WeedFreak78
Well-Known Member
I'm gonna rant a little.Hey, I was a parts guy in another life, (can you say paper catalogs and the newest tech, wait for it....microfiche?)
It's just crazy how much stuff has changed in 20 years. Back then, we had independent parts stores, 4 within 15min of me, with inventory and at least one guy that knew cars. He usually owned a hot rod, classic, custom, or two, and it was always parked out front if it was a nice day. They knew how to cross reference part numbers and many times knew of other parts that could work in a pinch. I could get almost any maintenance type part I needed that day, even for cars that were 30 years old. There was always a couple gear heads sitting around shooting the shit, because you could get real performance parts there. If the guy behind the counter didn't know about something, one of those guys did. Then auto zone, pepboys and Advanced auto slowly took over and fired anyone that knew anything. Now they put some kid that's still wet behind the ears on the register, don't stock any fucking parts and if it's for anything older than 10 years, they have no fucking clue. Unless your buying oil, spark plugs or an air filter there's a 2-5 day wait so they can get it shipped in. I needed valve cover gaskets for a 302/351 ford and they didn't stock them. I realize they haven't been produced in 20 years, but they were produce for close to three decades and there are still millions of them on the roads in daily use, maybe keep some basic parts on the shelf? . If you drive an older vehicle you better keep up on maintenance and hope it never just breaks down cause getting it fixed the same day almost never happens nowadays. Shit, it's getting hard finding in stock parts for my 2006. So fucking frustrating.
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