Hot Rods Went to the auto supply store today OH MY!

Some parts stores, not all, will hire high school or similar aged employees or retired aged. Both can work cheaper than that prime experienced person. I don’t like wording it like that but I’m just stating how I’ve seen it done.
Now there are still some experienced parts people. Most of those are industrial, commercial or dealership positions.
My local AZ and NAPA has very good commercial parts ladies. Learned a lot from them on looking up parts. Plus if you can set up a commercial account and get access to that side of their parts software, finding stuff gets easier.

 

I've been fortunate in my current and previous cities to have family owned and operated NAPA stores that seem to put a lot of emphasis on hiring, training and retaining good help. A key here is TRAINING!
A lot of current business models call for hiring "a body" to fill a position, don't worry about training, and when that person leaves because they are paid minimum wage, and scheduled part time hours so they don't qualify for benefits, just hire another "body". It's sad, but that's today's "corporate" outlook.
One of the reasons we don't find young people who know anything mechanical in parts stores is that current school curriculums (for the most part) don't include shop classes of any sort to get kids interested in mechanical stuff. The push for decades has been higher education with a focus on technical fields (IT, etc.). The kids that do have a mechanical aptitude quite often are farm kids whose home employment is needed on the family farm. Thus, we wind up with burger flippers behind the parts counter.
Another issue is the attitude of many business owners is that employees are a burden not an asset. As a general rule, I don't patronize businesses where I see a high turnover of employees. A company that doesn't care about its employees probably doesn't really care about its customers either.
Unfortunately, I'm old enough to remember the days when 'service people' (parts counter people, waitresses, department store clerks, etc.) had CARREERS in their chosen field, and it sucks that our world no longer works that way!
So... support the good ones with your $$$ and avoid the rest!

 

My local NAPA is still okay, not like it was 40+ years ago at the original shop.
My AZ is pretty decent as well. They’ll flip the screen around to show me and ask me questions like “is this it”?
My O’Riellys (for me) is best for auto body supplies. Like many I search parts online ahead of time and compare prices. O’Riellys seems to be quite a bit more expensive than the other two.
All 3 places don’t have bewildered folks behind the counter though and will work with you for as long as it takes to find what I think they have or can get.
As I mentioned before in this thread, there’s just not the “Big 3” anymore. Gotta be what, the Big 30 by now?

 

Agree, a guy has to actually want to be helped. Sometimes that means helping yourself. That brake line is a 30 second search on Oreillys website. Search it, print it off, walk in and show the young man what you are looking for. It gives you a ballpark on where to start

 

My O’Reilly is actually pretty good. You know it by what the cars look like that the guys in there drive. I buy hoses and some brake stuff plus they carry Wix oil filters. The heater hose/fuel line/PCV is kind of a messy area. If I need a short piece and there’s some laying not on a roll they give it to me…

 

Should give you some idea about how many still assemble engines . Sad , all we've learned will shortly become a footnote in history .

 

Consider the venue. AutoZone is the automotive equivalent of a fast-food franchise. Expecting them to be conversant in ancient vehicle systems is like pulling up to the MacDonald’s drive-through and ordering a ribeye steak cooked medium rare. (“Jesus, they call themselves a restaurant, but those stupid kids can only cook hamburgers!”)

I went online ordering parts the other day. Most of those vintage parts websites do the exact same thing that is being complained about here: The site requires you to identify make, model and year, and then you identify the system (brakes, cooling, whatever) and only then are you actually presented with parts. This is how computers work. It’s a decisions tree (or flow-chart, if you prefer).

You can’t tell a computer the function of an item and expect it to spit out the exact part right across multiple makes and models. So why we are faulting parts counter guys for doing exactly what they need to do to identify the part you need?

The reasoning seems to be “they should just know this” or “they should be trained in this.” I call BS. In this era, if they’re going to be trained in automotive systems, it’s more likely to be hybrid and electronic technology, not the workings of drum/drum Bendix brakes. Let alone Lockheed, for god’s sake. Say guys, how’s everyone’s knowledge of regenerative brakes? They’ve been standard on hybrids for more than a 15 years.

It’s fine if you want to complain about the way times are a’changing. And I don’t care if you bash mega corporations for their policies (most deserve it). But I think it’s kind of mean to poke fun at young folk for not living up to unreasonable expectations. Why put them down? They are doing the job they were hired to do in the way that the tools they are given requires them to do it. And most of them are pretty darn conscientious about it.

Like I said at the beginning, you can’t expect custom service at a fast-food joint. So either work with the parts guys in the way their computer system requires, or go to NAPA, or go online, or find one of the last remaining wrecking yards (which is probably computerized by now).

And lastly, I’m not lamenting for future generations simply because they don’t know the workings of a generator-based charging system. These supposedly clueless kids are fully computer literate. They understand computerized inventory systems and point-of-sale. Those are transportable skills across multiple industries. Knowing the function of a points-based distributor, not so much.

The times, they are a’changing.

