'89 Fifth Ave

The great thing about these hammerhead counter staff is the endless fun you can have with them, because they know nothing about cars... Ask 'em for a heater core for a '64 VW Beetle, anything at all for an '83 Corvette, or piston return springs for the application of your choice and you'll stump 'em nearly every time.

I had one of the poor bastards at an Advance store trying desperately to find a thermostat for a '95 Porsche 911. He called other stores. He called corporate. He called their thermostat manufacturer. Not one person to whom he spoke knew that 911s were air-cooled (or they knew the joke and wouldn't tell him). I called for something else like six hours later and he got on the phone, absolutely exasperated. I thought he had to have figured it out by then, but no. Man, was he irate when I let him in on it.
 
lol..Dad went in the Autozone the other day and asked for rear disc brake pads for a 70 (?) Olds 442. He knows his Oldsmobiles extremely well. The computer said it didn't have rear discs, when I guess, In fact it did. Had to laugh at that.
 
Ask 'em for an ABS control module for a '71 Imperial. Yes, they exist.
 
My favorite thing to do is try to order 4wd parts for my D150. After explaining the D/W difference, I figure...eh, why not.
 
NoCar340 said:
"It runs great but when you throttle it in gear, it falls on its face." I told him it wasn't the TPS, it was the fuel pump.
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I wasn't arguing, that doesn't sound like TPS, but I lack the experience to tell someone their fuel pump is bad without hooking it up to a scope, and even then, I'd still have to compare it to a known good one.
 
NoCar340 said:
The great thing about these hammerhead counter staff is the endless fun you can have with them, because they know nothing about cars... Ask 'em for a heater core for a '64 VW Beetle, anything at all for an '83 Corvette, or piston return springs for the application of your choice and you'll stump 'em nearly every time.

I had one of the poor bastards at an Advance store trying desperately to find a thermostat for a '95 Porsche 911. He called other stores. He called corporate. He called their thermostat manufacturer. Not one person to whom he spoke knew that 911s were air-cooled (or they knew the joke and wouldn't tell him). I called for something else like six hours later and he got on the phone, absolutely exasperated. I thought he had to have figured it out by then, but no. Man, was he irate when I let him in on it.
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Piston return springs LOL I'll have to remember that one!
 
If I have to call them, I just give them a part number. If I'm in the store, it's more like, "Get out of my way, Burger King."
 
NoCar340 said:
If I have to call them, I just give them a part number. If I'm in the store, it's more like, "Get out of my way, Burger King."
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you know coorporate's probaby some bean counter ith a marketing degree, the person he taked to at the manufacturer was just some button pusher, they probably didn't have a clue!
 
Before the new punk manager came in to our AutoZone..they'd let me just grab a computer and look up what I needed to if they were busy.

Now, I just stand there and demand to talk to certain people, or I go somewhere else.
 
brotherGood said:
Before the new punk manager came in to our AutoZone..they'd let me just grab a computer and look up what I needed to if they were busy.

Now, I just stand there and demand to talk to certain people, or I go somewhere else.
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I'll ask them like 2 or 3 simple questions, and they'll go "uhhh let me go get someone else" there are a hndful of them around that have good service, but they either never have the parts I need, or they're a half hour drive through town away
 
NoCar340 said:
The parts counterman is a dying breed. I'm one of the last that started out on honest-to-God paper catalogs, back when a DOS-based invoicing system (which did nothing for lookup or inventory control) and dot-matrix printer seemed like NASA technology to the customer. Internet? Microsoft Windows? That was all gee-whiz "someday tech" back then; I cut my teeth writing invoices on those carbon-dupe machines that required the jab of a pen to advance the invoice.

In the last store I ran, I had "catalog day" for the trainees, when they weren't allowed to use the computer cataloguing and had to go to "the books." They dreaded it, but became damned-good counter staff. Training at Advance, AutoZone, O'Reilly's et al consists of the supervisor overlooking the transaction and zapping the trainee with an electric cattle prod every time they finish with, "Do you want fries with that?" :eusa_doh:
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Right now I have an Inventory Control system by, *drumm roll* IBM. Not Lenova, not Microsoft, IB effing M original copyright 1978. lol if you had a catalog written in pencil that could be updated from the upstairs office, that would be it in a nutshell
 
NoCar340 said:
Not a bad price on it, if the shipping isn't exorbitant. If your carb number is listed, cool, but expect to spend a lot of time matching things up to what came out of yours.
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back to topic, RockyRoadShow on youtube has some pretty good series on the thermoquad, I've watched the first two, out of 9 or 10.
 
Couldn't resist, I found a Street Fire ignition new in the box for $113 and change, with free shipping. Worst case I decide to go with something different, I re-list it and make my money back.
 
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