to: http://money.cnn.com/2004/11/17/news/fortune500/sears_kmart/ The Kmart-Sears deal "Two of nation's oldest retailers set $11B merger. Will lower prices, better merchandise follow? November 17, 2004: 6:13 PM EST By Parija Bhatnagar, CNN/Money staff writer NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Kmart is buying Sears, Roebuck & Co. for $11 billion in a deal that will marry two of the nation's oldest retailers that had trouble keeping up with the changes in American culture around them." ~Jason
Wichita! THAT must be why we have all these Pap Boys commercials on KCMO TV when we don't have any locally... ~Jason
Seems like with no one buying new cars that folks will be fixing their old ones with parts from the BOYS. I go past an Auto Zone and Parts Plus to get to the Pep Boys on the other side of town. They go out of their way to find the odd part that I might need and have even called their competitor to find it if they didn't have it.
Well your not very smart or you just like to argue with people... What you do and i see you spend quite a lot of time on the board here so im sure a little more puker time wont kill you.. Go to auto zone or advance autos web site and seeing that your pretty smart (at least you com off that way on here ) so a search on the part you want and print the sheet out and head to the store.. Ask one of the guys to get you that part.. If they dont know how to look it up by the part number have the manager show them... I dont even give em the chance to ask a hunnert questions... You know you can order on line and pick it up at the store too if they have it... Even easier... Did you know that a lot of the part nymbers are interchangeable for a lot of brands.. You have to get a little creative sometimes but its amazing what can be found.. Saves time on both ends... Dave
Me too! Is that giant Western Auto sign still downtown? I hope KC never gets rid of that. I used to take dates up to Skies restaurant on top of the Hyatt, just so I could get that view of that sign. Western Auto....those were the days.
I went over to Sears hardware last night and ordered up a new roll a way. The place was a ghost town. Most the shelves were empty or half stocked. It was pretty depressing. I did get a super deal on a 41 inch stainless steal cabinet.
I use to love the pep boys store on van nuys blvd 30 years ago car guys, car parts ! every thing you needed was there, maybe harbor freight will buy them out and improve the quality ? the one here in austin needs to die ! here`s some of there 1932 catalog missing some of the pictures ? http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=187953&highlight=1932+pepboys&showall=1
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