Where is the closest auto parts store
Never Go to This Auto Parts Store
rev up your engines, today I'm gonna talk about autozone versus O'Reilly where
should you buy auto parts, everybody wants to save money buying auto parts
but they don't want to get something doesn't work or junk that falls apart
fast, now autozone started in the 1970s they originally called Auto Shack but
they were sued by RadioShack, well they're not even around
anymore so they changed the name to autozone, it's got a better ring to it
anyway, and they currently have over 6,000 stores, now O'Reilly was founded by
the O'Reilly family in 1957 and they now have about 5200 stores in 47 states of
the United States, now more so than autozone the O'Reilly company
assimilates other stores for example the Charlie's high/lo that was started in
Houston, their hundred and eighty something stores were bought by O'Reilly
and merged into the O'Reilly chain, where a lot of autozone stores they're just
stores that the company built and they built up a big infrastructure themselves
well since they're in direct competition there are very similar infrastructures
and they have very similar warranties, for example if you buy a gold
top-of-the-line Duralast better it comes with a three-year replacement free, same
thing at O'Reilly, but I do have to give autozone the edge in batteries because
they're always selling their own brand Duralast, of course they don't make them
there's only like three manufacturers of batteries left in the United States of
any size, but for my personal experience of buying batteries I mainly buy all my
customers batteries now at an autozone because I tried Oreilly's in the past and
since they were lower than everybody else including the autozone one, I bought
quite a few of them years ago but most of them bit me in the rear end almost
every single one I bought came back within a year or year and a half and these
are three year warranty batteries, now they were good on warranties they gave
me new free batteries but what an inconvenience for the customer they get
stranded somewhere with a bad battery when they only bought one about a year year
and a half before, and take both O'Reilly and autozone they have lifetime
warranties on quite a few things, but again if the quality isn't good you're
gonna be annoyed by a life warrantee on some things, for example few
years back I had a customer with a Nissan Maxima the alternator went bad so
I went to Oreilly and I bought an alternator, now it did have the lifetime
warranty but in the next six months that car went through five of their rebuilt
alternators, I had to keep swapping it out and
I'm an honest guy I swapped them out to free for the customer I didn't charge him
anything, but after the fifth one went bad, obviously they had a batch of bad
alternators wherever they were buying from, personally I've never had that same
experience with an autozone, every once in a while I get one that doesn't work
out of the box, but I never had one that I had to replace five times and then
finally give up, now both O'Reilly and autozones have to loaning services, they
check your batteries free things like that, it's just if one does it the
other is going to do it, because they're competing against each other, and they
both have rewards programs where for every dollar you spend, you get a certain
percentage credit on a little card and it builds up and you can spend it, so
there's really no difference between the two of them there, they call it rewards
program, basically they want you to keep coming back to that store thinking, oh
I'm saving money so I'll keep going to that store and build it up, but here's
what I'm gonna warn you about any discount auto parts store just because
it's a discount auto parts store, don't assume you're gonna get the best price
there of something you're buying, oil their brands are in bottles wherever
you buy it it doesn't matter, the same brand the same bottle you're getting the
same oil, so always check prices because I've seen these discount auto parts
store and for a quart of oil they might want six dollars and forty cents, I get
the same thing for three dollars in 10 cents at the Walmart down the street,
I now buy a lot of stuff online I got Amazon Prime shipping cost me nothing
and I find the best prices that I can and buy it there, and even there every
time I'm getting my supply I checked through to see who's got the best price,
those things are always changing, I had to put a starter on a 350 v8 Chevy
pickup truck it was bad and back in those days I did mobile mechanics, I went
out so the nearest place
was an O'Reilly store, so I take the starter off bring in and say give me a
new starter, they gave me a rebuilt starter I put it on it didn't work so I
went back to the store and said you sold me a bum starter so they got out
the jumper cables, and hooked it up to the starter on the table and it went
whoo and it was spinning they said, oh no look this thing works well that was the
counter man, I said look it's a bad start I said give me your manager, so the
manager comes out does the same test and says well look it works and I said I've
been a mechanic for a long time now it was only 30 years back then, not 51 but
still 30 years of experience is still a reasonable amount, use your noggin okay
you hooked up a battery to the starter sitting on a table here and it spins, so
it spins in the air there's no resistance it's just spinning in the air
well after about 20 minutes of arguing back and forth he finally gives me
another starter it worked, and the customer paid me I went away, but let me
tell you that's the last time I ever went to that particular store, and
experience can differ in different areas, I've met people that absolutely hate
Auto zones because they had a bad experience with people working there, it
can cut both ways, just in my own personal experience I had the worst ones
at O'Reilly Auto Parts stores, when I was young the auto parts stores were often
manned by ex mechanics that maybe they had their arm broken or they were
couldn't do it anymore they were just worn out, but they knew a lot about cars
and cars were simpler then, and they could give some great advice and stuff
on cars, but today let's face it with the lower wages that a lot of the people are
paid you're not gonna get ex mechanics working now I mean that just doesn't
happen anymore, so basically you want a store that's friendly and that has a
liberal or return policy if you got something didn't work you don't want it
find a place that will take it back and give you your money back, here's a story
that shows you how far sometimes they will go, I was at the Auto Zone down the
street years ago and a guy was coming in to return these car ramps where you drive
your car up on the ramp to change oil and stuff, well the manager refused to
give the guy any money because he did not have a receipt for that ramp guys
other stores the other managers were telling these guys are pulling a scam
there was some big store that has having a sale on these ramps for like 59.99 an
autozone sold them for $99 so it was obvious that some guys were going and
buying them at the cheap place and then trying to return them to Autozone
without a receipt and pocket the cash differential, well the manager was wise
for that and he didn't want to give their money back, but the customer was
insistent made him call the regional manager for autozone, and that guy said
give him his money, he gave the guy money for those ramps that probably they
didn't even buy them at an autozone store, bought them somewhere else, but the regional
manager wanted to make people happy so they do have a rather good return
policy at autozone in my experience, now one thing a lot of people wonder as well
where you gonna find quality parts, truthfully if you look at the majority
of parts these days sold in the United States they either come from China or
Mexico that's just the way that the economy has gone, you're gonna find this
is true at autozone and O'Reilly it really don't make all that much
difference there's little differences here and there, maybe once in a while
one has some American supplied thing and the other will have a Chinese
supply thing, but all in all they're pretty much selling the same type of
stuff other than the price that you're gonna pay, so of course always comparison
shop, I mean a lot of them of a price match if you say, hey look you're in an
autozone O'Reilly sells the same exact thing cheaper don't meet the price most
of the time, and vice versa as long as it's the same exact part, so really what
it comes down to is how are you treated at these stores, so now you know the truth
about autozone versus O'Reilly, so you can make a wise choice next time you're
buying car parts, so if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair
videos, remember to ring that Bell
