What is some of your Pet Peeve's

[WinterDeere]

What you probably mean is , you don’t trust yourself, to pick the most reliable brand. That’s not their fault

You're being a bit hard on Escaped, Dark. If you read the post to which he was responding, it was obvious he was saying you can't trust Rock Auto to weed out and not sell bad product for you. You seem to agree with what he's saying, in that regard.

Leaving a customer to choose between four different starter motors of questionable quality, when you have no experience in buying starter motors from those four brands for that given vehicle -- a once in a lifetime purchase for most -- isn't very useful to any customer. Much better if the retailer uses their much larger experience to just weed out the brands with the highest defect rate, for the consumer.

 

[Eagle1]

You're being a bit hard on Escaped, Dark. If you read the post to which he was responding, it was obvious he was saying you can't trust Rock Auto to weed out and not sell bad product for you. You seem to agree with what he's saying, in that regard.

NAPA, AutoZone, etc weed out bad product?
The dealer never sells bad parts?
Much of the OEM parts stock comes from the lowest bidder, just like military grade (means barely acceptable)....
I have had cheap after market be crap or out perform OEM. It is always a gamble either way. Don't like gambling -- never fix or pay to fix anything, just buy new and pray your warranty is good.

Me I'll keep on fixing my old stuff I understand as long as possible. My kids are going newer and now are on their own, I ain't trying with new stuff and they are learning what Labor rates are and how much technicians make while trying to learn (or fake it) how to do their job....

 

[DarkBlack]

You're being a bit hard on Escaped, Dark. If you read the post to which he was responding, it was obvious he was saying you can't trust Rock Auto to weed out and not sell bad product for you. You seem to agree with what he's saying, in that regard.

Leaving a customer to choose between four different starter motors of questionable quality, when you have no experience in buying starter motors from those four brands for that given vehicle -- a once in a lifetime purchase for most -- isn't very useful to any customer. Much better if the retailer uses their much larger experience to just weed out the brands with the highest defect rate, for the consumer.

You just twisted Rock Auto’s business model into what it isn’t to support your argument here.
They provide online access to thousands of manufacturers of auto parts. That’s their business, and they’re really good at it and can be trusted to ship the parts you choose.
If you don’t trust yourself to know and pick a reliable part to buy, then don’t use Rock Auto.

Here’s alternator choices for my truck:

Every brand under the sun, including OEM , reliability delivered to my door at a fair price
My experience is you can definitely trust Rock Auto

 

[WinterDeere]

NAPA, AutoZone, etc weed out bad product?

I don't know about each of those national chains, the statement I had made which started this tangent was referring to local privately-owned parts stores, like the one where I bought all my parts until the late-1990's.

The dealer never sells bad parts?

An occasional bad part? Of course. But I think you know that the occasional defective item is not what I was talking about, when I brought up the low quality and high fail rate of some of the aftermarket parts.

Much of the OEM parts stock comes from the lowest bidder, just like military grade (means barely acceptable)....

Lowest bidder who can meet all of their quality standards and design requirements. What's missing from aftermarket is access to and ensurance of meeting those standards.

I have had cheap after market be crap or out perform OEM.

Same.

It is always a gamble either way.

That was sort of the original point. But the odds seem to be much lower when buying aftermarket from both Amazon and big national retailers (Auto Zone, Advance Auto, Pep Boys) versus local privately-owned parts stores whose reputation and costs were perhaps affected more badly by selling inferior products.

Me I'll keep on fixing my old stuff I understand as long as possible.

Mixed bag. I love antique cars, antique tractors... heck, I race an antique sail boat! Some people are only comfortable repairing old tech, although I find the new stuff often easier to repair, if you have a decent OBD2 scanner (under $100). But the one thing that's easily provable, despite how you feel about repairing new vs. old, is that the old tech does require more frequent repairs.

 

[DarkBlack]

NAPA, AutoZone, etc weed out bad product?
The dealer never sells bad parts?

For sure
Some of the lowest quality parts Ive ever purchased were Duralast brand, which seems like the house brand at Autozone. Durajunk. Lesson learned

 

[Eagle1]

I don't know about each of those national chains, the statement I had made which started this tangent was referring to local privately-owned parts stores, like the one where I bought all my parts until the late-1990's.


An occasional bad part? Of course. But I think you know that the occasional defective item is not what I was talking about, when I brought up the low quality and high fail rate of some of the aftermarket parts.


Lowest bidder who can meet all of their quality standards and design requirements. What's missing from aftermarket is access to and ensurance of meeting those standards.


Same.


That was sort of the original point. But the odds seem to be much lower when buying aftermarket from both Amazon and big national retailers (Auto Zone, Advance Auto, Pep Boys) versus local privately-owned parts stores whose reputation and costs were perhaps affected more badly by selling inferior products.


Mixed bag. I love antique cars, antique tractors... heck, I race an antique sail boat! Some people are only comfortable repairing old tech, although I find the new stuff often easier to repair, if you have a decent OBD2 scanner (under $100). But the one thing that's easily provable, despite how you feel about repairing new vs. old, is that the old tech does require more frequent repairs.

Not quite antique and I do have a high end scanner, at least on MOPAR I can do everything the old Star Scan could do and more.

 

[Eagle1]

That was sort of the original point. But the odds seem to be much lower when buying aftermarket from both Amazon and big national retailers (Auto Zone, Advance Auto, Pep Boys) versus local privately-owned parts stores whose reputation and costs were perhaps affected more badly by selling inferior products.

That is much of the Rock Auto inventory, the local stores that go out of business,....

 

[Oaktree]

People who bury a 100 feet of coiled barbed wire, rope, cables and trash etc where someone might want to, one day, dig a hole or two.

Welcome to rural New England! Before there was such a thing as a town dump, people just dumped their trash in a gully behind the house, after a while it got covered up and forgotten. At least until years later when someone wants to dig a hole there and hits 100 years' worth of rusty mattress springs, old shoes, bottles, etc.
When we first bought this place I was putting in a clothesline, every shovel full was mostly old trash.

 

[jjeff]

Found napa gold filters to be pretty decent however I'm not doing fluid samples to check effectiveness or anything like that. Just bought two cheap aftermarket atv starters on Amazon they solved my starting issues with my 2 2016 700 Kodiaks. They were as heavy as the oem ones I took off and came with orings on the starter shaft just like the oem ones at 1/4 the price also. Will they reliably last idk time will tell i guess.

 

[Oaktree]

I’ve had nothing but great experiences with Rock Auto.
They give you anywhere from a couple brand choices up to twenty or so choices on a given part, including OEM on many. What you probably mean is , you don’t trust yourself, to pick the most reliable brand. That’s not their fault

I don't think I've ever gotten junk parts from them either, my only beef is that once you factor in shipping you don't really save much money going with them.
House brand parts are always a gamble. Counterfeit name brand ones (or even legit name brand ones where manufacturing has been offshored to the lowest bidder) is a bigger problem. Pretty hard to stay on top of that given the volume RA moves every day.