 

I'm78 years old - have degrees in both electronics and computer science - AND I am "call-a-grandchild" obsolete in current technology.

As for "generator-based charging systems", I simply swap in a Delco alternator. And I am still behind the times, I only recently learned the difference between a 10si and a 12si alternator.

Russ

 

Already drove past three this morning. None one says it is a restaurant.

Google Maps might, but none of their signage does.

 

What we are working on may as well have been dug up from the ancient Rome.

Even what we affectionately refer to as "late model" parts that we like to swap in are not "late model".

To use a 10SI alternator as an example: those began phase-out in the late 1980's, at the 37-years-ago mark.

We love to tell people that they should "use a later part" so if they have problems on the road, they can just go to any auto parts store and get a replacement. Can you, though?

I keep having to bring this up, but it bears repeating: the average car or light truck on US roads today is right around 12-years-old. That is, brace yourself, a 2011 model.

The HAMB era ended when 1966 arrived. There were 45-years between then and the average car on the road today.

The high-side statistical outlier customer for an auto parts store will be someone looking for a part for a brand new car.

The low-side statistical outlier customer for an auto parts store will be someone looking for a part for a 1999-model.

Be happy parts stores carry anything that you can use.

 

I went to the doctor the other day (a young kid probably 35 or so, barely out of grade school) and told him I was feeling sweaty and flushed. Asked him to apply a few leaches, but he looked at me like I had two heads. He said they don’t carry those anymore.

 

Here's a different perspective:

I'm glad they're out there and working. I will answer every question and provide part numbers, pictures or whatever, in order to help my cause and theirs. It's my vehicle and I'm the one who chose all these parts... hahaha.

They aren't there to be treated like shit, they're there to earn a buck.

I have an OT offroad vehicle that, like my coupe, has 20 different vehicles' parts in it and sometimes it's easier and faster to head to a local parts store.

Every time there is some friction in the process because the vehicle is a mish-mash. Lots of times we laugh and I'll show pics of it as the conversation leans that way. Eventually it gets figured out.

I haven't always been that way but that past BS was on me. I get far better and friendlier help now.

 

All I know is I get parts without struggling.
And I really don’t understand why others do.

it’s not rocket surgery

 

Went to the Honda dealer looking for a clutch pedal pad. "is that an automatic or stick transmission"

 

No sir, the reasoning is that if I walk into an auto parts house, carefully explain what I'm looking for, in this instance a hose with inverted flare fittings and, the counter person comes back with a stick of steel tube, he needs a further education in automotive nomenclature before he is ever allowed to be in sales. At the start of what became a career for me, I was given two weeks to get my act together. The company policy was "If you can't get it, you can't stay". It weeded out those who wanted to better themselves from those who didn't. I hope for Chad's sake that some little bell goes off in his head and he realizes he's going to have to make an effort in order to do just that. If he doesn't, there's always another low-paying job down the road.

As for your comment, if I'm out running errands and realize that I'm going right past the auto parts store, I should be able to buy what I need after giving a thorough description to the counter person. If I have to go back home, get on the computer and look up what I want, then take it back to the store and hand it to a clueless person who will without a doubt tell me that he or she can order it for me, why do I need them in the first place? Kind of negates the whole idea of a brick and mortar store existence, doesn't it?

After relating this whole thing to my farmer friend down the road, he suggested that I call a clutch supply in Chattanooga who actually makes brake hoses. O'Reillys will make me hydraulic hoses all day long but they don't want to assume the liability of making brake hoses. My problem is solved, O'Reilly's problem still exists.

 

I'd find a different Doc!! Ferchrist'sake these young guys don't know nuthin!

 

Except that they don't actually have one.

It might sound abrasive to hear this, but they absolutely do not need you as a customer.

This misunderstanding is getting out-of-hand.

What you are attempting to buy from them is known as a loss-leader. Selling a loss-leader is a marketing strategy that prices products lower than the cost to produce them in order to attract new customers or to sell additional products to customers.

Simply put, and most emphatically, they are NOT MAKING MONEY ON THOSE PARTS!

They are actually losing money by selling them. You are literally trying to buy parts they are losing money to stock and sell.

In many cases, the contract with the vendor that allows them to sell the parts that actually make money requires that they also stock and sell the loss-leaders.

They occupy valuable shelf/rack space, and waste valuable sales time (this is also a good time to remind people that retail markups are tiny, and that the only way that these stores can remain in business is to sell in, get this, VOLUME). Volume sales require the fastest sales possible, and of products that are not loss leaders.

Why do you think you are immediately told that something is not sold there, in the case that it is known that it will take more time to discern what you want?

You are asking for someone to be better educated (who is making dirt for pay) so that they can more competently sell you something that does not make their employer (who would need to pay to educate said employee) money, so that they could lose money more efficiently selling those parts.

That is what is known as a lose-lose situation. Business that engage in that behavior fail.

These are hard-facts that apply to almost every single retail sales operation.

