I do most my shopping online anymore. Rock Auto for most things, NAPA online for others and there's always eBay. Order and pay, they ship it to me in a day or two. Still have a local independent parts store owned by three brothers, but it's hit or miss with them anymore, their suppliers are no better than anybody else's. Not in the position to HAVE to have something that day or the next anymore, so that helps. We have enough vehicles if one goes down, we still have something else to drive, and if two go down at the same time, we have my pa in law's car we can use since he doesn't drive anymore.
I started screwing around with a Model A in 1955. Mac's Auto Parts in El Sereno, CA had almost everything I needed, including a machine shop that poured the babbit in my banger motor. 52 years before that Henry hadn't started making any cars yet so Mac's didn't carry any parts for those 40 and 50 year old cars. I don't remember any Model T's running around on a regular basis as daily drivers so I doubt they had much in the way of parts for even 30 year old cars. A 30 year old car now is a 1992 and there are probably more parts available for a 92 Ford now than there were for a 25 Model T in 1955. We used to bitch about the dumb ass parts guys way back then so we went to see Gene at Ford Parts Obsolete. Einstein talked about relativity and it applies to parts availability as well as the cosmos. I am lucky that the local NAPA in Cortez, CO is a third generation owner and its not a company store. They still have the old parts books on the counter and have a few guys that know how to use them. Us old guys started messing with cars when they were only 40 to 60 years past being invented. Now the HAMB cut off is close to 60 years old. Shit like this keeps some of us old bastards awake at night until we drink enough to mellow out.
Honestly, unless it's an emergency, I pretty much order all the shoebox parts online. Even my ot ride needs they rarely seem to have stocked, and they need a few days to get it shipped in from another store. I must drive odd cars? I dunno. The only thing I own that they always have what I need is my ot pickup...
I also buy 99.99999% of my parts online. Almost anything I got at Napa for the Ford has been junk in a short time. Other stores, the counter help is useless. I ask some if this is their 1st day on the job. For some reason, they are not pleased. eBay has been great. I have some saved sellers and a couple are close to me, I can go pick parts up and no dealing with fools. Summit and Speedway have been good too, when they actually had parts in stock.
I went to Autozone late this summer to get points and condensor for a SBC distributor and was told they were "special order item" and they could bring have them in 48 hours! Went to an O'Reilly's store and they had them in Blue Sreak, but at $46 for points and condensor! I asked why so high priced, and he said they were "hi performance"!
Chrome polish. I went to 6 different stores before ordering Turtle Wax Chrome polish on Amazon. Several stores tried to sell me Mother's aluminum polish. Nope.
That is why I spent about 2 hours pulling a dash out of a 65 Mercury Montclair yesterday to have all the stitches and gauges in case one would go bad in mine,can not get those parts at a parts store or dealers parts department any more.
My Autozone is great. I get all kinds of old parts from em. But I don’t go to the front counter. I have a commercial account The key is making connections, looking up your own part numbers and a positive attitude. For instance just today, I looked up a U-joint for my sons 51 Willy’s on the Autozone website. Not available. I enter a common part number for the part and it comes up. I will have the part number I need when I show up. On their commercial side (most other parts stores commercial side are similar) they have more options. If its unavailable through their system, the commercial parts person can look up that number from sources outside their system. For our school, they can even purchase parts from Amazon and e-bay. Autozone will take our schools PO where most other vendors will not. My parts person tell me the have quotas from corporate and using outside vendors is part of that. Parts quality? I used AZ parts on two major brake and suspension rebuilds for personal rides. Shoes, pads, bearings, seals, wheel cyl, hoses, ball joints, bushings……put around 50k mikes beyeeen both with ZERO issues. However I don’t expect to see 6 volt stuff in stock. They have to order a good bit of the stuff I buy but I’ve been surprised at how much was at their main hub and get most within 1-2 days.
"The chicken or the egg?" So, what do you think happened first. Did our local parts places start cutting down on the stock they carried as a result of so many customers being lured away to online shopping? Or did people turn to the internet because the parts stores inexplicably decided to not carry what we needed? The former, me thinks....... It is a bit rough to blame our local bricks-and-mortar businesses after so many of us turned our back on them for the promise of a better price and being able to shop while wearing your pyjamas........
Yeah, some of you sound like the guy who threw a fit at the dealership where I work because we told him that we can't order new trim pieces for his 1968 C10 pickup.
No Holley 4 barrel gaskets at 3 stores today . No Orings for the fuel transfer tube between the bowls on a 600 . 2 places had no standard 5/16" fuel line in stock. Supply chain issues im told . Guy said he could have them Tuesday. I said yep I have a computer and can to . I know that carbs are not as common today there has to be a few million Holley 4 barrels running on the highway right now . I went online and ordered 6 sets of later . I have a bumper to bumper warehouse near herel that has a store front so I go there a lot. One gal there is pretty sharp .
Our local "chain store" auto parts stores don't stock points and condensers anymore and like this started out no 6V bulbs either. Found 6V bulbs at tractor supply by the way. Our NAPA store used to be pretty good, there was a counter guy went by Woody and he would always go the extra mile to find an old part for ya. Yes I paid more than on line but usually left happy. Woody retired, service got less and no interest in looking up old car stuff for the most part THEN they changed owners and purged all the old stock that didn't move fast enough. Couldn't even get 12 inch wiper blades for my 55. Now when I go to most auto parts stores all I ever get is pissed off! Order almost everything on line now and have it sent to my house if they offer free shipping or ship to the parts store for free local pickup. On another note, my wife's just off topic (66) Mustang got a set of new wheel cylinders from one of those fancy catalog specialty stores. Got the parts, fit fine, went to bleed the brakes and the bleeder screws are metric, 10mm ! Only damn metric bolts on the whole car!
In northern Ohio, the O 'Reilly stores have carb parts, kits, from Holley and Edelbrock on the shelf , not sure how long that will last, but Summit always has carb parts. Both companies owned by large venture capital holding outfits that sometime down the road may go "green" and dump carb stuff, but who knows, more likely is higher cost and supply problems, get it now while the getting is good.
The Jalopy Journal
