Mine is crimped, but I never realized there was a different kind or that it even made a difference

And the bolt pattern was wrong, but the person who installed it decided to give the firewall a new bolt pattern...

 

Thats exactly what Im trying to stay away from.. and the whole, "well the box was labled correctly but the part was wrong, so who's to say its not a booster from a cheby.." I know it looked correct but it wasnt what I ordered..

My first experience with Autozone was when I was 15 and changed a waterpump in my stepdads truck because he was working offshore. I put it in, let the gaskets sit for a while to cure and filled it up with coolant, then came back from putting away the hose to find a steady stream of water coming from under the truck.. The front of the pump had a pen sized hole and was leaking like a siv.. (i dont know what a siv is. lol) So I brought it back for another new(rebuilt) part.. Thats why they guarantee them..

 

leaking like a "sieve"....

Anyways....

My wife used to be the manager of the largest Autozone store in her 15 store district.

For a girl, she sure knows a lot about a cars. It's scary that she'll actually ask me pointed questions while I'm working on the different cars. Just this week I got this.... "did you disconnect your SPOUT connector before setting your base timing?" or "the contacts on the distributor and rotor look worn, why don't you just change them with new parts?".

It freakin' scares me sometimes....

Anyway (again), you're going to get different levels of service from your local Autozone store. Some are great and have a broad spectrum of automotive experience standing behind the counter. Some are not so great and have a bunch of parts "salesman" standing around. Autozone stores are "Do-It-Yourself" stores. Part of doing it yourself means you need to know what you want. Don't depend on them to figure out what you need or you'll be screwed 50% of the time.

Good Luck!
Dave

 

Try NAPA!

 

I've had similar experiences with all of the auto parts stores near me, including NAPA, Carquest, etc.. All of them near me have Bozo's working that wouldn't know a kanuter valve if they saw one The best thing is to arm yourself like Dave said and know what you should be getting before you go to any of them. If at all possible I like to have the old part with me so I can compare them directly.

I get a lot of stuff at Autozone for a few reasons.

First, they are usually open when the other guys aren't. The one near me is open until 9pm during the week whereas NAPA and others close before I even get home from work. Autozone also has longer weekend hours too and are open on Sunday.

Second, their prices are usually lower. Granted, you have to be aware of the quality issues, but I generally find that the quality vs price difference is such that Autozone wins out. For example, lifetime warranty pads and rotors for my truck were going to cost me about $200 more at NAPA. I don't know about you guys, but $200 is a pretty big difference. On top of that, NAPA didn't have them in stock and Autozone did. They've been on there now for about 10,000 miles with no problems.

Third, Autozone has their rewards program where you earn points everytime you have a purchase over $20. Five points and you get $20 in credit toward purchases.

Fourth, I,ve never had a problem with returns at Autozone. Several years ago Carquest refused to exchange a MAP sensor because I had opened the package. Never mind that it wasn't the right one and didn't even have the right connector and was only a few hours later. (Remember what I said about having the old part to compare? This is why.) BTW, that Carquest went out of business.

I've got nothing against any of the stores and some are better than others as far as knowledgable workers, but none are immune to these kinds of problems. You will have to determine which store near you has more knowledgeable workers yourself because you can't make blanket statements when every store is different. Know what you want, take the old part with you, and check the new part before you leave the store. This is how I do it now and if you do this it doesn't really matter which store you use.

 

yea, I can agree with that. It was my fault not checking the box before I left the store.. twice.

 

Haha, when I was doing the brakes on my car (before I worked at O'Reillys) I went to autozone to get the rear drums and they had to order them, and made up pay for them up front. When they got there, we went to pick them up and they were 4 Lug!!! 71-73s didn't come four lug, not matter what. The manager tried to tell us that we had to re drill them to work. I laughed at him. Not to mention they were about an inch too small in diameter. That same manager also sold us the wrong idler arm. We even took the old one in, and it was completely different (I have run into this same problemmany timeson 2 different cars. I found out on the secondcar that one off of a 67 fits perfectly). The bolt holes were not in the correct location and it was at the wrong angle. They made us pay for it too before they ordered it, and themanagerinsisted that it would fit no problem, even though the old one was right beside it and was clearly different.He wouldn't give us our money back until we went and tried it out. We had no choice to but to go home, and the next day we took it back and chewed him out for wasting our time. Needless to say, ever since that I have only been in that storeone time, and that was 4 years ago (actually haven't been to any Autozone other than that one time over the 4 years). I avoid the "Zone" at all costs. It has a bad habit of causing my blood pressure to rise.

 

Oh yeah, Tyler just reminded me. I always use a credit card. If its the wrong part, a call to the credit card company to dispute the charge is all it takes. Sounds like that manager was a jerk. Like I said, they are all different and none are immune to this kind of stuff.

 

just went to Autobone and picked up a radiator hoe for a 97 cirrus, they had it!... the cirrus is not mine!!!

Sorry being facetious! I don't know how a part store can get things wrong on multiple tries, there only job is to order the right parts and generally the computer does it for them... Come to think of it this may be the issue, you have a bunch of kids working at part stores, who are drive modern mustangs (just poking fun at newer mustang guys again), and don't know much if anything about cars....

 

my experience with autozone has fluxtuated depening on my location. In sacramento, they and Kragen are staffed by gearheads that can help with anything. Here in Santa Barbara, they dont know ANYTHING! I once had to show them how to bench test my starter. Ended up doing it myself because they couldnt even follow my directions! A mechanic who was waiting in line and I started helping out other people because we felt so bad for the customers. Rediculous