We have, for decades, called this "The 13th Customer Principle." What this means is that you will not be able to please every 13th customer, on average. That being the case, your job is to get them out of the store as quickly as possible, without incident.

If you insist on being the 13th customer, expect that this will be the case.

Do your research, find your part number, have that establishment's page open on your smartphone when you arrive. Place your phone on the counter, and say one (or two, or ten) if these please. Check what they brought to the counter, pay, leave, and be happy that they had something (that they probably lost money on) to sell you.

 

Let me put this in more stark terms, and more bluntly:

For many of the items that folks like us would buy, these stores would actually save money by chucking them in the dumpster, and writing them down as shrink (the industry term for stock that disappeared, without being sold), rather than selling them.

 

If all you say is true, and the auto parts stores don't need me as a customer, tell me why there are 13 chain auto parts stores and 1 independent in the town I live in. There are 3 each of Advance, AutoZone, and O'Reillys, one Autoplus and a totally independent store in a town with a population of 47,000. The first 12 are fighting each other for every nickel they can get trying to kill off the others, the Autoplus gets by on its paint sales and the independent is far enough out of the main part of town that it gets a lot of rural sales. The independent usually gets my business but the day I went into O'Reillys, it was because they were handy to where I was.

 

Looking up your own part number is doing “their job”?????
The goal is to get a part. It’s faster to look up your own numbers than it is to play charades with a parts guy.
It streamlines the process.
“Their job” is to sell me a part. “My job” is to be an informed customer. If I ease the process we both get to a good ending (me giving them $$$, them handing me a part) with less hassle.
as far as “I’ll just order it from home” if that is the case and all parts stores suck, why even try the parts store.
Price difference? With a commercial account I usually meet or beat an online price.
Warranty issues are handled much better locally than online.

if every parts person is ignorant, there is a common denominator in that equation.
The customer.

 

Because the vast majority of their sales are to shops not guys walking in off the street and of those guys walking in off the street 99% of them are fixing a vehicle that is less than 15 years old. Most of their sales go out the back door into a delivery vehicle and to a shop. As stated you might not like it but you, and any of us fixing old cars, are the worst customers they can get.

 

It is apropos here to simply quote myself:

"I keep having to bring this up, but it bears repeating: the average car or light truck on US roads today is right around 12-years-old. That is, brace yourself, a 2011 model.

The HAMB era ended when 1966 arrived. There were 45-years between then and the average car on the road today.

The high-side statistical outlier customer for an auto parts store will be someone looking for a part for a brand new car.

The low-side statistical outlier customer for an auto parts store will be someone looking for a part for a 1999-model."

TL;DR: You are not the customer base of these parts stores. None of us are, when we are buying parts for anything not between those two statistical outliers.

 

It saddens me that many people both don't get this, and take offense at it.

Businesses exist to make profit. That is literally what they are for.

I have yet to see a non-profit independent auto parts collective, operating in the public interest.

We ARE the worst customers that they can get.

If we do not do the leg-work of figuring out exactly what parts we need, and how to get that conveyed to the counterperson, we can only expect a bad time. We will have brought it on ourselves.

If we keep this nonsense up, we will only see what little we can get at these stores dropped from stock.

 

I have to think this is true. My projects date between 1928 and 1953, and some of parts that I’ve rolled into the parts store asking about are probably absurd to the port guys behind the counter. That said, I must be pretty lucky. In my small town we have four auto parts stores and a tractor supply all within a stones throw. Yes, I have shirts older than most of the folks behind the counter, but they have always bent over backwards to help. I do miss Triangle Auto from when I was a kid, but it’s also nice to have next day delivery to my home.

 

There are far too many people on this board that think that they should be able to waltz into any auto parts store and get a rebuild kit for a 1927 Willys-Overland Whippet sleeve-valve engine, pay, and walk out.

I had to order brake rotors for a 2006 VW Jetta, and I live in a city of 875,000 people. Granted, that only took to the next day, but no store in the city stocked them.

 

One more thing. Saying you need a 6an to inverted flare is the equivalent of saying I need a thing-a-ma-bob that connects to the doohickey.
I needed a 1 inch bore master cylinder with right side ports. Now what is a parts person supposed to do?
So I translated that into a language they understand. I told em Im needing a 10-1292 master cylinder.
No crap about manual or auto trans, no asking about a vin. Just a simple super fast positive resulting business transaction.

the only sad part is it didn’t give me a reason to rant.

 

Auto part stores are a dying breed. 20 years from now there will be very few left. Why? Electric cars only need brakes and tires, everything else is only serviced by the dealers. Hard to make a living selling wax and polishing cloths.

 

Nope. Not only is that not relevant to this board, it is also not at all true.

Every single part on an EV, except the motor, gearbox and HV system is identical to any other car.

They are CAN/LIN/Automotive Ethernet connected, and I am already servicing them.

 

Jeep CJ, popular retrofit for IH Scout 80/800.

 

Legitimate question…if it was a circa 1948 Chrysler product.